Where it starts

In case you may be thinking that these conversations are a little one way, and that I am somewhat critical of lawyers, this post looks at it from a somewhat different perspective.

When I was a lawyer, I always tried to understand, so far as I was able, what it was that my clients did. It wasn't necessarily that easy. In the latter part of the 1980s I had two very demanding clients. The first was a large book manufacturer. Understanding their processes and business wasn't that difficult, although I still puzzle my children when I refer to books being case bound. The other was a software house, writing bespoke programs for main frames. This was much more of a challenge. I had learnt some coding in the late 1960s (don't ask), but that had long left me and I struggled to make sense of what exactly they did. They remained a client, but not mine. 

Understanding what a client does, how their business operates, what their challenges and their opportunities are - essentially what makes them tick - is for most lawyers an integral part of acting for that client. And if it isn't, it should be.

And so it must be for marketers acting for or employed in law firms. For without that understanding, how can you market the firm and its services? 

And yet I have come across people in marketing and communications, both working inside and outside law firms, who don't have this understanding, and who remain incurious about the firm - they will learn about the service offering but leave it at that.

I don't think that that is enough. One of the reasons for starting my consultancy is to help lawyers and marketers understand each other - and the place to start from is what makes them tick.

And I couldn't resist this photo. One of my daughters is Marketing Lead at a large London hospital - and here she is, in scrubs, getting to understand what makes cardiac surgeons tick.

The rearview mirror

Why am I not surprised that lawyers prefer to stick to what they have done before? A lot of people do: it's a known quantity, it requires less time, and it costs less. Lawyers are comfortable with precedent, and that is what it is all about.

And at one level that's OK. Why reinvent the wheel?

But there is a caveat.

For all their talk of innovation (one of the most used words on law firm websites) lawyers aren't very good at "the new". For a number it simply means finding a slightly different way to bill you. And as for marketing? Lawyers shrink at the thought of anything too novel. At one of the firms I worked for, a partner told me, "The last thing we want to be is first", adding, "and anyway, why do we need to change anything? What we had was fine by me."

I left Ashfords LLP as Director of Marketing late yesterday afternoon. My P45 was in the post - the last time I had one of these was nearly 30 years ago. Today I go out on my own as George Wilkinson Consultancy.

And on what is for now, although I hope not for long, a rather clear desk, I have this quote,

We  should spend more time thinking about the future and postulating possible outcomes, rather than relying on the past.

History is important for all sorts of reasons but, as my team became very tired of hearing, the future is not going to be more of the same. That will be as true of law as it is for all the professions, and how law is sold and marketed is going to change.

All I know is that this is going to be an exciting time. 

Note: the quote is by Karl Sternberg from his review in Christ Church Matters of Jerome Booth's Emerging Markets in an Upside Down World.