In fact, IZF was using Smythe Gladstone's corporate lawyers to review contract agreements, its labor department to review and negotiate union contracts, and the firms banking attorneys to compile the loan documentation required by its bank. Two years later, IZF realized it was spending a lot on outside legal fees. Smythe Gladstone, meanwhile, took a good hard look at its P.R. agency's retainer. Both firms thought they could save money with internal professionals. Smythe Gladstone hired an in-house marketing coordinator, and IZF acquired in-house corporate counsel.
Today, Smythe Gladstone's marketing director is swamped with the needs of 200 individual attorneys, the coordination of educational seminars and the production of three separate practice area brochures. IZF's in-house attorney, realizing the need for out-of-house counsel, has fallen into the role of legal coordinator, assigning matters to a dozen different outside attorneys.
This anecdote is intended to illustrate a very interesting parallel between corporate legal needs and law firm public relations. Both corporations and law firms appear to address these areas in a cyclical fashion.
At first, out-of-house help seems best and is retained. But when costs are evaluated and timeliness questioned, in-house professionals may appear to represent the better route. Soon, however, the in-house people are stymied by too much to do. They either create their own larger department and turn to managing that, or they seek outside help and become job coordinators. In short the cycle comes full circle.
Cyclical Parallel
Why do we see this cyclical parallel? There are three good reasons. The first is simply economic. Many law firms - medium, large and even small - realized during the early 1980s that marketing was a necessary investment in an increasingly competitive legal environment just part of what they needed to do to survive, thrive and grow.
By the same token, business found surviving and thriving increasingly complex: billing and collection problems, employment discrimination concerns, environmental requirements. All these and more led to the need for intensive legal assistance.
The second reason is more complicated. It involves the translation of different forms of expertise from one professional culture to another. Law must learn the language of marketing to use it successfully, just as business must learn the language of law.
For instance, it's often "painful" for attorneys to see their activities framed in layman's terms for marketing purposes. It can seem undignified, or too informal. And yet this is the language many of their potential clients in business understand.
Similarly, business may not understand "legalese." Attorneys will be forced to explain the need for certain stipulations, measures or even actions that may be simply pro forma.
Learning Curve
The third reason is the "learning curve" that's involved. Marketing is a fairly recent aspect of most law practices. Firms are still learning how to use it - what's effective and what isn't. Business, too, is becoming increasingly conversant with legal issues that impact upon their daily operation.
But let's look more closely at what happens with law firms. When they first recognize the need for marketing, they don't necessarily know how to approach it. On their own, they lack the skills and the expertise. So, they hire an outside consultant and expect him or her to handle it.
For a while, this works. But sooner or later it becomes apparent that to do a good job, the consultant will need input from the partners. The partners must identify promotable legal issues and cases. They must be available to write articles, give speeches, and respond to media requests for expert opinions on issues in the news.
As a result, a law firm may realize they've been unrealistic in assuming their outside marketers could do all the work of successful promotion, with no serious input or cooperation from the firm's attorneys. And the traditional belief that new business is obtained by doing a good job for existing clients, and cultivating potential sources of referral through face-to-face contact may, meanwhile, be resoundingly reinforced. And this can lead to that other cyclical choice: bringing marketing in-house.
Role Defined
What the decision won't have taken into account is this: before the new in-house marketer starts, his or her role should be carefully defined. Will it be the role of a true marketing director, one having the authority to plan marketing strategies and implement the programs to make things happen? Or will it be the role of an implementer, one whose job it is to carry out plans already formulated by the partners? Or will the marketer be expected to generate actual new business leads, performing in a sales capacity? Will it be a combination?
Whatever role the in-house marketer is given, that person may soon face the same problems the outside agency faced. The inside marketer may have an equally difficult time getting the cooperation of 500 busy attorneys - getting them to take the time to write the articles, give the speeches, host the seminars that will get the firms name "out there."
Even when an in-house marketer does get attorney cooperation, there is still the problem of overload: one person is unable to handle the sheer volume of work, the hundreds of details necessitated by the task.
What may happen, at this point, is that a law firm may assume marketing is simply ineffective, and relegate its in-house marketer to various kinds of "busywork." This is a mistake. The problem here is insufficient understanding, being blind to the work marketing entails, rather than a simple choice between in-house or outside marketing professionals.
Law firms that continue to grow will realize this. They can't expect one person to do it all. Outside help will be needed. And they can't let their in-house marketer drown in a vacuum. Attorney cooperation is a basic requirement for good and effective public relations.
Law firms that continue to grow will realize it does no good to abandon P.R., saying it doesn't work, or isn't worth it. Instead, they'll go with the inevitable changes of a changing marketplace, and make incremental progress, from year to year, taking the long view of efforts to build business, and enhance the image of their firm.
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