At this year’s Law Firm Marketing Summit, a standout session, “BDM Unleashed: The Bold Future of Law Firm Growth”, saw Barbara Koenen-Geerdink, joined by Charlotte Ford, Hannah Callaghan, and Sadie Baron, challenge one of the industry’s deepest assumptions: that business development and marketing professionals exist to support lawyers. Their message was clear: BDMs are not “non-lawyers,” they are growth leaders shaping the future of the business of law.

Barbara opened with a provocative question: What if young people grew up saying they wanted to be a law firm marketer or business development professional? Her own journey, from law firm receptionist to CMO, embodied the transformation she called for: moving from reactive support to strategic leadership. Her mission through BOOST, the professional community she co-founded, is to make law firm business development a profession of choice, not a back-office function.

The panel explored what that bold future looks like in practice. Charlotte Ford described creating her own role, Head of International Relationships, by identifying a strategic gap and building a coalition around it. Her advice was to not wait for permission, but instead to demonstrate how your ideas deliver commercial outcomes. She also urged firms to professionalise BD career paths through academies and structured learning, mirroring the development pipelines long-established for lawyers. The next generation of BDMs, she said, must blend strategy, data, and global relationship management.

Hannah Callaghan focused on client-facing impact. Sitting in front of clients, she explained, gives BDMs a unique vantage point, one that captures the nuances lawyers often miss. “Clients are used to having account managers,” she noted, “and we should be that for our firms.” Her philosophy involved inviting yourself into the room. Proximity builds credibility, and credibility builds influence. By translating client feedback into strategy, BD teams become the firm’s voice of the client, not just its pitch machine.

Sadie Baron looked to 2030 and beyond. She predicted that traditional BD titles will disappear, replaced by roles like Content Technologist or Client Loyalty Director, specialists who bridge insight, creativity, and technology to deliver measurable client value. “We need to own our space,” she said. “Lawyers think they can all ‘do BD’, but when we define our expertise in data, loyalty, and growth, they stop and listen.”

Together, the panel issued a call to arms: rebrand, retrain, and reimagine. Rebrand your function around client growth, not activity. Retrain teams in data, tech, and client engagement. Reimagine BDM as the engine room of firm growth, not the maintenance department.

As Barbara summed up: “We are not cost centres or non-lawyers — we are growth enablers.”

In this bold future, business development isn’t unleashed from the firm; it’s unleashed for it.