Charlie: Welcome to the CMO Series podcast, your go to destination for all things marketing and business development in professional services. In today's very special episode, we take you back to New York City, where we hosted CMO Series Live 2025.

Live on stage, Ali Bone was joined by four standout leaders from top law firms to explore how they're using thought leadership as a powerful engine for growth.So let's dive straight in.

Alistair: Thank you very much everybody for being here. I hope you had a wonderful lunch. Everyone's replenished and ready for the part. I'm ready for the afternoon session. Obviously this morning's been absolutely fantastic, but it's great that we've now got everybody into one room. So not only am I really excited to be able to introduce the panel that we have today, but actually, I feel quite privileged, because when we came together in a couple of conversations before this, I had a chance to see them all bouncing off of each other and just realized the sort of vast amount of knowledge, and sort of wealth of experience that each of these individuals had.

So I think it's gonna be a fantastic conversation. In terms of today's conversation. We're gonna dig into, um, something that's incredibly powerful and actually often underutilize within law firm's growth, and that's thought leadership.  

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Alistair: We're incredibly lucky to be joined by the following individuals and in no particular order. We're joined by Jeff Greenbaum, who is managing partner at Frankfurt Kurnit Klein & Selz, who's built a standout voice in advertising law and leads by example when it comes to creating high-impact content. To my left, we've also got Simon Malko, who's managing partner at Morris, Manning & Martin. Who's driving the firm's growth through innovation, culture, and a strong content mindset coming from the very top. Thirdly, we've got Meredith Williams-Range. So Meredith is Chief Legal Operations Officer at Gibson Dunn, and widely recognized as a pioneer in legal innovation and knowledge management.

And last but not least, we've got Carl Kennedy. So Carl is a partner at Katten and the co-chair of the firm's financial markets regulation group, and he brings deep regulatory and industry expertise to a client-facing form of thought leadership. So, lots and lots of knowledge to be able to share from each of them. And throughout this conversation, say, we're gonna explore how these leaders here, um, are using thought leadership, not just to elevate the firm's visibility, but actually fuel real business development. Empower their lawyers to speak up, um, and fundamentally build that long-term competitive edge. So please join me in welcoming Simon, Jeff, Carl and Meredith.

So, in terms of conversations today, I wanted to open up with a couple of questions that are just gonna hopefully set the scene a little bit for people and then we're gonna really kind of delve deep into that conversation. Hopefully it'll start to pop off a little bit more. So to open us up I would, would you please be able to share with us, um, a little bit around your career journey and also when you found thought leadership was something that was a key part of that. So, Simon since I'm looking at you, do you mind just starting? 

Simon: Thank you, Ali. I appreciate the opportunity to be here. Your association with you has been fantastic. We really appreciate your partnership. I may be on the older side of the panel or the room, which I'm still getting used to. My first legal job was as a summer associate at a Wall Street firm in 1996, and that was the first time I had an email.

That was my first email address. And to watch how the industry and the world has changed with technology over the last almost 30 years is really incredible. And one of the things I've always tried to do with the aid sometimes of teenagers in my house, is try to not get too far behind. Because it's really if you don't understand technology you can't be an effective leader in this market. So I've enjoyed watching technology evolve, watching the practice of law evolve and watching what you all do be completely different than what it was when I started really transformative. 

Alistair: Amazing. Thank you.  Jeff? 

Jeff: Sure. I mean, I started my career at Paul Weiss. Had a great four years as a litigator. And, but was always really interested in IP and First Amendment and wanted to do something media related. And so it kind of found my way to Frankfurt Kurnit, and I have been to Frankfurt Kurnit now for almost 30 years. You know, I've always been really passionate about the subject matter and the firm itself.

And I think about 15 years ago, I had lots of complaints about how the firm was operating and how they were doing things and they could do things better. And, you know, Mike Frank, the founder of the firm, said, well, you know, if you have so many complaints, why don’t you take over. And so I did. And, the last 15 years have gone by, uh, pretty quickly. So that's it. That's the story. 

Alistair: Fantastic. Carl? 

Carl: Yeah, thanks Alistair and to Passle for hosting us today. I really appreciate being on this panel. Distinguished Practitioners and professionals. I started my legal career in 2000 as an associate. I'm from the Philadelphia area, and I practiced at a large firm, Ballard Spahr for about seven years. Before making many steps in my professional career. I went. In-house, I worked in government, I went back in-house. And it wasn't until I decided to return to a law firm, actually at Gibson Dunn, in 2016, as a senior lawyer that I recognized the importance of thought leadership. I realized that it's really the only way to get in front of an audience of people and show them what it is that you could do and what you know, and a little bit of your personality.

And so, about nine years ago, I actively worked on developing my own sort of voice in thought leadership. And I work in financial regulation, which generally is a very boring area, but I tried to add some levity and make it a little bit enjoyable as much as I can. And, yeah, and so I've been doing this for nine years and, having joined Katten, six years ago I just celebrated my six year anniversary. And, yeah, things are going well and thought leadership is a big part of that. And Passle was a big part of my success, I'd say today. 

Alistair: Amazing. We'll look forward to getting into that in a minute, Meredith. 

Meredith: All right. Last but not least, over here. So guys, I have had a very winding career, as most people do. I started as a young lawyer in Memphis, Tennessee, and I like to jokingly say I am a Southern bell in New York City. It's kind of what I get to be today. So I've been a lawyer since 2002. I started out as a tax lawyer 'cause my background was in accounting. Went into that kind of financial work. Loved it. And similar to what you were talking about, I hated the way we operated. I hated that the practice of law was so antiquated and I kept asking a lot of questions. Can't we do that differently? Can't we do that differently? Can't we do that differently? And they said, sure, you do it. And, I left full-time practice and became a CKO.

Very long time ago, winding through. I was president of the International Legal Technology Association for a number of years and then ended up moving to New York for another law firm. And then two years ago, the managing partner of Gibson Dunn gave me a call and said, come write your own job description and how many times in your, in your career path do you get to really do that? Never. And, uh, so I jumped at that opportunity. And what my focus really is, is looking across our operational elements and figuring out how we can operate better? How can we do things better? How can we embrace AI? How can we skill our people? How do we build in core competencies? How do we think about things differently today as a practice than what we did even five years ago?

And how do we constantly look around the corner to stay ahead of the game? And thought leadership, in my opinion, is one of those critical elements today, not just for our client development and creation of you as an individual in your niche market, but how are you gonna be known by any talent? Out there and think about it, I think I have a young daughter who only consumes information through the iPad. I think she could do that more than she could do a book. Thinking about our young talent today. We have to meet them where they are and thought leadership is a critical way that we can do that. 

Alistair: Thank you. I appreciate the introduction from each of you, and I think when we start to think about these and consider this as the next question and the answers that you just given, where do you feel this sort of thought leadership fits into today's legal market and the importance of it? Quite happy for one of you to pick that up and really start leading with it, Carl. 

Carl:  Yeah, happy to start out. I think thought leadership has always been a part of the practice of law. You know, law firms, even before they had websites or emails, they were putting out information for their clients to digest.

You know, it wasn't paid work. It was their thoughts on things. Whether it was through a contribution in a chapter of a treatise or whether it was, you know, going to speak at an industry conference and preparing CLE material, written materials for the CLE. Thought leadership has always been out there. I think the change has happened in the sense, in the way in which people digest it. It's the medium that thought leadership uses to get to its audience because technology has really allowed for that to happen. Instantaneously. What you're seeing is, you know, you know, younger generations looking for more content to digest, and so that happens with our clients.

Our clients are looking for, you know, real time updates, information, and so, the Passle and other technologies that are out there. To allow us to put that content out in front of someone, whether it's LinkedIn or other social media platforms, to put that content out there, it's, it's essential. So thought leadership has always been there. It's just, it's essential now because you have to produce a lot of it in order to stay in front of your clients and have, be top of mind for them. 

Jeff: I would say also, I totally agree with everything you're saying, and I would say two other things that I think are really important to me. Which is, I think, number one, I think that clients are coming to us because we're experts and because we really can provide additional value, right? They're not coming to us and saying, Hey, here's this problem. Can you spend all this money and research it? They're coming to us because we're the experts in it and we know what this is about. And yeah, that just doesn't happen.

You have to actually be on top of it, and I think that, having a sort of a structure around. You know, what am I looking at? What am I reading? You know, how am I staying on top of these things? What's the thing that, you know, is a really important part of that? And I think that I don't look at it just as the sort of the outward, we're pushing out this content. I'm also looking at it as, what's the stuff you are reading every day? What's the stuff that you are doing to make sure that you stay on top and you are ahead of the curve in terms of what you need to do. I think that's number one. And then I, I think the second piece of that, which is the other side of the coin, is it's really providing value, right?

I think that, client. Want and expect more from their trusted advisors than just being reactive, right? They want us to be thinking about their business and being, understanding their, and understanding the businesses, their business, and the legal issues that they face. And I think that when we are pushing out content to them that is highly relevant and that is topical and that is current. I think that they really appreciate that and it allows them to act on it and allows us to feel like we're giving them what they need. And it also really, of course, leads to additional engagement as well. 

Meredith: Think about the speed. In which things are happening today? I think about right now how many executive orders in the new administration came out on day one? Think about, I look at everyone here. Look, your eyeballs just got big the moment I said that.Cause I think about the information speed of that coming out and the interpretation of that information is so desired by our clients. They wanna know your take. To your point, we are the experts. They wanna know, how is that going to impact my business today? That's a regulatory shift. What does that mean if I am in this market?

Quickly tell me that. One of our biggest thought leadership successes has been our DEI every week piece of material, because it's an area that's continuously under attack at this precise moment. So we literally absorb that information every week and we put out that take every single week. When it's timely, when it's relevant, but we also focus it not just on what has happened, but what does that mean to you? And it's having that speed, but having that relevance to that content to the business. Don't just have a take on the topic. Have a take on the topic that is gonna be relevant to the clients in which you're speaking and the audience that you're reaching. That is where it really is highly successful. But, I just think about today as someone who's been in practice for almost 25 years, email had just come on to the way that we were closing deals back in 2000, 2002, and I, I think about today, the speed in which I receive 500 emails a day, which is on average I get in inundated. Our clients are getting inundated. Our talent's getting inundated. We have to respond, but respond in a relevant way.

Simon: No, I'll just jump in on the timing issue. The first piece of content I ever put out was an article that I had published in the New York Law Journal. It took me six months to write it. See, see, that's exactly what I was talking about. Took me three months to proof it. And then at the very end, end, at the very end, the New York Law Journal said, well, you're a first year associate. No, we need a partner on the byline. And so I got, moved to second place. And from, it was great. It was a good exercise, but I remember thinking like, they don't value my thoughts. Yeah. It was, yeah, if you wanna write an article, that's fine, but we're gonna slap a partner's name on it and if anything comes of it, the partners are gonna get the credit now, just get back in your hole and bill more hours.

And so I look at this from the perspective from a sort of, I try to look at this from a 360 degree perspective, that there's the outward facing content that brings us business. But we've been very successful in harnessing it internally. Yeah. In that I engage my younger attorneys who are thirsty to be engaged. I mean, I think it's a generational thing. You can't just say, go over there, wait your turn and in 10 years you'll be a partner. And, 12 years after that, we might make you an equity partner. They want to be involved now, and by engaging them early they can become experts early. I mean, it's a way that we've found where our younger lawyers who really want to build an expertise it makes it more accessible to anyone to be a thought leader. 

Meredith: Yeah. 

Simon: Even if they're just winging it.

Meredith: You're creating a culture of excellence within your own little world. And I, the talent piece of this is so important that you can't lose sight of that. Um, and not just as, as you're just talking about Simon, the talent in intern externally, but also internally and I'm gonna give you a really specific example. I'm a big AI person. I speak a lot on AI regulation. It's something that is this near and dear to my heart. And I wanna tell you when I'm getting ready to go into a meeting with someone today, or let's just take it, compare it.

Five years ago, the way I would prep for a meeting with a client is I would start with LinkedIn. I would go and research the website and all of that. I don't do that today. I go to ChatGPT Enterprise, I put in a person's name and I say, build me a dossier on this person and give me videos. It prepares all that. And I said, okay. Knowing who I am, tell me what I can relate to this person on. Within about a minute and a half, I have what I need. Where's it getting all of that? It's getting all of that externally. So when we have talent looking up Gibson Dunn, I want them to create a dossier on me or on someone in the firm that shows that we are experts in every niche area that they may be interested in. 

And the only way that the ChatGPT, the Claudes, and the Geminis of the world are gonna pick up on that is if we push that content out. And that's why it's so important to drive, because I think about the young lawyers in law school today. They're not coming to us because of our brick and mortar at MetLife.That's a piece of it. Don't get me wrong, that view is fantastic. But they're coming to us because they wanna practice with unique lawyers. And they want to change the world. Many of them do. And that's a big piece of the puzzle. 

Alistair: And when, when you were talking beforehand, Simon, you were mentioning in the buildup to this, that the other thing that you look at from a thought leadership perspective internally is how you've helped drive some of those initiatives. So Meredith, I know you were saying about DEI, but you were talking about some of the mental health awareness that you've really helped to drive as well, using sort of thought leadership in a different way. 

Simon: Yeah, it's, it's a great tool. I mean, and it can help us engage the people that work with us. It can help us get more clients.

And like you talk about, it can help you make the world better. And so if you have something that you feel passionate about, whether it's DEI or mental health in the legal profession it's so much easier to get the message out there in a positive way that yeah, it may benefit you, but it can benefit the market. It can make the market a better place. We did something that we're really proud of is we brought in a mental health professional on staff. I know you've seen billions. And it was similar to that. We, she's in our office 20 hours a week and we pay for it. And she is available to anyone that works for us that wants to go have a session.

And one of the great things about the platform that we have is I'm able to share that with other law firm leaders, so that they can copy it, because I want them to copy it. I want every law firm to have those sorts of resources. Because I don't want this next generation to have as much burnout and anxiety and stress as some of us have had. And so you can, whatever it is you want to get out there, you can get it out there. And I think it's great. 

Alistair: That's amazing. So we've obviously touched on quite a few of the benefits that each of you see. If we kind of change the speed on that a little bit to some of the challenges that exist. what do you sort of find are those biggest challenges? To get the busier attorneys to actually start creating content. And if we look at the other side of the coin with that. What would that sort of advice be to any people in this room? So we've got loads of chiefs, whether it's marketing, business development, communications, in terms of creating that culture for the busy attorneys to consistently create that impactful content.

Carl: I think your question had a little bit of the challenge embedded in the question, and when it relates to timing, I mean, lawyers are. Generally very busy. They have client demands, they have personal demands on their time, and trying to carve out an hour or two hours, three hours a week or more to develop content is tough.

Um, I was joking with, a fellow panelist earlier that I'm terrible with my own personal social media, but my professional social media, I'm just on fire. And, you know, it's, it's, prioritizing developing that content and setting aside the time to do it. And recognizing that it's not gonna have necessarily immediate gains. You're not gonna be able to immediately translate that into, okay, I worked three hours this week, and producing an article, and now I have three clients knocking on my door. It doesn't happen that way. And so that's what makes it challenging for some lawyers and some busy professionals to see the value in it immediately. Instant gratification, you know, sort of society. But if you can get, be beyond that and you can show them, show other lawyers, lawyers who are in the room who are thinking, what's the value?

You can say like, look, I produce content on a steady basis every week for a year, and as a result, the following year, my collections have gone up 50% and, you know, I, my Chamber's ranking is higher this year than it was last year or two years ago. If you can point to a sort of a change in your behavior and, the way that you see, you know, the value of thought leadership in what you do and point to markers of which generally within the profession are looked at as successful. You know, collections, you know, rankings you know, that might be able to tell a story and convince people that it's worthwhile. 

Jeff: I, what I would say is, I would say a couple ways that I think we've been successful getting people to create content is number one, starting at day one. Right. Sort of not having this sort of sense that your career. You know that the first part of your career is about being locked in a room and reviewing documents, and then maybe at some point in the future you're gonna engage with the outside world. And we really, with our, you know, our newest attorneys, with our youngest attorneys, with people at every stage of the career, we're talking to them about how to create the whole person.

Right. How do you build an interesting career for yourself? How do you become a part of the community? How do you develop an expertise? How do you build your own personal sort of brand? And so we're, we're really starting this from day one and sort of saying, we're, this should be a part of what you do from day one you walk in the door. And it's not just about creating thought leadership. I mean, I think that there's a lot of ways that you can be out there in the world and we talk to each lawyer about, look, what is it that you wanna do? What are you interested in? How do you want to engage in the outside world? How are you gonna be a part of a community?

And it's not right for everybody. I mean, some people, you know, they're gonna do it in different ways, and that's okay too. So I think one of it is about, this is just a part of what we do. This is a part of your career. It's not this extra thing that you fit in. It's this, it's just a part of what we do. The second thing is, I think it's an example setting. You know, look for me. Being a managing partner and being somebody who, you know, I really love Passle. I think that, for me, the sort of the process of staying on top of the things that are important to me in my practice and writing about it and talking to clients about it is really important to me.

But I think it's example setting, right? It's, you know, when you've got somebody preaching to you to write an article and you're not doing it yourself. I think it kind of falls in deaf ears. And I think it's hard because I think that a lot of times people look at these things and go, well, I'll post something, but I gotta get an associate to write it for me. And I'm like, well, who's the associate gonna, who's gonna write it for the associate? Like I think on some level you have to say, this is something I can do. Right? I can read a case. And write about a development. And I think that by setting an example and by saying, Hey, this is something we all do at all stages of our career, is really motivating to people.

Alistair: Well, I think, you know, you're a fantastic example of it. At the end of day you're a managing partner of a firm and you're practicing and you're still managing the fine time in and amongst all the other things that you have on your plate to create that thought leadership. So you say setting the example from the top is amazing. And coming back to your first point around sort of career community, what do you wanna be known for, Meredith? I know in the conversation we're having beforehand, you were saying that you speak to a lot of the sort of more junior associates and say, what do you wanna be when you grow up? What do you wanna be known for?

Meredith: So it's always so funny, I always attend our new partner orientation and it's. Our baby partners. And, and it's so funny, they, if they've not met me before, it's the first time that they're sitting down at a dinner. And, I always get the question: what are the markings of a good partner? What do you think are the markings of a good partner? And, you know, I always like to say is this is your precipice moment. You've gotta decide what do you wanna be when you grow up? And I'll ask that question, what do you wanna be known for? And I had a junior partner say, I wanna be a First Amendment lawyer.I went, all right, how do you do that? Well, I'm gonna win cases. No one's gonna know who you are. And so it's about making that decision. And then being very intentional with every single thing that you're going to do from this point forward to set yourself apart as a whatever type of lawyer it is that you want to be.

And I love what you were talking about. It's not, you know, we as individuals today are just time. Poor lawyers in particular are extremely time poor because they're pulled in about five directions at one time. So yes, we're getting our partners to do it, but I love what you were talking about. This has to be a part of the core competencies as just a part of who you are, a part of being a lawyer. And you start that from day one. I won't lie to you, no first or second year associates gonna really grasp that. They're really focused on just simply how to survive. But starting in about third or fourth year is when you start that core competency of setting yourself apart. But that's one of my favorite questions I get from junior partners: What's the marking of a great senior partner? and you've gotta decide what you wanna be and you've gotta intentionally go after that. And thought leadership, especially today, relevance, timeliness, responding in a way that matches the client's business matters so much in the market. 

Simon: And I like something that Jeff said earlier about, you know, having Passle as a tool to produce really good content and get it out quickly. That may help those lawyers, those junior partners, those first years, who are thinking - 

Meredith: Make it easy. 

Simon: Oh my gosh, I don't want to spend, you know, a year writing for an article. A slow writer. Okay, someone else will, you know, swoop in and take all the credit.I wanna get something out. Now I have something to say. And just in the time in which we live now, things are happening so quickly. If you're writing something, and by the time it gets published, it's a year later, it's stale and no one's gonna read it. And so people are digesting information.

It's like the news cycle. People are digesting information like multiple times within a day. And you know, the only way you can stay relevant and top of mind for clients is producing content, or at least calling them and annoying them all the time. I choose to send a couple Passle posts and let it fly there and let them go.

Jeff: But I also think that, you know, one of the things that I think is also really great about Passle that was really appealing to me about the platform at the very beginning when it was introduced to me was, how conducive it was to doing fairly short content. Because one of the things I always felt was like, these long articles you write I don't wanna read 'em and I can't believe clients wanna read 'em either. And so I keep saying to, you know, in the same way when be short an associate iss answering a client's question by email. I'm like, they don't want this giant thing. They wanna know what the answer is. They wanna know what, what's the action, what, what are the action items are.

Maybe they want some rationale afterwards, but I think that one of the things that's been great about Passle is it really invites people to just say it, say it quickly, get the information out there. And then if they want more information, they can always call you and talk to you about it.

Meredith:  It's consumable.That is what I think the gen, especially the younger leaders in general counsel that we deal with today, give it in bullet points. That's what I need is I need bullet points. And you know, they don't want the 20 page memo any longer. They want the bullet points and Passle is one of those things that makes it really easy for our partners and associates to get that out the door.

Alistair: Yeah. Well I think one of the con to the conversation we're having actually before this, when we're talking about that whole business development element is obviously you're out there, you're meeting people, you're building relationship, obviously Carl, you, you do, financial regulation is not necessarily the most exciting or sexy topic. You don't wanna sit there and tell people -

Carl: Not necessarily.

Alistair: Not necessarily. It depends who you are, but you don't wanna sit in that room and bore people to death. So, as you say, by writing that sort of nice, short, timely content. 

Carl: Absolutely. 

Alistair: You're able to kind of bring some personality to the room and then they can read that and see why you're the expert, but it allows you to sit in the room with somebody and actually build a relationship with them and not bore them.

Carl: Absolutely. I mean, thought leadership is really an opportunity. I mean, yes, it's an opportunity to show people what you know, and that's key. I mean, that's key. Someone's, if you're writing on something and you're wrong, you're not gonna get any new clients. But also thought leadership is an opportunity for you to show your personality.

And sometimes that rings. Well, with clients and with others. I mean, it's something that a lot of law firms are doing. They're writing a lot of content and producing a lot of content. So it's hard in a very competitive legal market to distinguish yourself. And for, you know, for some lawyers it's like, yes, I might have some, you know, knowledge 'cause I worked on a case, or I worked on a deal and there was an issue that was unique, novel. I had to research it. I. Got a good answer, it was the right result. And so I can share that information and distinguish myself. But sometimes if you're writing on an administrative order and you have your take on it, your take might be one of a hundred that a lot of other smart lawyers have.

So it's also an opportunity to show your personality if that wing wins people over. People like I like, you know, this person added a little levity to this financial regulation that otherwise would put me to sleep. Maybe it's a way for them to say, well, I'd like to work with this guy. Because he seems like, you know, he's. He's -

Meredith: He's human. 

Carl: He's human. 

Meredith: Yeah. It rounds you out.

Carl: And he's not gonna answer citing code sections. So, uh, 

Meredith: You still might do that. 

Carl: I still might do that. I like to dazzle them at the end. 

Alistair: Nice. 

Meredith: I like it. But I like what it was going back to earlier, because it also allows you to put out pro bono and other elements that make you a more fulfilled human being and things that really mattered to you and you know that is. You can do that. I love when I get to do personal posts like that, that really show some of the things that I'm passionate about outside of just the practice of law. And that I think, or at least I hope, makes me more personable and people wanna come and work with me. 

Alistair: Yeah. And kind of, we kind of narrowed down a little bit into more the single lawyer, but then therefore that of like the practice groups, et cetera.

Have you, any of you, got any strategies around how you found it sort of most effective to keep content nice and relevant, engaging? I know sort of from your perspective, Simon, you're looking at when we fast started working with you, increasing the presence of some of your practices within the market, you know, leading from the top, from your perspective, was there anything there that you were like, you know what, this is something that we should be doing and these are the reasons why we should be aligning it? To the firm's growth, to the business development of what we're doing. 

Simon: Yeah. I mean, some of it is just such low hanging fruit. So I'm by trade, a commercial litigator. Every time you write a brief, you tell the judge, oh, this is a novel issue, your Honor. No one has ever thought of this, and I've got a fresh take on it that is gonna just change the legal market and change jurisprudence. You just wrote an article, I mean, you can and you can take that. 

Meredith: Yeah.

Simon: And I, this is something that we say to younger attorneys, especially the litigators. It's like, how many briefs did you write this month? How many times in those briefs did you tell the judge this is a novel issue? Okay. I mean, you literally could tell ChatGPT to go find all the novel issues in my brief and put 'em into a small post.

It's just being mindful of realizing those things are out there, like little diamonds in the rough. And if you just get into the habit of saying, I could say something interesting about that, that no one said before, and I can do it in a half an hour. And it's out there and I move on to the next one.

Meredith: Yeah. With a technology day like Passle, it just really allows you to quickly find it. So using some of the AI elements of that, the content exists, we practice every day and the content exists. What we have to get our lawyers really focused on is knowing that the blank screen's not there anymore.

Cause that was when you first started talking to lawyers about thought leadership. Oh my God, I've gotta start from scratch. Ah, blank sheet. No, you don't. It's just so much more consumable today. And I, I love what you just said. I do that today. I'll go say, Hey, ChatGPT, go find all of these things for me, and then I will gladly go and post that from there. You've gotta show them the ease of doing that. And it's just technology that makes it easier today. 

Jeff: I also don't divorce, I just don't divorce the thought leadership from the rest of the person. 

Meredith: Yeah. Mm-hmm. Right. It doesn't.

Jeff: And so to me, if I'm talking to a. Young lawyer, a young partner, anybody at their career, I'm like, what are you interested in?Like, what's the stuff that you wanna spend your days doing? What are the areas? Pick a lane and then write about that. Right? Yep. So I might say to somebody you're really interested in developments in the music industry. Set a alert on Google, for every case that gets developed, every, you know, development that happens there.

And when it happens, write about that because you're gonna read it about these things anyway. So I really try to not sort of talk about. The sort of thought leadership in the abstract, but think about it as this is a part of who you are and what you do and what you're interested in, and once you're doing it, it's really easy then to sort of spit it out and make it a part of what you're saying works.

Carl: I think that's absolutely right. I mean, the best lawyers I know are just intellectually fascinated with the law. What they're passionate about. They're law nerds. Okay. I mean, guilty as charged and they think this stuff is really cool and they're passionate about it, and it's so easy to translate that into something that you can share. So get in the habit of doing it. 

Meredith: Yeah. For us, there's two kinds of strategic elements to it that I'll bring up. One, and, and every firm is different and culturally, you gotta figure out your carrot and your stick. Just to be frank with you. Some things are gonna work well in firms and some will not. Have been at, been at three firms. That all works differently. What I would say is we, when we are doing partner reviews, that's something, it's, it's one of the intangible elements is how have you built your presence. And presence can mean a lot of things. It can be in that thought leadership, it can be with the individuals. How have you grown and connected the dots? And for each one of our partners, they've gotta come up with targets specifically that they're gonna go after. And if you're gonna go after a target, you better know what that target cares about. And you've gotta start distinguishing yourself to that target.

Okay, so that's one element of that. The other thing, you know. We also try to make certain that the leadership within each one of our practice areas and our growth markets in particular. Understand what this can mean to them and trickle that down. So they are building strategies at that practice area, that region market and then you've got the individual that are supporting all of that. But you've gotta connect those dots because Yeah, you can't have a partner going off by themself soon as they've gone off by themself. And that's completely different than what the strategy is. You gotta make certain that everybody's aware of that.

Simon: Well, you reminded me, during this most recent cycle of comp conversations with partners for some of the partners looking at their collections and, you know, their share of, of collections from other partners and having conversations with them about why they're numbers are the same every year. And you know, then, you talk to them about, well, what have you done with thought leadership? What have you done in terms of business development? Have you been writing articles? Have you been, you know, what are you doing? And I think the story is the same for those partners.

They're not engaging, they're not writing articles. They're not, they're, you know, they get pushed to do something. So it's not great work product-

Meredith: Waiting on the phone. 

Simon: Yeah. Waiting on the phone. They're waiting for someone to call. And clients aren't, just saying, oh, I need to call my lawyer just to check in on him or her. You know, that's, that's not how it works. You know, if they see your name on a Passle post or on LinkedIn, they see you're really active. You know, the first thing, the first thing that, I was at a conference in Amsterdam recently. It was a regulatory conference. It was very boring. But Amsterdam was nice. 

I ran into a few people I haven't seen in years. And you know, I saw that great article you wrote. I saw, you know, you are speaking at this event. You know, they're seeing this content. They're seeing a lot of content. People are, you know, consuming content and when they see your name and they see you doing things, it creates an image in their head that. This person's on top of it. They know what they're doing. They're, you know, they're talking about things that I care about. I am gonna call them. And that's when you'll see the change. 

Alistair: And just building up on, on that and the, the general conversation around those growth strategies and how you align it to, um, what you're trying to achieve. Have you got any examples of stories or successes where you've actually gone on to win business, whether that's as individuals or as. Firms, practices, et cetera, that you might be able to share. Jeff, I'm looking at you 'cause I'm actually just gonna share a quick slide-

Jeff: Oh my-

Alistair: Slide to show some of the success that you've had so far in your time creating. So just a sort of emphasis, obviously managing partner, very busy individual, and in the time that you've been using Passle, this is what you've managed to achieve.But if you are open to it and have any stories that you can share, we'd love to hear one or two. 

Jeff: So I would say that, look to me. I always, I'm very focused on the substance, very focused on, what are you interested in? How are you gonna build an expertise and how are you gonna provide value to clients? And so to me that is the first piece of it. And I feel like a lot of the rest of it will follow in terms of brand and marketing and all those kinds of things. And I think that our experience at the firm with our use of Passle and we have several different sorts of subject matter focused parcels. Is that we just get a tremendous amount of response from clients to it and prospective clients. I think that people are, people love it. They use it, they see things that they didn't know about and they call us and they want help. They want help with those issues. New clients come to us and hire us for things because of the stuff that we're writing out there. Like Absolutely.

I mean, it really, every day we get interesting response. I mean, one of the things that I will say that was just a funny story is I was at an event recently and someone came up to me and was like, I just want, you don't know me, but I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, you're famous. 

Carl: You’re a star

Jeff: I love your, I love your blog so much. And I sent it to everybody at my company and I was like, wow. And it really does resonate with people. So yes, I would say absolutely. I think that the sort of the desired marketing effect is. Yeah. Absolutely out there. 

Alistair: So it's probably fair to say you are a bit of an influencer at this stage, especially as you're about to hit a million views, which I love. Well, that's a great campaign. When you get there.

Jeff: We'll see  how long that million views takes. 

Alistair: Yeah, that's great. 

Meredith: It's very fickle. I will say this, you know, I referenced the DEI thought leadership that we do every single week is probably the one of the most consumed pieces of thought leadership that we provide.

The amount of matters. That we have taken on. We don't have enough bodies to throw at the work that we are taking on because of the DEI presence that we've put out there. Uh, and the defense works around that. It's been phenomenal. Uh, and Kelly knows we do not have enough partners at all, uh, or associates to work the amount of work that's coming in the door.

And that's how we got our name out there. It was, alright, we're gonna hit this head on and we're gonna make ourselves known as this, as your critical firm to focus on DEI defense. And it has absolutely worked. 

Alistair: Amazing. 

Simon: Well, I just wanna say that I think one of the hardest jobs in a law firm is the job that most of the people in this audience have.

You're working lawyers. You're trying to tell them what to do, or trying to get them to do something that they might not wanna do. And every now and then you gotta tell them that there are three sentence posts about whatever it was that people were talking about four months ago isn't relevant and you can’t put it on your website. But the amount of value that you bring to our organizations is incredible. I mean, it really is, it's a very hard job. And, I know my team, my dear friend Kate Pier, makes it look easy. And I'm sure you all do the same at your firms, but it's critical and any firm that isn't doing it is just gonna be left behind. 

Meredith: Couldn't agree more. 

Alistair: Carl, were there any stories that you wish to share?

Carl: No, it's just, uh, you know, so in some of the financial markets where I work, they've started a new type of financial contract around sports.Contracts where they, you basically can enter a financial contract and I don't want to use the word take a bet, but you can bet on the Super Bowl or you can. And so this was a very novel area. That’s causing a lot of states to be upset with a number of these exchanges and marketplaces that are offering these contracts.

And my firm and my group helped to start that effort. We were engaged by a client. We figured out a way to get around sort of the, you know, the state issues with state preemption. And then yeah, we work with the regulator. And so the client was very happy, but it has turned into. This boom. And so through posts that we've sent and just talking about the issue and our novel approach and how it's been successful for this one particular client, I've gotten five new engagements to either form an exchange to offer these contracts or to be some sort of intermediary in these new markets.

Alistair: Oh, incredible. Well, I can see we're at time. We've got one question to go, um, and then we'll open up to the audience to see if anybody else wants to contribute. But, um, if there's one key takeaway for the audience to remember about building successful thought leadership programs within their firms, what would that be? Meredith, I'm looking at you to start us off. 

Meredith: Sure. I like to say make a friend. Don't do it alone. You're not a silo. Operationally, make a friend outside of BD that can help you in doing that, and that can mean a lot of different things. It could be a junior partner that you're gonna be with, that's gonna be someone in KM. It could be someone in just general op. Make a friend that is there to support you and that you can work together to come up with a good strategy for that. 

Simon: I think I'm gonna steal a little bit of the thunder from my fellow panelists. I think it's making it an institutional, I don't wanna say lifestyle, but it's, it's being part of sort of the ethos of the firm and an ethos of your practice.

You know, I manage 25 lawyers and I make a point when we meet for, you know, bimonthly meetings to say, okay, how many, you know, articles have you written? I bring in our marketing team to, you know, talk about the success this article had, the spinning hits from these clients. It's really turning it into a cultural thing. I think that that is probably the key to success, I think for thought leadership. My firm at least.

Jeff: Totally agree. I mean, I would say, I would say it has to come from the top, right? You know, Mark comes up with lots of good ideas all the time, but unless the lawyers adopt it and say, I wanna take ownership of this and I wanna make it happen.

And set an example for people. It's never gonna be successful. You know, for me, I think the reason our, you know, our work on Passle has been successful has been, we've said, you know, from the top, like, this is something that's important to us. This is something we believe in. That's something we're putting resources behind and I think it really trickles down.

Alistair: Fantastic. 

Carl: I think the only thing I would add is create a sense of fomo. This is something you want to be able to do. I like, you know, if you're gonna start a Passle program, don't let everybody in, make 'em apply. And then it's like, oh, they're doing it. And then celebrate everything that they do. And then the next thing you know, everyone will want to do this. And so it's, it's just sort of speaking millennial a little bit. 

Alistair: Before we round it off, I know I can eat into a little bit of Connor's time I've been told. So sorry Connor. Any questions from the room? Catherine. 

Catherine (Audience):  Hi. I'd like to ask a question. Meredith knows that I work very closely with litigators and despite being completely bought into the thought leadership program and being a new client of Passle, what of the objections or challenges that I'm facing is gonna be what about conflicts? So I was very curious to hear from the panelists.You know, what are your perspectives? I know what I say. When they say that to me, um, but I'm curious from your experience, what do you say? 

Carl: It's a problem that I run into all the time because sometimes we write posts on enforcement actions against clients of ours. And our clients, we don't want those nasty phone calls.Take that article down. We've even got phone calls from regulators that we like how offensive your content is or critical your content is. It's to, at least with clients, it's really to anonymize the content. So if it's, you know, it's something your clients there, there's some, some of mine as well.

If, if it's like Bank of America is the client and there's some sort of. Less than, positive things that will be said about an enforcement action or something. You could just say a big US bank or a large US bank, you can anonymize that content and still get the information out there. Cause people want to know, I mean, they don't have this, you know, the details of who or what entity it is, but they at least know the decision, what the decision was and why it's important to them as a similar type institution. I think that's the important part of the content. It's. What should I take from this? Less about, oh, it was Bank of America  or versus JP Morgan.

Jeff: I mean, look, I look at this and go, there's an unlimited amount of stuff to be writing about. And, you know, we run a conflict check on everything we post and we consider it. And if there's a conflict, we don't run it. I mean, there might be situations where you can anonymize it in a way that the client won't mind.

Or you incorporate the subject into the next post about another enforcement action where you talk about, it's not the first time they've thought about this issue, but we just, you know, there's things we don't write about every day just because of conflicts. 

Simon: I look at it as an opportunity to teach my younger lawyers how to act like owners.I mean, that's something we preach about. You're a partner, you're an owner, you want to be a partner, act like an owner if you're writing some content. You really ought to be thinking about how this is gonna affect our business? Yeah. And, you know, not put, you know, hypothetically post something that puts the Atlanta Mayor on blast when that's one of our clients.

You should have thought of that. Now, fortunately we caught it, but, um, it's a learning opportunity to say, I want you to think about how this fits within the enterprise and look at it through the eyes of being an owner. And I think that they'll start seeing that earlier than maybe people did before.

Meredith: The only thing I'll add to that, as someone who lives conflicts every single day, um, you've gotta have a process and you gotta be connected to your conflicts process. That's one piece of advice that I would give to you. So for major pieces, you absolutely need to make certain that you're having conversations with your conflict staff. But I think the other big thing is you, everyone across the organization needs to know your stance on issues, because if they're taking a different stance than what the firm is defending against a very large, critical mass of your clients. They're not gonna be happy about that. I don't care if you're a junior associate or not, they're still not gonna be happy about that.

So you have to make certain that your young lawyers, your partners, everyone understands that, okay, if your top five clients are these major tech clients, here's what they care about and here's the type of work we're doing. They need to understand that. And that goes back to general understanding of the organization that you're supporting.

Jeff: We're also pretty careful on that issue as well. I mean, we try to focus more on reporting what has happened and giving people kind of useful tips to deal with it. Then taking a position of what our view is because we are very concerned about the sort of the issue, conflict problem.

Meredith: It's a huge issue for us because we have so many people. It's just problematic with 2000 different viewpoints. And so kind of trying to keep those aligned as much as possible. 

Alistair: Thank you. Any more questions? 

Audience: Question over here please. Question for the panel. Do you look at the readership gate like metrics, you track metrics? And if so, which metrics do you consider to be the most?

Simon: Whichever one my marketing team tells me. 

Alistair: Mic drop. Well, look I must say, I think sometimes a moment's insight is worth a lifetime's experience. So really, really grateful for all of the amazing insights that we've heard today. So thank you very much to Simon, Jeff, Carl, and Meredith.