The report is based on a representative survey of 126 lawyers and marketing staff from major law firms in the United States. The report summarizes their opinions about issues and practices such as: the relative importance of law firm marketing vehicles such as blogs, the law firm website, LinkedIn or Facebook, press releases, media appearances, lawyer listing servicers, pro bono work, article writing and other practices through which major law firms market themselves. The study gives detailed data on the percentage of lawyers and marketing staff who write for the firm’s blogs, publish outside articles, give speeches and perform other marketing oriented functions – and what they think of these efforts.
The study also looks at the inner personnel dynamics of law firm marketing. How do attorneys view the value of the training in marketing given to them by their law firms? How many mentor their colleagues in rainmaking? How many share information about their clients with other lawyers in the firm? How are marketing efforts appreciated or compensated in firms? What should the firm be doing more of? Less of?
Data in the report is broken out by size of law firm, work title of respondent, age, gender and other variables.
Just a few of the report’s many findings are that:
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11.11% of those sampled though that a LinkedIn presence was critically important to the firm’s marketing efforts while an additional 30.16% thought it was important.
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Lawyers at the largest firms, those with more than 200 attorneys, were more apt than others to have contributed to the firm’s blogs in the past year; 34.55% had done so.
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Rainmaking mentors seemed to be particularly in short supply in smaller firms as only 24% of survey participants in firms with between 25 and 49 lawyers had mentored a colleague in the past year, dramatically less than for larger law firms.
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78.57% of partners and 44.44% of associates had provided client contact and background information to other lawyers or practice areas of the firm in the past year;only 16.67% of lawyers under age 30 had done so vs. 84.21% of lawyers aged 40-49, the highest in all the age cohorts.
The survey respondents, expressing their personal opinions and not necessarily those of their firms, work at the following law firms: Adams and Reese LLP, Alston Hunt Floyd &Ing, Archer Norris PLC, BB&K, Becker & Poliakoff, P.A., Birketts LLP, Borgelt, Powell, Peterson & Frauen, Bowles Rice LLP, Buckley King LPA, Burr Forman LLP, Butler Snow LLP, Carella Byrne, Carlile Patchen & Murphy LLP, Carlock, Copeland & Stair, LLP, Carlsmith Ball, LLP, Church Church Hittle & Antrim, Clawson & Staubes, LLC, Davis & Young, Davis Brown Law Firm, Davis Browne, Deutsch Kerrigan LLP, Dickie McCamey, Dickie, McCamey & Chilcote, P.C., Duane Morris LLP, Ericksen Arbuthnot, Fenton Fenton Smith Reneau & Moon, Ford & Harrison, Freeborn & Peters, Greenberg Traurig Hauptman, Heyl Royster Hinckley Allen
Hoagland Longo Moran Dunst Doukas, Holland & Hart LLP, Husch Blackwell, Hutchens Law Firm, Jones Day, Jones Waldo Holbrook & McDonough, Keller and Heckman, Kerr Russell
Kuhlenschmidt, Kutak Rock LLP, Leech Tishman, Lewis Wagner, LLP, Lindquist + Vennum LLP, Locke Lord, Lowndes Drosdick Doster Kantor & Reed, P.A., Mayer Brown LLP, McElroy Deutsch Mulvaney & Carpenter, Meagher & Geer, Murphy Desmond SC, Neal & Harwell
Obermayer Rebmann Maxwell & Hippel LLP, Ogletree Deakins Nash Smoak & Stewart, P.C.
Peckar & Abramson, P.C., Procopio, Cory, Hargreaves & Savitch LLP, Schander Harrison Segal & Lewis LLP, Scheef & Stone, LLP, Scopelitis Garvin Light Hanson & Feary, Sheppard Mullin, Shumaker, Loop & Kendrick, LLP, Shuttlewoth & Ingersoll, Simmons Hanly Conroy, Skadden LLP, Snell & Wilmer, Sughrue Mion PLLC, Sulloway & Hollis PLLC, Taft Stettinius & Hollister LLP, Thacker Martinsek, Tho