Like most LMA members, I spend my time navigating through a myriad of activities: crafting competitive RFP responses; sponsoring conferences and charitable events; cross-selling practice areas to clients with unrealized billing potential. However, there is more to our jobs than just marketing and business development-we must also strive to understand how the firm operates as a business with the goal of influencing not only the firm's marketing strategy, but its corporate strategy as well.
During this economic crisis, law firms face extraordinary challenges, including increased competition for business, pressure to reduce rates, opportunities to merge or be acquired and an overall decrease in profitability. In order to survive, law firms must reduce expenses and strive to maintain revenue, if not increase it. This has translated into layoffs and salary freezes, a mirror image of what is happening in corporate America. Given these pressures, we must evolve our roles and perform more like business advisors to our lawyers than we ever have before.
To appreciate the business side of law and to optimize my firm's business development opportunities, I decided to pursue a Master in Business Administration (MBA) degree at the Zicklin School of Business at Baruch College in NewYork. Now, just a few months shy of graduation, I can reflect on what a productive and rewarding, albeit time-intensive, experience it has been.
The MBA education provides an arsenal of knowledge, communications skills, models and tools that can be readily applied to a firm's strategic efforts and critical business decisions. Through the theoretical and practical business management training of an MBA, marketers are better equipped to assess the needs of clients, the challenges posed by competitors, external opportunities and threats and the interrelationships among various functions within the firm.
It also provides for a greater breadth and depth of understanding of business concepts and their applications. In addition to hard skills such as accounting, finance and statistics, the MBA curriculum focuses on soft skills such as leadership, critical thinking and business strategy. According to John Elliott, vice president and dean of the Zicklin School of Business, a key benefit of the MBA program is that "it provides a structured approach to the business vocabulary and the constructs embedded in that vocabulary." He views the MBA in two distinct ways, either as a transitional degree that prepares students for a new career path, or as a way to enhance capabilities as a manager within an existing career.
An MBA is largely about "developing the ability to talk intelligently with other people in business with a less parochial perspective," he says. For us marketers, this translates into broadening our scope to understand the financial, technological and strategic elements of our firms' business models, so that we are able to perform better, more consistently and more confidently.
The recent Legal Marketing Industry Benchmark on satisfaction and salary looked at the benefits of graduate education [see "A Job that Pays, and Satisfies," February 2009, p. 4]. Not surprisingly, those in the legal marketing field are a highly educated group, with 29 percent reporting an advanced degree. Among survey respondents, 8 percent have a doctoral degree, typically a J.D. Of the 21 percent with a master's degree, nearly half have MBAs. An advanced degree appears to pay off. Across all legal marketing roles, those with a graduate degree earn $22,000 more than the industry average, while those without one earn $7,000 less and show significantly less upside potential.
These statistics paint a compelling picture about the future of legal marketing. It is no longer enough to know how to put together a marketing plan or a response to an RFP. Today, one needs to know how to connect the dots between finance, client retention and recruiting. Understanding how various business units work together to optimize resources and sustain growth is crucial to a successful career.
There are other advantages as well. An MBA from a well regarded school can also be a significant differentiator among candidates in today's harshly competitive environment. It can also help legal marketers earn more respect from their attorneys. "The MBA degree is an equalizer between lawyers with a J.D. and marketers," says Barbara Rabinowitz, a partner with the executive search firm RabinTate. "When you get that seat at the table, you are sitting across from a professional lawyer as a professional businessperson." She has seen an increased number of firms that prefer an advanced degree, especially an MBA, for their senior manager, director or CMO roles. Many at law firms see the MBA as a demonstrated commitment and an investment in one's career. "An MBA candidate takes a more corporate and analytic approach to moving the business development initiatives forward," Rabinowitz adds.
Having someone on board who not only knows the product but also understands where the business is coming from can help a firm enormously. Mariana Loose, head of marketing, U.S. for Linklaters LLP, recently received her MBA, also from the Zicklin School of Business. In the earlier days of legal marketing, a J.D. might have been preferable because it helped marketers with a better understanding of the product offering. Recently, however, Loose says she has seen a shift and firms now seem to view the MBA degree as a true complement to the practice of law. "The lawyers know their practices, but a marketer with an MBA can bring a general business sense to growing their practices - for example, how to conduct a SWOT [strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats] analysis and write a business plan, or how to develop a creative fee structure for a general counsel who wants to reduce the company's legal spend by 20 percent," says Loose.
Is it necessary to have an MBA degree to do the legal marketer's job? No. However, my experience has convinced me that an MBA can significantly help legal marketers raise their game-and their value to their employer. My law firm experience and graduate studies enable me to further both my firm's objectives and my personal career goals.
Cortney R. Nathanson is the business development and communications manager at Jones Day in NewYork and a past president of LMA's Metro NewYork Chapter. She can be reached at cnathanson@jonesday.com or 212/326-3619.
Reprinted from Strategies:The Journal of Legal Marketing. Permission granted by Legal Marketing Association, Glenview, Ill.