Jennifer Simpson Carr presented at the Legal Marketing Association’s 2018 Mid-Atlantic Regional Conference. Strategic planning is a discipline and a leadership process. It functions to help organizations figure out where they want to go and how to get there. It is a tool for achieving change. It is an exercise that builds teamwork. It is a system that supports leadership. It is a process that leads to goal-setting. And it is a method for achieving results. For marketing and business development professionals it can mean the difference between random acts of marketing and having a clear set of strategic priorities to focus on whether at the practice, sector, office, or firm level.

Marketing and business development professionals in law firms can be the linchpins to a successful planning process. They have the combination of skills, attributes, and experience to play a critical role in the planning process for their practice groups, industry teams, and offices. They have:

• access to data and the analytical skills to gather and process the necessary information,
• the project management skills and tenacity to drive the process to completion,
• the interpersonal skills to bring the right people together to create the plan and to keep them at the table, and
• the drive for results necessary to get the plan implemented.

This program helps them put those competencies to work to build effective strategic business plans at their firms.