Reflecting on the year behind us.

• Author: Sutor, Alycia
• Position: President's Podium

This feeling happens every year at this time--the sense that the past 12 months have flown by. As we start thinking ahead to 2013, it's always great to reflect on what happened this year. While there is no doubt that the profession of law is slowly but steadily marching into more sophisticated business terrain, the pace of change and evolution for those tasked with marketing and business development responsibilities is moving fast and furiously.

As a recent Deloitte Review article pointed out, the responsibilities and importance of the CMO in firms is on the rise, which is validated by LMA's own research with managing partners and other firm stakeholders. Marketers are being asked to take on a wider array of responsibilities, from recruiting to pricing and operations to anticipating and leveraging all levels of technology to drive increased client value. As such, LMA is in the process of more intense collaboration with peer associations such as INTA, ALA, NALP, PDC, AALL, LSSO and others to keep our members not just informed, but in the driver's seat, leading our firms in developing innovative business models and practices. I want to return to a theme that I've talked about frequently this year--our ability as legal marketers to raise the bar for the profession of law as a whole to help our firms not only do well, but to really lead transformative change for all those around us. Check out the...