At the 31st Annual Marketing Partner Forum held by the Thomson Reuters Institute in January 2024, legal professionals gathered at the prestigious venue of The Ritz-Carlton, Amelia Island, for three days of intensive learning and networking. The event addressed the pressing issues of law firm profitability and client development in the ever-evolving legal services market.

One of the highly anticipated sessions, "Journey of A Thousand Miles: The State of Legal Marketing & Business Development Profession," was led by distinguished speakers Silvia L. Coulter, Principal and Business Development Practice Leader at LawVision Group, LLC, and Brent Turner, Director of Advisory Services at Thomson Reuters. 

Together, they delved into the challenges and opportunities shaping the legal landscape, drawing upon insights from the Thomson Reuters Institute survey on the State of the US Legal Market in 2024, downloadable here.

Key highlights from the report

The top challenges facing CMO's were lack of lawyer engagement, lack of resources and lack of technology. These challenges are linked and show why more firms are looking to their tech stack to provide more efficiencies, better results and a clearer picture to the firm of the value marketing brings.

When it came to the most effective marketing activities, Thought Leadership, Social and Web Strategy made up the top 3 most effective. 55% of survey respondents felt that Thought Leadership had the single greatest impact on their marketing strategy.

The survey also explored the measurement of marketing effectiveness, showing that existing client business and top-of-funnel Marketing & BD metrics such as RFPs were most prominent. This may be due to the ease of accurate measurement rather than the importance of those metrics.

Investment in marketing continued to be a focus for firms, second only to investments in the practice itself. We continue to see challenges with securing talent as the third most invested area.

As legal professionals navigate through the complexities of an ever-changing industry landscape, sessions like these at the Annual Marketing Partner Forum served as invaluable platforms for knowledge sharing and strategic insights, empowering attendees to stay ahead in their professional journeys.

The Thomson Reuters Institute survey on the State of the US Legal Market in 2024 is available to download here.