Interview with Mayer Brown Head of Marketing Communications Will Hulbert

by Legal Marketing Blog author Ambra Di Tommaso.

Mayer Brown is among the largest law practices in the world, with more than 1,500 lawyers operating in 14 major cities worldwide. The international reach of the firm is enhanced through its alliance with leading Italian law firm Tonucci & Partners announced in 2006.

Do you find networking a useful way to cultivate meaningful relationships? In what kind of association or non- profit organization are you involved?
Absolutely essential for both best practice and knowing your market. You cannot be effective in isolation. I am involved in the Chartered Intsitute of Public Relations, the Professional Services Marketing Group, the Marketing Directors' Network and unofficial meetings with other professionals in my field.

How do you measure client satisfaction? Did you ever undertake client satisfaction feedback initiatives? did you need to change anything in your law firm after that?
The Business Development (BD) team (rather than the marketing communications team) assesses and monitors client satisfaction, though this is less formalised currently than it will be in the future. A more formalised structure for this will directly impact how we serve our clients, staff deals and manage our relationships.

How do you support individual lawyers?
Our partners are required to spend a defined number of hours per year on Business Development. Some of this is formalised though meetings focused on client relationship building / development and some on mor egneral profile raising / contact building / networking. The BD team is available to help partners and lawyers develop their skills in this area and much of the role performed at a senior level in the BD team is advisory.

Have you ever been asked to implement client-service training program for lawyers or staff?
Much of our business development efforts indirectly include training for partners and lawyers.

How lawyers get involved in marketing activities?
The team is integrated into the business and access to the BD / marketing team is relatively easy. We have people responsible for the client programme, the industry programme and the more traditional practice aligned approach, as well as a regular magazine communicating our activity and successes so it is easy in London for partners and lawyers to know where to turn.

How do you identify new trends and business opportunities?
We have a business analyst who works with the BD and Marketing team to ensure we are aware business trends, client developments and market statistics.

Do you ever buy or make law market researches or industry trend analysis?
Only by industry as part of our industry profile raising awareness programme.

Which is your most successful law marketing initiative you can remember?
By turning our traditional practice-led marketing / BD approach into one focused entirely on our clients and the industry in which they operate has had significant success to date. There is much more to do and is something on which we will be focused for the forseeable future.