Strategies & Voices: Revisiting 2024 Reader Favorites

The beginning of a new year brings opportunities to shake up routines and sharpen our practice. As you begin to strategize for 2025, we invite you to revisit the top-viewed articles, infographics and podcasts from Strategies & Voices this past year.

 

Our Top 10 Pieces of 2024

1. Beneath the Service: What Law Firm Clients Really Buy

Client motivations drive buying behavior in their pursuit of a valued goal. To enhance their services, author Sergei Freeman suggests firms should focus on underlying goal facilitators and value activities to assist clients in reaching these milestones.
 

2. Lawyer Compensation and Business Development: Traditions, Trends and Insights for Legal Marketers

Your firm’s compensation system can be a prime motivator for lawyers’ marketing and business development efforts. For both micro- and macro-level activities, it’s paramount for legal marketers to understand their firms’ compensation structures — and what exactly they reward.
 

3. LMA Podcast: What Your Managing Partner Wishes You Knew About Business Development

Ever wonder what managing partners wish you knew about business development? Lauren Resnick, chief practice partner at BakerHostetler, shares insights on how business development teams can provide value and support marketing efforts.
 

4. How Analytics Can Inform Your Social Media Marketing Strategy

Just as you wouldn't travel to a new destination without a map or GPS guiding you, you cannot achieve a worthwhile marketing strategy without social media analytics. In this overview, author Eleanor Nissen explains how to utilize analytics to chart your next course.
 

5. Enhancing Efficiency: Leveraging the Power of AI for Writing Associate Bios

Every summer, many firms face the massive task of onboarding the year’s fall associate class, with dozens of fresh law school graduates joining the firm on a single day. The bios written for these novice attorneys are generally temporary — being updated or replaced entirely within the next two years. This left the marketing team at Husch Blackwell wondering if artificial intelligence could help.
 

6. Tipsheet: How To Gain Buy-in for a New CRM Tool Across Your Firm

Introducing a CRM tool poses significant challenges, like resistance to change and data migration complexities. To leverage the potential benefits, aligning the tool with existing processes and gaining buy-in from attorneys, IT and end-users is essential.
 

7. Digging in on Law Firm Profitability

Do you understand what drives profitability at your firm? Can you demonstrate and succinctly explain how your work affects the bottom line? Can you identify the trends impacting profitability? These questions and more were discussed at a 2024 roundtable event put on by LMA and the Practicing Law Institute. Read on for key takeaways. 
 

8. Coaching Partner Candidates: 7 Questions to Ask

In this piece by Breandan Filbert, uncover seven essential questions legal marketers should be equipped to speak to while coaching lawyers as long-term assets to the firm’s financial, reputational and operational success.
 

9. Rebranding a Rebrand: 10 Insider Tips for Gaining the Confidence and Support of Law Firm Leadership Throughout the Creative Process

Every great brand tells a story, conveying the history, values, mission and distinctions of an organization — but have you considered that the story behind the story is equally important? For legal marketing professionals, that story not only involves leading key aspects of the design process, but also conducting an all-out campaign for change within the firm.
 

10. How Competitive Intelligence Can Support Firm Strategy

Law firms are increasingly relying on competitive intelligence (CI) professionals not just for tactical research, but for strategic insights to shape firm-wide planning and positioning. This piece from Nan Arian summons three industry leaders for advice on leveraging CI beyond the usual tactical projects.

 

Honorable Mentions

Despite being published in years prior, Strategies & Voices readers frequently returned to the pieces below. Since they deserve their own moment of recognition for being tried and true resources, we’ve included them here as honorable mentions.
 

Understanding Lawyer Psychology: An In-Depth Exploration With Larry Richard, PhD

Lawyers possess a unique combination of personality traits that require a tailored approach to facilitating successful, team-oriented environments. Learn about some of the unique challenges and opportunities of lawyer psychology and how teams can improve collaboration.
 

Hogan Lovells Case Study: Building Blocks of An Effective Key Client Program

In the legal realm, clients crave trusted advisors who understand their business and act as seamless partners. Authors Katryn Green and Adrienne Johannes explain how a structured key client program offers the ideal balance of consistency and flexibility and allows law firms to continually learn and cater to individual client needs.
 

The Art of Giving and Receiving a Referral

Referrals are a critical component of any attorney’s practice. Certain areas of law depend almost exclusively on these introductions as a business development and revenue generation tool, highlighting the importance of even the smallest of details. This infographic covers helpful steps for mastering the art of giving and receiving referrals.

 

Interested in Contributing to Strategies & Voices? Strategies & Voices is the official online publication of LMA, featuring content tailored to today’s legal marketing and business development professionals’ needs. If you would like to be a contributor, fill out the Contributor Form with your pitch. LMA membership is not required to submit article or podcast proposals.