SURVEY: Legal Marketing Peer Check In

In many conversations over the past months, I heard common themes from CMOs, managers and teams. Often I’ve been asked “how are my colleagues in other firms handling this?”. To help answer these questions and share insights across the profession, over 200 colleagues responded to our survey which was conducted between May 13 - 22, 2020. Thank you to all who participated.

First, here's who responded:

​Secondly, here's what we learned:

People are working longer hours during COVID-19

We’ve all seen dozens of social media posts and news stories discussing the challenges of working while isolated at home. This has included surviving endless Zoom meetings, supervising dependents and making sense of the world around us. So how is this impacting our work hours?

• 40% of our survey respondents are working 1 - 3 hours more each day
• 17% of our survey respondents are working over 3 hours more each day
• ​That’s 57% working at least 5 additional hours each week, and some more than 15 additional hours each week

Some key questions for our profession:

• Is this sustainable in “the new normal”?
• How do we avoid the risk of burn-out? (Many are juggling work, dependents and have less access to support services.)
• Do leaders have adequate plans in place to address and solve these challenges?

​Marketing and BD are focused on ‘protecting the base’

Marketing and BD teams are famous for wearing multiple hats in any given day. Responding to pitches and RFPs, organizing events, executing on business goals, planning ways to enhance and sustain existing relationships... this list never stops. Given this context, when asked to share the major focus areas for the marketing and BD team during the COVID-19 response, the respondents answered as follows:

• The most common major focus areas were 'thought leadership development and production' (74% of survey respondents) and 'external communications' (also 74%)
• Next were 'strategic BD' (70% of respondents) and 'virtual events' (also 70%)

​The trend among survey respondents is highlighting an emphasis on externally facing initiatives. They appear to be “protecting the base” by providing support and knowledge to existing clients and taking next steps on already defined strategic business development plans. Comparatively less focus has been applied to marketing to new clients, implementing new initiatives or responding to RFPs.

​Old teams, new tricks?

​Many discussions with firms early in the pandemic response considered how marketing and BD teams could use their transferable skills to support other teams (at the expense of traditional marketing and BD activity). 

The survey responses show that in reality, few teams have drastically changed their mandate:

• 55% of survey respondents said their teams were still solely focused on their marketing or BD remit
• 45% of teams have assumed some different responsibilities (for example: operational or administrative duties)
• 0% responded that “most of us are doing many tasks that don't involve marketing or BD”

​There are a number of takeaways from this data:

• Firms are clearly seeing the value in core marketing and BD activity in these challenging times. This is a sign of respect for our profession.
• Many of our colleagues are showing the ‘change agility’ that so many of my clients ask for in their candidates.
• Professionals who can flex their skills and experience to help out multiple areas across the firm are always valued - even more so in times of change and uncertainty.

​Our colleagues prefer working from home

For years, we have heard a growing number of colleagues talk about wanting more flexibility in their professional lives, with the option of working remotely (or at home) for at least some of the time. COVID-19 has pressure tested this working model in ways few of us could have imagined. Close to three months in, our survey respondents have indicated their preferred working styles:

• An overwhelming amount of respondents - 96% - have enjoyed working remotely in some form
• Of that 96%, the majority would ideally have a hybrid model, which allowed them to have flexibility with office interactions alongside the ability to work remote (73% of respondents)
• There was a smaller proportion of respondents (23%) who prefer the remote working arrangement all of the time

​It will be interesting to see whether these rates persist if current restrictions continue for months (or years). Anecdotally - and supported by the data above relating to working hours - it would seem that productivity has not dropped despite teams working from home. This has long been a concern of firms considering more flexible working arrangements. One unexpected benefit from these challenging times has been this ‘case study’ in working from home. I’m sure this will lead to a lot of consideration for ‘the office of the future’ for law firms.

Which Industry & Practice groups are the busiest for your firm?

Which Industry & Practice groups are the quietest for your firm?

What's next?

• Later surveys will identify trends over time, as well as include new topics suggested by respondents.
• ​Please reach out if you would like to discuss any of the results or how you and your team can proactively respond.

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