One of the first panels I sat in on at the 2026 LMA Northeast Regional Conference this week was: The Future of Business Development in Law Firms: What’s Changing, What’s Working, and What’s Next? The session was moderated by veteran legal marketing & business development professional, Deborah Scaringi of Scaringi Marketing along with three Chief Marketing and Business Development Officers:  

• Michelle Friends - Hanson Bridgett
• Andrew Laver - Porzio Bromberg & Newman
• Kelly MacKinnon - Gibson Dunn

What's changing?

Avoiding the cliché, all-encompassing “AI” answer, Kelly and Andrew talked about how much more valued and sophisticated the business development function has become since they started in the industry. Partners are more willing to spend time and energy on BD than they used to be, although they still need coaching, and firms are starting to recognize what AI can and cannot do in this process.

Michelle reflected at what she has seen since the pandemic. Many younger lawyers went through law school largely online and are now falling behind on foundational interpersonal BD skills. Firms need to go back to basics with BD training: how to work a room at a conference, how to join and keep a conversation going, and when to show up in person.

What’s working

In-person events. Building on her point about post-pandemic BD, Michelle described a shift away from virtual programming toward thoughtful, inclusive events that clients actually get value from. A recent event she hosted in downtown Los Angeles filled all 50 seats with a waiting list, and nearly everything she took away from it turned into another in-person opportunity. A webinar, by comparison, ends with the follow-up email. The panel’s advice for client events was simple: ask clients what they want instead of guessing.

AI is working too, as a support. Kelly called it a jetpack for BD professionals. One workflow that reformats her daily pitch email has given her back 45 minutes a day, and Michelle uses AI to build attendee briefing books that surface shared interests before events.

What's Next?

Kelly’s investment priorities are people at every level, technology, and clean data, because AI built on bad data gives bad answers. She also wants firms to rethink thought leadership, which too often runs long and stale for clients with little time to read it. On hiring, she looks for judgment, analytical thinking, and curiosity, and ends every interview by asking candidates what they do for fun.

The common thread was that technology should take the busywork off BD teams so they can spend more time on the human work clients remember.