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Business Development: The Newest Complement to Law Firm Marketing

By Julie Stauffer

Perhaps you’ve noticed a new face in the marketing department, or a title that just got a little longer. You may have even heard mutterings about “BD” or “biz dev” strategies. Meet business development, marketing’s brash young cousin. Here’s what you need to know about the newcomer to the legal scene.

Business development isn’t here to supplant traditional, broad-based marketing tools like brochures and logos. In fact, they’re flip sides of the same coin, according to Elizabeth Gill, director of marketing and business development at Davies Ward Phillips and Vineberg LLP in Toronto.

“Marketing is the environment which you create to help get your firm known,” she says. “It also helps you to develop the tools to do your business development.” Business development is more strategic, involving targeted one-on-one efforts to understand current and potential clients and build a strong relationship with them. That could involve organizing an on-site presentation about new privacy legislation, for example, or responding to a request for proposals.

Natural Evolution

More from CBA PracticeLink and National For more articles law firm marketing and business development, check out the CBA PracticeLink supplement produced in coordination with the March 2008 issue of National. cba.org/practicelink/marketing

Heather Gray-Grant, a veteran legal marketer, sees this as a natural evolution. “There’s only so much you can do from the inside,” explains the director of business development for the Vancouver office of Borden Ladner Gervais LLP. “At one point, you have to get outside and actually interact directly with the client.”

And in an increasingly competitive legal environment where major clients no longer working with just one or two law firms, courting their business — and keeping it — is becoming essential.
 
Already, consumer marketing strategies like placing ads in general newspapers or buying rights for suites at the Air Canada Centre are beginning to infiltrate the legal world. Some U.S. firms have even experimented with using independent salespeople, albeit with mixed success.

The ‘S’ Word

Does this smack dangerously of hard-core salesmanship? For lawyers who have only recently — and in some cases, reluctantly — embraced the mantra of marketing, Stuart Wood offers reassurance. “I don’t think this is really aggressive business-development-type work that anybody should be uncomfortable with,” says the director of marketing and business development at Torys LLP in Toronto.

“[Clients] know that law firms would like to do more work for them,” he says. What they’re looking for is proof that you can take problems off their plate. Gray-Grant agrees. “Increasingly, we need to become not merely lawyers, but business partners with our clients,” she says. To do that, lawyers need to think proactively and understand the broader business context.

The Future

Good old-fashioned legal expertise is still fundamental to the success of a firm. “The first and foremost way that lawyers build their business is by doing excellent work for the client,” says Gill. “That’s the best way to build loyalty, to be able to work with them again.”

However, it’s clear that in today’s legal world, marketing and business development have an important role to play.

For many firms, differentiating themselves from the pack means investing money and human resources. A 2006 survey conducted by ALM Research & The Brand Research Company found 50 per cent of U.S. law firms have at least one employee dedicated to business development and sales, and staffing and budgets in this area have grown slowly but steadily.

It also involves a more strategic approach to marketing. “I think you’ll see less and less focus on things like ads, guides to the top 100 lawyers, and that kind of stuff,” says Wood. “There’s been an industry shift away from paying large amounts of money to have your logo put on a screen and paying to have an article published somewhere.”

Gray-Grant foresees greater collaboration as business development and marketing staff work more closely with business units, major client teams, industry groups and practice groups.

And while this brave new world of promotion may be foreign territory for many lawyers, it’s important not to be afraid of it. “Your clients aren’t and your competitors aren’t,” Gray-Grant points out.
 

 

Neither the author nor the CBA should be construed as endorsing any product or website listed in this article. The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the CBA. In this document, any reference to "jurist" or "lawyer" includes, where appropriate, "Québec notary".