Legal sales and marketing still is a young and maturing field. Although a 1977 Supreme Court decision (Bates v. State Bar of Arizona) opened the door for law firms to market their services as other businesses do, it took nearly two decades for the legal marketing to begin in earnest.
Womble Bond Dickinson Chief Marketing & Client Service Officer Steve Bell was one of the pioneers who sparked this revolution. McGuire Woods Chief Marketing and Business Development Officer Joe Calve takes an expansive look at the evolution of legal sales and marketing in a new AmLaw article and mentions Bell’s contributions.
“Client-focused professionals are raising the bar. Not long ago, you could count the industry’s sales pros on one hand—nay, one finger: Steve Bell of Womble, the self-styled Neil Armstrong of law-firm sales,” Calve writes. “Now you need both hands and your toes.”
In 2014, the Legal Marketing Association Capital Chapter inducted Bell into its Hall of Fame for his contributions to the profession.
Click here to read “The Business Development Dilemma: Do Firms Get What They Pay For?” in The American Lawyer.