In case you may be thinking that these conversations are a little one way, and that I am somewhat critical of lawyers, this post looks at it from a somewhat different perspective.
When I was a lawyer, I always tried to understand, so far as I was able, what it was that my clients did. It wasn't necessarily that easy. In the latter part of the 1980s I had two very demanding clients. The first was a large book manufacturer. Understanding their processes and business wasn't that difficult, although I still puzzle my children when I refer to books being case bound. The other was a software house, writing bespoke programs for main frames. This was much more of a challenge. I had learnt some coding in the late 1960s (don't ask), but that had long left me and I struggled to make sense of what exactly they did. They remained a client, but not mine.
Understanding what a client does, how their business operates, what their challenges and their opportunities are - essentially what makes them tick - is for most lawyers an integral part of acting for that client. And if it isn't, it should be.
And so it must be for marketers acting for or employed in law firms. For without that understanding, how can you market the firm and its services?
And yet I have come across people in marketing and communications, both working inside and outside law firms, who don't have this understanding, and who remain incurious about the firm - they will learn about the service offering but leave it at that.
I don't think that that is enough. One of the reasons for starting my consultancy is to help lawyers and marketers understand each other - and the place to start from is what makes them tick.
And I couldn't resist this photo. One of my daughters is Marketing Lead at a large London hospital - and here she is, in scrubs, getting to understand what makes cardiac surgeons tick.
