Law Firm Mergers Are Growing, Again!

What Marketers Can Do

First and foremost, the head of marketing must make every effort to become a member of your firm's integration team. Once accomplishing that, I suggest you appoint yourself the quarterback of the initiative, and make sure that the new laterals get the guidance and support beyond the barrage of publicity and routine e-mails before they are sent on their way to “grow the business.” Consider these general steps:

• Draft a comprehensive and dynamic plan based on strategic firm and market goals;
• Make the introductions to lawyers with complementary practices;
• Make the introductions to practice area leaders and all office managing partners;
• Arrange and facilitate meetings with all key internal people;
• Recommend and assign a mentor as appropriate; and
• Assign key marketing/business development personnel to set regular meetings with laterals and review progress.

On a more specific level, successful integration programs follow detailed checklists provided to all of the integration team members, including the timing, complete description of the task and the identity of the responsible department and/or person. The “quarterback” owns this document and is responsible for its execution. Some highlights of such a checklist might include:

A. Once management approves the lateral, key personnel get a heads-up e-mail identifying the new attorney, start date, etc.

B. Upon completion of the conflicts check, that report should be distributed to the hiring partner, the integration team and other key personnel.

C. Once the offer is accepted, all key people should be notified and all human resources documentation completed.

D. Prior to start date, the marketing department should pre-
pare all of the communications including press release, bio, website visibility, directory and resource guide listings, etc., all with complete contact information.

E. Confirm the lateral's technology needs, arrange for IT and all other appropriate training.

F. On the lateral's first day, a welcoming e-mail is distributed to the entire firm; follow up with other departments, assuring that the lateral will be introduced to all the support provided by the firm.

G. Within the first weeks, begin scheduling internal meetings with other partners to identify mutual needs of clients, and start the research necessary to get new assignments regarding clients from both new and existing attorneys.

A Winning Formula

Admittedly, lateral integration is an extremely difficult journey to travel for all: the firm and its partners, the administrative staff and the clients. However, the winning formula must start with all parties taking equal responsibility for the integration to be successful. The firm needs to provide the best possible platform, engaging leadership to offer the widest range of opportunities for the new lateral. The lateral needs to take a greater responsibility and accept strategies and tactics offered by the firm to maximize the benefits of her new relationship. And since cross-selling, meeting and greeting clients and prospects, introduction to key internal people and departments, and most important a “stick-to-it-ive-ness” on everybody's part are the keys to success, the role of the legal marketers is huge.

We ' marketing and business development law firm executives ' have an extremely broad and deep knowledge about the law firm, and are positioned to provide invaluable service and support to the laterals as well as the incumbents during the integration process. We can, and must, positively affect and lead our firms to engage a proper and effective lateral integration.

Bob Gero, principal of The Gero Group in Plymouth Meeting, PA, is a strategic business development, marketing communications and public relations consultant to professional service firms. He may be reached at [email protected], and 610-818-4619.

As you may have read in a recent edition of The AmLawDaily, legal consultancy Altman Weil reported that our industry most likely will surpass the record 70 mergers reached in 2008. There are a variety of reasons driving this activity; however, regardless of which one or ones apply to your firm's influx of laterals, legal marketers can play an integral role in the new attorneys' success.

By contrast, failure to work with firm management at the outset to effect successful integration practices can more often than not result in laterals leaving. Although the statistics vary from study to study, as many as 45% of those new laterals leave the firm between three and five years. And as expected, that turnover statistic supports concern over the integration processes in place after the marriage.

Obviously, there are no guarantees of success, regardless of how thoroughly both sides carry out their due diligence. Yet, we legal marketers can play an important role in the entire process, beginning as early as possible. Ideally, the top business development executive in the firm will be a member of the lateral acquisition/search team (and there are a handful who now have that seat), thereby putting the integration process in gear right from the start. For the majority of legal marketing practitioners, your team and you will learn of the new attorneys after board or management approval and the attorneys' acceptance.

What Marketers Can Do

First and foremost, the head of marketing must make every effort to become a member of your firm's integration team. Once accomplishing that, I suggest you appoint yourself the quarterback of the initiative, and make sure that the new laterals get the guidance and support beyond the barrage of publicity and routine e-mails before they are sent on their way to “grow the business.” Consider these general steps:

• Draft a comprehensive and dynamic plan based on strategic firm and market goals;
• Make the introductions to lawyers with complementary practices;
• Make the introductions to practice area leaders and all office managing partners;
• Arrange and facilitate meetings with all key internal people;
• Recommend and assign a mentor as appropriate; and
• Assign key marketing/business development personnel to set regular meetings with laterals and review progress.

On a more specific level, successful integration programs follow detailed checklists provided to all of the integration team members, including the timing, complete description of the task and the identity of the responsible department and/or person. The “quarterback” owns this document and is responsible for its execution. Some highlights of such a checklist might include:

A. Once management approves the lateral, key personnel get a heads-up e-mail identifying the new attorney, start date, etc.

B. Upon completion of the conflicts check, that report should be distributed to the hiring partner, the integration team and other key personnel.

C. Once the offer is accepted, all key people should be notified and all human resources documentation completed.

D. Prior to start date, the marketing department should pre-
pare all of the communications including press release, bio, website visibility, directory and resource guide listings, etc., all with complete contact information.

E. Confirm the lateral's technology needs, arrange for IT and all other appropriate training.

F. On the lateral's first day, a welcoming e-mail is distributed to the entire firm; follow up with other departments, assuring that the lateral will be introduced to all the support provided by the firm.

G. Within the first weeks, begin scheduling internal meetings with other partners to identify mutual needs of clients, and start the research necessary to get new assignments regarding clients from both new and existing attorneys.

A Winning Formula

Admittedly, lateral integration is an extremely difficult journey to travel for all: the firm and its partners, the administrative staff and the clients. However, the winning formula must start with all parties taking equal responsibility for the integration to be successful. The firm needs to provide the best possible platform, engaging leadership to offer the widest range of opportunities for the new lateral. The lateral needs to take a greater responsibility and accept strategies and tactics offered by the firm to maximize the benefits of her new relationship. And since cross-selling, meeting and greeting clients and prospects, introduction to key internal people and departments, and most important a “stick-to-it-ive-ness” on everybody's part are the keys to success, the role of the legal marketers is huge.

We ' marketing and business development law firm executives ' have an extremely broad and deep knowledge about the law firm, and are positioned to provide invaluable service and support to the laterals as well as the incumbents during the integration process. We can, and must, positively affect and lead our firms to engage a proper and effective lateral integration.

Bob Gero, principal of The Gero Group in Plymouth Meeting, PA, is a strategic business development, marketing communications and public relations consultant to professional service firms. He may be reached at [email protected], and 610-818-4619.