Marketing and business development professionals are shifting into more strategic roles at large law firms, spurring data-driven decisions and more intrafirm collaboration, according to a new survey from LexisNexis.

The report from the legal information giant's InterAction marketing unit found that more than half of marketing and business development leaders are responsible for firm growth planning and tracking, while 20% of those professionals have a seat on their firm's management committee.

This is a step in the right direction, said Meghan Frank, the global director of marketing for LexisNexis Legal & Professional Software Solutions.

"Marketing and business development professionals are really the voice of the client," Frank explained. "They are the ones that understand what is happening in the market. They see what companies are doing, and they are the ones that are viewing the data to develop and pursue a strategy that will work and allow firms to grow and meet objectives."

The survey found that 56% of these leaders have a stake in growth planning. More than 60% of respondents to the survey agreed that they are now recognized as law firms' expert advisers who drive strategic outcomes. Their access to and use of data to guide decision-making is another sign of their enhanced role.

That's driven by a growing recognition that the historic way law firms have done business, based on selling via relationships, is no longer sufficient.

"Legal is just a slow-moving industry in general: slow to adopt technology and slow to change. That's a testament to how they've been able to run their businesses and the success that's been accorded to them in doing the same thing," Frank said. "Now corporations are taking a second look, narrowing down the number of firms that they work with and being more data-driven in their selection process. It's forcing legal to speed up and be more data-driven as well."

That's also spurring greater collaboration within law firms and between marketers and IT professionals in particular. Only 42% of respondents listed cross-firm collaboration as their top challenge in 2019, compared to 56% last year. And 70% of respondents pointed to successful collaboration between IT and marketing departments.

Frank explained that not only are marketers increasingly dependent on using technology to underpin data-driven business development strategies, but they also need to respond to clients' heightened interest in the degree that firms are adopting technology.

"Clients are asking about firm technology in RFPs," Frank said. 

The results in the 2019 Law Firm Marketing and Business Development Survey came from 103 legal marketing and business development leaders, including 40 Am Law 100 chief marketing officers or chief business development officers.

Looking forward, these respondents recognize that they need to employ more focused strategies. According to the survey, 28% said that their top challenge in 2019 was pursuing too many marketing approaches, and 46% said that a consequence of this scattershot approach was a lack of consistent follow-up.

Frank said that, by increasing collaboration, firms had made progress on last year's top challenge.

"Their priority has to be a data-driven targeted strategy, now that the awareness is there and they've chipped away at other challenges," she said.

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