This article provides the best practices that have held up across three decades, the four facts that explain why they work, and the few things that genuinely are different now.
September 01, 2026Julie Savarino
Many firms still involve marketing only after key AI decisions have been made, when leadership needs a press release, website copy or new language for an RFP. By then, the CMO isn’t shaping the firm’s AI strategy; they are narrating it. That’s a missed business opportunity, and the window is closing fast.
September 01, 2026Jennifer Simpson Carr and Maria AronsonA partner asking for a deck is not asking for a deck. They are trying to solve a problem they may not have articulated, sometimes not even to themselves. Your job is not to fill their hands. It is to help them win. Those are different objectives, and confusing them is why so much pitch output is generic, forgettable and ignored.
September 01, 2026Mike MellorLaw firms often think of brand messaging as the language on the current website or in the latest pitch deck. Prospective clients, recruits, journalists, search engines and AI systems don’t see such neat boundaries. They see what’s available. Your newest message is always competing with your oldest accessible content.
September 01, 2026Cindy Kremer MoenThe work a law firm does to understand its AI exposure, readiness, and strategic opportunities should not remain an internal exercise. It can — and should — inform how the firm competes, governs and differentiates itself, and plans for the future. As it happens, clients really do care about those things.
September 01, 2026Catherine Alman MacDonaghLaw firms are racing for position in the new world of answer engine optimization (AEO) and AI-generated search. One of the most important tools in that race is something many law firm marketers may not have heard of: schema. Schema is standardized code added to a website to help search engines and AI systems understand what the information on a page means and how it relates to information elsewhere on the site.
September 01, 2026Brian AlfordMost attorney business plans fail before they’re written. They fail in the design of the exercise: a blank template, a submission deadline, and an instruction to describe goals for the coming year. Nine months later, the plan is a forgotten file on a shared drive, and marketing is drafting the same template for next year’s cycle. AEIOU (Audit, Embed Experience, Act Intentionally, Originate, Utilize) is a five-part alternative built around that sequencing. It replaces the blank page with five decisions an attorney can make in a single working session.
August 01, 2026Mike MellorAI may be transforming the way legal work gets done, but it hasn’t changed the fundamentals of business development and legal marketing. Clients still choose firms they trust. The firms that stand out won’t simply be the ones using the newest AI features; they'll be the ones that communicate those features honestly, demonstrate them consistently and prove, over time, that they're worthy of the confidence their clients place in them.
August 01, 2026Tanya AmyoteThe experience database sits among the highest-value assets in law firm marketing and business development. It has become increasingly important, and is now also critical for firm visibility and has moved from optional infrastructure to a foundational competitive requirement.
August 01, 2026Beth Huffman and Dave PostonIn an industry where AI promises are multiplying faster than firms can evaluate them, where the noise level has never been higher and the skepticism has never been more warranted, the vendors who will win the next decade are not necessarily the ones with the most sophisticated technology. Technology might get you invited to the conversation. Trust is what earns you a seat at the table.
August 01, 2026Doreen Kaminsky
