Why would anyone knowingly become a law firm marketing specialist – a role that is demanding, complicated, challenging, and stressful? To explore this mystery, we went to the source. Accordingly, this time around we asked the law firm marketing specialists of CEE to complete the following question: “I went into Law Firm Marketing/BD as a career because ____________.“
“I went into Law Firm Marketing/BD as a career because I was given the opportunity to transform my then-daily work of passive translations into more creative tasks such as putting together pitches, capacity statements, and submissions. Luckily, I was on-boarded to the profession by one of the finest law firms in Croatia, and I was even more lucky to have continued my professional growth within the international environment of CMS. ”
Jelena Bosnjak, Business Development & Marketing Manager, CMS Zagreb
“At the time, it was a big step up and from where I was standing it seemed like the dream job: exciting, important, attractive (traveling and training opportunities), and thus never boring. I made the right choice. I have grown a lot, have had great mentors, learned unforgettable lessons and got to be a part of this amazing journey that is Kinstellar. I’m having the time of my life in the process and have never had a dull moment.”
Adela Ene, Head of Marketing, Kinstellar
“A colleague of mine made me a job offer I could not resist. It was not only because of our acquaintance, and remuneration was not a decisive factor. I simply got inspired by the firm’s innovative vision. When I met the managing partner, he was bold enough to say: ‘We want to expand our services beyond just legal advice and offer our clients comprehensive solutions to their business challenges.’ I thought to myself, ‘a lawyer who officially declares himself as an entrepreneur rather than a lawyer? – Looks like a fantastic marketing opportunity must be around the corner!’ And here I am, dealing with so many innovative marcomms projects you would never expect a law firm could be doing. Sponsoring a student team developing a revolutionary satellite to be placed on Elon Musk’s Falcon 9 rocket? – why not? It was a great opportunity to emphasize our firm’s digital transformation competences (we labelled that initiative as ‘Make IT fly’). Another example of SSW’s untypical approach: as part of our 10th anniversary celebrations, we invited a famous futurist, Mike Walsh, to deliver a power speech on leadership trends and new challenges triggered by AI, automation and technology.”
Marcin Wolinski, Marketing and Communications Manager, SSW Pragmatic Solutions
“I went into Law Firm Marketing / BD as a career because I like working and communicating with people with different characters, it is challenging, it is interesting, it is unpredictable, it can be really rewarding and a little frustrating at times. But that is what makes the journey worth it.
Because law firm marketing is many exciting things, including: (i) Pitches for clients; (ii) Market research; (iii) Editing and proofreading; (iv) Legal directory submissions; (v) Document design; (vi) Event management (vii) Public speaking; (viii) Communication with lawyers, publishers, editors, marketing and communications executives from all over the world; (x) Fellow team meetings and constant learning and exchange of ideas; and (xi) Meeting clients.
You can never get bored and every day comes with a challenge.”
Violeta Koeva, Marketing and BD Executive, CMS Sofia
“Some people set long-term goals and follow them methodically. My short term and long term goal are the same - to do my job as well as I can. I started out at my current firm in an admin position and have now progressed to the role of marketing specialist. Depending on the day, the work can be interesting, exciting, challenging, frustrating, stressful, and several other adjectives. I definitely still have a lot to learn. But in answer to your question, “How did I get to where I am professionally?” I would say, doing my job well, being in the right place at the right time and just plain luck.”
Name withheld by request.
“I went into Law Firm Marketing/BD as a career because legal services touch every corner of your day-to-day life. That makes the work interesting and demanding at the same time. With a public relations background from the public sector, stepping into a law firm was an important decision to boost my career by getting deeper insight into public relations issues in a highly sensitive context.”
Iris Stiefelmeyer, PR & Marketing Manager, Schoenherr
This Article was originally published in Issue 6.10 of the CEE Legal Matters Magazine. If you would like to receive a hard copy of the magazine, you can subscribe here.
