Legal marketing: a young, rapidly growing industry

26 February 2019

Legal marketing has been deeply changing in the last few years. Some insights from MOPI, the Italian association of marketing, communication and business development professionals from major domestic and international law firms.

Since its foundation, MOPI encourages networking among legal professionals and got credible in the industry by organising events and trainings, also collaborating with authoritative bodies such as the International Chamber of Commerce – ICC for dedicated upskilling programs.

Every year MOPI launches a survey to investigate the state of marketing and communication in law businesses. The most recent edition was unveiled at the end of 2018 and underlined the need of both large and small law firms to recruit talents to develop continuous and structured marketing plans. Greater internal engagement and teamwork are also among their priorities.

Large companies are surely trailblazers, having in-house staff and in some cases outsourcing media relations, visual creativity and brochures to external agencies. Some have internal teams with more than 10 employees, but the average marketing, communication and new business department employs from 4 to 6 people. It’s still hard for professionals to have budget autonomy, an essential criterion for the formal acknowledgement of the department itself.

Why is legal marketing such attractive? It’s a young market for communication people, with a significant growth potential. Job deregulation allowed law firms to communicate as well as other private businesses. Decree law Bersani 223/2006 is considered a turning point in Italy, as it deposed most of the bonds for legal publicity. Some limits still remain, and they should be accurately respected.

Communication professionals willing to address law firms should pay attention. Legal marketing is to be handled with care. You need to get familiar with legal affairs to prevent blunders and clumsy mistakes, learn how attorneys work, how the firm is organised, how to manage the tangles of legal ethics. Being aware of dos and don’ts allows to share the same language code of law people, thus being trusted when suggesting a communication strategy.

Digital marketing is a great opportunity. There isn’t a one-for-all recipe, but results are encouraging for those who work with determination and perseverance. It’s fundamental to set clear goals, and define an integrated marketing plan triggering as many channels as possible. Beside managing PR and events, international legal directories, presentations and pitches (less than 29% of communication employees are allowed to attend customer-facing briefings), legal marketers should deal with social media.

An interesting option for an industry where most of the business is related to a strong reputation. Law firms using social media grew from 69% in 2015 to 92% in 2018. The website used to be a must-have, a sort of digital business card, but nowadays it is nothing more than a commodity to create web reputation. Social networks are dominating legal marketing (LinkedIN, but also Facebook, Instagram and more, according to specific activity areas and the opportunity to be there), and they require ad hoc editorial plans and content marketing. Digital success for law firms comes from the affinity of legal professionals’ objectives and social communication: improve visibility, reputation and personal branding.

A correlation that some industry pioneers have already noticed, with the rise of some legal influencers. Some new stars are born.