In recent months, we’ve noted an increase in AmLaw 200 firms recruiting new Chief Marketing Officers (or equivalent titles) from outside the profession, and particularly from the accounting firms. According to our comprehensive listing of CMO recruiting efforts, no less than seven of 19 new hires at the CMO level since January 2019 have come from outside the legal profession, including 3 from the Big 4 (Dentons, Littler Mendelson, and Winstead). Moreover, we have heard that two large firms conducting current searches are focused primarily on candidates outside the legal profession, with a preference for the Big 4.
This is not a new phenomenon. In the early 2000s, when firms began to focus on business development distinct from marketing, there was a spike in hiring from the major accounting and consulting firms. At that time, the accounting firms had already build business development teams to supplement the efforts of partners and other direct service providers. So firms hired many top business development professionals outside the profession.
That trend seemed to slow down in the forthcoming years, as word filtered down that several of these professionals had trouble making the jump to the legal industry.
There have been several explanations offered for the renewed interest in alternative CMO candidates. One is the somewhat cynical view that law firms continue to look for a magic bullet that will provide immediate revenue gains (outside of lateral partner hiring, which is itself a bit of a magic bullet). Thus, the argument goes, marketing and business development professionals coming out of the Big 4 and other large consulting firms, can initiate and implement novel strategies that can produce more tangible results.
But another more significant trend may be at play. The Big 4 are already competing with law firms outside the U.S., and competition in the U.S. is on the horizon. Given that, why not recruit the best and brightest marketing and business development strategists from that universe? Moreover, firms have accelerated their efforts to fine new lines of business outside the strict definition of the practice of law. For the last few years, firms like Epstein Becker & Green and McDermott Will have built consulting arms focused on health care regulatory issues such as insurance reimbursement of Medicare, Medicaid, and Affordable Care act costs. And just in the last year, there have been a number of new subsidiaries focused on nonlegal issues, such as Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner’s BCLP Cubed, providing high-volume work and legal operations consulting; Wilson Sonsini’s legal automation platform (SixFifty); Eversheds Sutherland’s legal consulting and staffing firm (Konexo); and Greenberg Traurig’s shared solutions platform (Recurve).
So as firms build these new lines of business, they could very well take advantage of marketing and business development professionals who have experience marketing these types of services.
However, they still will face challenges adapting to the legal industry. “CMOs coming from a Big 4 or consulting background can definitely bring fresh thinking to a law firm, but they have the added learning curve of adjusting to a law firm culture that is often radically different from where they came,” according to J. David Harvey, senior consultant with the LawVision Group and a former high-level marketing and business development officer at a number of AmLaw 100 firms. “Navigating the politics, adapting to the culture, and surviving long enough to effectuate change is a rare skill.”
The continued blending of legal, quasi-legal, and nonlegal services is inevitable. Thus it is only natural that law firms, particularly large multinational firms, consider professionals who have experience more in line with the legal world of the future.
Steve Nelson is an executive principal at The McCormick Group, an executive search firm based in Arlington, Va. Steve conducts partner-level searches, searches for in-house counsel, and searches for administrative professionals for law firms. In addition, he serves as a consultant for law firm merger planning, practice area expansion, and in recruiting strategy. Steve is a former attorney with 17 years in legal journalism and publishing and is a Fellow of the College of Law Practice Management. Follow him @SKNLegal.
