James: Hi and welcome to this episode of CMO Series Podcast. I'm James Barclay, CEO of Passle here in the US. And today we're joined by two industry leaders, Joe Palermo, Chief Operating Officer at Crowell & Moring, and Greg Fleischmann, Director of Client Development at WilmerHale. Joe and Greg join us to share their experience as change makers in the legal industry. In particular, we're going to explore how artificial intelligence is revolutionizing operational efficiency and client service at law firms.

Charlie: The CMO Series Podcast is brought to you by Passle. Passle makes thought leadership simple, scalable, and effective, so professional services firms can stay front of mind with their clients and prospects when it matters most. Find out more and request a demo at passle.net. Now back to the podcast.

James: Welcome both. How are you? 

Joe and Greg: Good, thanks. 

James: It's brilliant to have you. So to kick off, just reflecting on the last five years or so, I know that's a while, but five years or so in legal marketing, what's been the biggest shift you've seen in the profession? Joe, let's kick off with you. 

Joe: What I've seen in the last five years that I think has really changed in legal marketing is around kind of the business sense that we're really putting on our marketing people to understand what clients are really looking for. We hear from clients over and over again that they want our lawyers to be looking around corners to be understanding their industry. And I think that has passed down to the legal marketing folks and really putting them in a position to give our partners and our lawyers that kind of information so that clients find that most useful as we're talking about the business that we can do for them.

James: And Greg, from your perspective, I know from talking to you before, quite similar, but what have you seen over the last five years? And I know you've just come to Wilma, so really talking all about your other past experiences as well. 

Greg: Yeah, thanks, James. I think there's a consistency there too, where on the one hand, we've been trying to sort of disaggregate the needed capabilities across the big M marketing function, whether those are more externally facing, internal, operational, technology, those kinds of things. But to Joe's point, I think what's required and what I'm seeing is a re-aggregation in the sense that in order to be authentic in front of our clients and prospects and our networks, you need to bring both the traditional mass marketing concepts to play, the brand building, all the way down to the direct client relationship development, the strategies, the approach, what kinds of conversations are we trying to have with the people in our business networks to achieve our objectives. That requires a holistic approach that requires marketing. Business development communications functions to be not only integrated themselves, but again, with the other business functions of the firm. And again, I've seen that across whether it's an in-house role or from a consulting perspective.

James: And Joe, you've now been CEO at Crowell & Moring for almost two years, maybe just over two years now. What's been your primary focus in those two years? What's the thing that you start on every day? 

Joe: I would say it's different every day. I've been in the industry quite a while. And I think what is really apparent to me now is really how complex law firms have become as we've gotten bigger, as the world has gotten more complicated. Partners, boards really need to rely on business professionals to help run the firm, whether it's tax issues, whether it's human resources issues, whether things that involve technology. I think that what I think about every day is running the business. And that I think is my primary goal is to make sure that the trains keep running, that people get paid, that all of the lawyers get whatever tools they need to do their jobs and to service our clients. And I think that's only increased in my time in the industry. I think early on in my career, it was really lawyers, partners running the firm. I think that's changed a lot in my time and really the reliance on business professionals to run what has turned into a really complex industry. 

James: And with that, I suppose there's kind of been a shift in power as well, hasn't there?

Joe: Yeah, but I also think what's really happened and what I've really been fortunate to have the opportunity here at Crowell is to have influence over the firm's overall strategy. I have a seat at the table with our board. As I mentioned before we started, this is the time of year where we pulled up for two weeks working on a partner compensation. And I really felt that our board gave me an opportunity to have a seat at the table as we were making those decisions, which I really, really appreciated. But also when I joined over a year and a half ago, one of the first things that I had the opportunity to work on with our board was our five-year strategic plan. And I don't think I've always had the opportunity to do that in my past firms. Really give kudos to our chair, to our board around seeking input from business professionals on that plan.

James: And Greg, after consulting, you've returned to a law firm as Director of Client Development now at Wilma Hale. How do you see the role of marketing and legal changing in the past you know mentioned that this aggregation of marketing and BD roles can you explain kind of what you meant by that?

Greg: Yeah, thanks. I see a connection you know between the two and i always struggle with whether I'm properly prognosticating or it's just wishful thinking so i see you know where you see results And where I see law firms recognizing results in terms of client development, in particular, the contribution of a marketing department in that effort. Is kind of in the teaming and bringing the force to bear, right? And one of the ways that we consult with lawyer groups or lawyers one-on-one I have throughout my career is... You know, is getting them to collaborate. Bring leverage the full platform of where you're at, you know, try to uncover the most complex problems. And so that requires, again, both, you know, within the marketing department, you know, who it is you're trying to represent you are to the world has all that sort of marketing, social media, traditional media outreach pieces. And time and time again, I will say, and I'm sure Joe could speak to this as well, these things get splintered apart, you know vis-a-vis the nature of trying to support a partnership of equity partners and the competing agendas if you will,  but i don't mean to say it pejoratively all that entrepreneurship and entrepreneurialism is exactly what we want to support but we need to do both in these departments, and that sort of tugs if you will on the effort to again focus resources in a sort of deep way and make a dramatic impact in terms of reputation and client development.

James: And Joe, maybe you can tell us a little bit more about the professionals you're working with taking on more client-facing roles. What challenges and opportunities has this shift provided the business professionals?

Joe: One area that I've seen change just in the last couple of years is clients really wanting to talk to our innovation people around what we're doing in terms of artificial intelligence and how that is going to influence the work that we do for clients. I would say at this point, the jury is still out how AI is going to affect the actual practice of law. The areas that we've been focusing on are what our chief innovation officer calls legal adjacent work for AI. So within the business, helping us be more efficient, helping us be smarter about data. She really has had an opportunity to talk to some of our clients around some of our efforts there. And they range everywhere from don't use AI full stop on anything that you're doing for us, to all the way to why aren't you using AI on your work for us? So we're finding that a bit of a challenge in terms of the client community where they're coming out on this. But we know it's here to stay and we know that we need to keep up on it. That, I would say, is very recent and really interesting discussions happening between law firms and clients around how AI is going to affect the practice of law.

James: Okay, and to carry that on, this is pretty much every conversation I'm having at the moment is around exactly what you've just said. So what's your approach this year? Are you taking kind of a hawkish approach and driving your clients, or are you waiting for your clients to drive you, as it were?

Joe: Well, I would say it's interesting when you think about a similar type issues and the way clients have pushed law firms, whether it's on a sustainability conversation, whether it's the DE&I conversation. I would put AI in as kind of the most recent example of how clients are pushing us. We are investing a lot in this area in terms of bringing people into the firm who are former practicing lawyers who want to get into this space. They perhaps did something in the knowledge management area, and now they really want to dig deeper into AI and really trying to embed them into our practices, listening to our associates about some of their challenges, some of the things that they find really, really inefficient. It takes them a lot of time, and we're really trying to explore ways to help lawyers become more efficient through the use of AI and by embedding former practicing lawyers who. Who bring a credibility to talking to our lawyers because they have practiced at some point and they understand the law and they want to work with our younger, mid-level lawyers to find out what are the things that we can help them be more efficient on.

James: And Greg, how are you using AI at the moment? In your new role and also while you were consulting, what was your experience and what are you excited or worried about?

Greg: Yeah, I guess there are many people more qualified than me to speak on the topic deeply. I'll share my observation more than anything, kind of in a couple of places. And here's something very specific. Dramatically changing how people need to effectively leverage work with LinkedIn, for example. You know, where LinkedIn, you can say, as someone who's been, I've been on LinkedIn probably since the pretty early days, and it's always still been like a glorified resume posting. And then lots of sales and marketing, but the community building aspect and then leveraging AI on content, what the impact of that is, we're barely seeing it so far, but it'll be pretty dramatic. And I'll take it a step further. I was reading this article really about the fact that so many of the processes for developing content, deploying it, measuring it, iterating it, and so on to engage with audiences. So much of that mechanically can be automated that it kind of turns things on its head. Now, I'm not saying I see that happening now. But I think, you know, we're in the middle of something that will make take a few clicks back over the years, you know, we'll see is dramatically transforming. You know, where we need to be in terms of resourcing, but then also the speed at which, you know, that whole concept of agility. It's like, whether you agree with it or not, AI is just forcing us to move quicker, do things quicker, learn from them quicker, and move forward, right, in that way.

James: You know, from a CMO perspective, what key skills do you think necessary for CMOs to thrive in 2025?

Greg: Well, my own experience says that, you know, the whole notion of having the seat at the table, in ways that Joe described from a CMO's perspective, you know, I mean, again, basically the same sort of things. I believe if you think about how lawyers come together, you need to bring something to the table that is very demonstrable. Getting hired, the resume still matters a whole lot, as we probably all noticed. But in terms of what you're bringing to grow the business vis-a-vis, very specific knowledge or relationships or something to me has been the foundation of, of having the seat at the table is I don't practice law. I'm not a JD, but I bring the equal level of experience and knowledge needed to the task. So that's why I have a seat at the table. That's what I want to have happen. And, and whether this is sort of true, whether it's a CMO, I'm currently a director reporting to CMO, I'm doing that by the way there's just so many you know things to gain on any side of it but, but yeah it's it's that's that's been my experience anyway what i've seen.

James:  joe just to finish off what's your top piece of advice for law firm leaders looking to adapt and equip their marketing and bd functions for the future, what's your one takeaway?

Joe: My one takeaway would be to really encourage them to partner with our practice management function that's something that i know that we've talked about, Greg and I, most recently about kind of the emergence of that function within law firms, but also it's kind of an offshoot of the marketing function where these roles used to be housed or at least the work used to be done by the marketing and business development folks. But now many firms have established this whole separate practice management function. And I guess what I would say to law firm leaders like myself and board members and chairs is to really get those two groups to work together. I think that is really important, kind of hearkening back to what I was saying early on about making sure that the marketing folks understand the businesses of our clients. I think that our practice management folks can really help do that.

James: Well, thank you both very much indeed. It's been extremely helpful and extremely interesting. And all the best for this week and this year. 

Joe: Thanks so much.

Greg: Thank you, James. It was a pleasure.

Charlie: You can follow the Passle CMO Series podcast on your preferred podcast platform. Thanks for listening and we'll see you next time.