Through the lens of law firm leaders, Jeff Greenbaum, Managing Partner at Frankfurt Kurnit Klein & Selz, Meredith Williams-Range, Chief Legal Operating Officer at Gibson Dunn, Carl Kennedy, Partner and Co-Chair at Katten and Simon Malko, Managing Partner at Morris, Manning & Martin this session delves into how they’ve built strong thought leadership cultures that drive visibility, business development, and measurable growth. 

Gain practical strategies to engage lawyers, align content with strategic goals, and sustain a long-term competitive edge in this exclusive panel discussion from CMO Series Live 2025. 

Key takeaways:

Creating a Culture where Lawyers Consistently Contribute Thought Leadership
The panelists described thought leadership not just as a marketing tactic, but as a "leadership strategy". Carl notes that engaging younger attorneys is crucial, as they are "thirsty to be engaged" and by “engaging them early... they can become experts early”. 

Thought leadership "has to be a part of the core competencies as a part of being a lawyer". Jeff emphasizes that creating content “should be a part of what you do from day one”, and highlighted the importance of "example setting" from leadership. 

The panel acknowledges the challenge of finding time for busy lawyers, but suggested that technology can help. Meredith shares that she uses AI to "find all of these things for me" which makes it easier to post. Jeff adds that the best lawyers are "intellectually fascinated with the law... and they're passionate about it, and it's so easy to translate that into something that you can share".

Align Content Creation with Business Development Goals to Drive Growth
Thought leadership is seen as crucial for firms to "elevate the firm's visibility," "fuel real business development," and "fundamentally build that long-term competitive edge".

Carl shares that thought leadership is "the only way to get in front of an audience of people and show them what it is that you can do and what you know". 

Jeff notes that clients "are coming to us because we're experts", and that "pushing out content to them that is highly relevant and that is topical and that is current" provides value, "leads to additional engagement," and ultimately results in a "tremendous amount of response from clients... and prospective clients". He says, "new clients come to us and hire us for things because of the stuff that we're writing out there". 

Strategies for Sustaining a Strong and Engaging Online Presence
Thought leadership is an opportunity "to show your personality" and to distinguish yourself in a "very competitive legal market". Jeff points out the benefit of platforms like Passle for "doing fairly short content," allowing lawyers to "just say it quickly and get the information out there".

Meredith stresses the importance of "relevance and timeliness, responding in a way that matches the client's business". She also notes that clients today prefer "bullet points" over "20-page memos". She advocates for leveraging existing work, suggesting that lawyers can easily transform a "novel issue" identified in a brief into a short article or post. 

The panel also advises aligning content creation with individual lawyer interests: "What are you interested in, like what's the stuff that you want to spend your days doing? Pick a lane and then write about that". This makes content creation a more organic and sustainable activity.