Law Firm Marketing and Business Development

AI 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.

The 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.

In 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.

If you want to survive in the wild, wild west of the legal industry, especially the personal injury sector, an effective intake department is table stakes. Here are five best practices for law firm intake based on lessons learned from building ours and from observing how other high-performing firms have operated theirs.

Before the next CRM or AI investment, answer three questions honestly: Where does its data come from? How does it stay current without asking attorneys to maintain it? And what happens to our relationship intelligence when a partner walks out the door?

AI-assisted discovery isn’t displacing relationships, referrals or reputation. What it is doing is becoming the context in which all of those things get their first airing. Increasingly, the question a prospective client asks an AI tool is the question your reputation has to answer before you ever enter the room.

Original research on how ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Gemini decide which legal tech vendors to recommend — and what to do about it.

Law firms are exposed to the AI disruption in a particular way, because the traditional pyramid depends on that volume of work to develop associates, generate origination credit, and sustain the economics of the partnership model. This creates an urgent question for firm leaders: if the base of the pyramid starts to erode, what is left? And who is prepared for what comes next?