THE ROADMAP FOR YOUR FUTURE: Career Insight from LMA's Rising Stars.

• Author: Mantick, Kelly

Past LMA Rising Stars teamed up to provide a power-packed, pre-LMA 2015 Annual Conference panel discussion about skyrocketing your career. Moderated by Ian Turvill, chief marketing officer at Freeborn & Peters LLP, this panel discussion delivered top tips from the experts, and we have put together some of their insights from the presentation to guide you along the way to advancing your legal marketing career.

Elizabeth Boehm

Senior Marketing and Business Development Manager

Benesch Friedlander Coplan & Aronoff LLP

To be a successful legal marketer, you need to develop the following key attributes:

* Eagerness to learn is essential. As we know, the legal industry is always evolving and changing, as is the field of marketing. It's important to be able to adapt, learn about new trends and be willing to work on new initiatives.

* A positive attitude is key. This industry can be stressful. We are working with extremely smart, talented, intensely hardworking attorneys. If you feel stressed or overwhelmed, find a way to release that stress outside of the workplace. When you're at the office, smile, be helpful, have a cando attitude and be that go-to person the attorneys enjoy working with. This business is about relationships, and just as we coach our attorneys to be client-service focused, we should have the same mindset when we are working with them, because they are our own clients.

* Be a contributor and share your perspective. Your opinions matter. You are a marketing expert, and the attorneys at your firm and your colleagues in your department will be respectful of your ideas, regardless of your career level or years of experience.

From my experience, certain factors have been key in my professional growth at my firm, and many of them involve education and finding the right resources. Access to resources is important. Not just financial resources, but support from supervisors or firm management for professional development, organizational involvement and skills-building opportunities. Whether you are getting involved in LMA, signing up for writing or coaching workshops or attending networking functions, having support from firm management to participate in these growth opportunities will be essential to your development.

I've also taken on a mentality of, "Help us help you." In order for legal marketers to do the best work we can for our firms, it is vital to be in an environment that helps us be better at our jobs. If you are looking at...