Marketing professionals at law firms are increasingly getting a seat at the table as more are being asked to participate in strategic planning, business and professional development, and firm leadership meetings, according to a survey conducted jointly by Bloomberg Law and the Legal Marketing Association.

More than two-thirds of the 190 marketers and 135 attorneys who responded to the annual survey said their firm's marketing professionals are participating in these activities, “constituting a significant increase over last year's results, when slightly over half of respondents reported similar participation.”

“I think we are seeing marketers play a much more important role in the business of the firm,” said Stephanie Kusibab, an LMA spokesperson.

The bulk of all the survey respondents—62 percent—said their firms were “increasing the importance placed on marketing and business development initiatives.” And the survey found that 41 percent of attorneys responding reported that hiring marketing staff and increasing their numbers ranked “as one of the top investments in the past two years that have been most effective in developing new business.”

Those findings differ considerably from the results of another survey released last summer by workplace ratings company ViewsHub. That survey found that law firm business development teams are largely “ineffective.”

But Kusibab said marketing professionals are getting involved in realms of the law industry that were once far outside their purview—“even in lateral hiring decisions.” She noted that law firms are also going outside the law business to seek marketing professionals.

This was the third year that Bloomberg Law and the LMA conducted the survey.