Gary Mitchell
Managing Director, GEM Communications

Gary Mitchell is the Managing Director and founder of GEM Communications where he leads an international team of coaches and consultants who work with lawyers and law firms helping them to prepare for and profit from transformation in the legal industry. Starting out as a business development coach to lawyers from first year call through to 30 year Q.C. veterans, Gary learned of various developmental needs and quickly set out to build a team of specialists to serve those needs. Today GEM serves lawyers and law firms with strategic planning, innovation, positioning, first to market and other marketing strategies as well as a suite of coaching and training programs aimed at the various talent development needs of law firms to ensure implementation of those strategies.

Gary arrived at legal marketing by way of his long and devoted involvement in Canadian politics. After several years of volunteering on various leadership; local and national campaigns, in 2004 he ran for Parliament in his home riding of Vancouver, Canada. Following this, he was a campaign manager for a lawyer running for Parliament. It was with this experience that the idea of serving lawyers and law firms was first presented to Gary. His political experience combined with years of experience as a communications and marketing service provider has well prepared him to offer his clients a practical approach to marketing, business development and people management.

He was one of the founding members of the Vancouver Chapter of the Legal Marketing Association, and later went on to serve on the board as treasurer and Chair of the Marketing Committee. Gary has given regular presentations to Canadian Bar Association members, LMA-Vancouver members, and students at the Faculty of Law at the University of British Columbia. He presented his vision of ‘The Law Firm of the Future’ at the annual conference of LSSO, (Legal Sales and Service Organization - May 2008), and offered his insights into the ‘opportunities’ this economic cycle provides forward thinking law firms at this years Globalaw America’s Regional Conference, in Banff in March. He is published in a number of legal publications throughout Canada and continues to write bi-monthly for Lexpert, and monthly for CBA’s ‘Practice Link’ online.