LMA Boston’s “Hear From the Lawyers” panel, moderated by Jenna Fraser (Barnes & Thornburg) with the Partners Laurie Berlingame (Morse) and Ryan McCarthy (Latham and Watkins), offered a clear view of what attorneys find most useful from marketing and business development teams. The focus was on collaboration, evolving client expectations, and what keeps client growth moving when lawyers are busy.

A few takeaways are worth carrying back to day-to-day work:

1. Proactivity earns credibility - Both speakers described their best BD and marketing partners as people who move first. That means understanding the practice, bringing relevant intel early and being able to consistently follow-through on ideas and initiatives prevents the pipeline from going cold.

For me, the most helpful thing that someone on our marketing team is doing is wanting to really understand what we’re selling, really understand what we’re good at and maybe what we’re not as good at. (Ryan McCarthy)

2. Enablement has to fit the lawyer - Jenna’s questioning highlighted that there is no single BD style that works for everyone. Laurie’s approach is built around smaller, personal formats like roundtables, webinars, and writing. Ryan’s approach leans on longer-arc relationship building and repeat contact. The shared message is simple: Tactics work when they match how the lawyer actually operates.

Do what you’re good at… people will say go to this huge conference and hand out 10 business cards. I’ve done that, I’m not really good at that, I don’t love going to big events. I’ve found smaller things like roundtables with clients work much better for me. (Laurie Berlingame)

3) Client intelligence powers both credibility and cross-selling - Firms lose trust when they show up under-prepared to clients or fragmented internally. The same discipline fixes both. Strong relationship mapping, clear internal awareness and trust, and timely client context help lawyers walk into meetings with a real angle and a clear view of where other teams can add value. With clients leaning back into in-person time and expecting deeper industry fluency, the quality of your intel is part of the client experience.

If I’m going in — even if I’m going to play golf — I want to understand what else they’re doing other than my work practice areas… what their portfolio companies are doing… so that we can cross-sell. (Ryan McCarthy)

Overall, the panel was a reminder that strong lawyer-marketer collaboration is still built on the same fundamentals: be proactive, be close enough to the practice to bring useful insight early, and shape BD around how each lawyer actually succeeds. What felt especially important in this conversation is how those basics connect directly to cross selling. Cross selling is not a separate initiative; it is the natural outcome of good client intelligence, relationship mapping, and internal coordination that help lawyers see the wider opportunity and bring in the right colleagues at the right moment. When marketing and BD own that connective work, firms show up more informed, more unified, and more valuable to clients, and growth follows in a way that feels coherent rather than forced.