Written by Daniela Spiro

A common challenge I often hear about when speaking with in-house legal marketers is the difficulties they have communicating with legal departments regarding submissions. It can sometimes be hard to get approval for a submission, even for a simple edit, when it has to change hands so many times and get final approval from a very busy partner.

Therefore, to help all of you frustrated legal marketers, I have made a list of tips to improve communication with legal departments so the submissions process can run a bit more smoothly.

1. Why submit in the first place?

Partners usually don’t have much time to edit submissions, and many do not understand the importance of being ranked by legal directories. Setting up a meeting to discuss which legal directories they will be submitting for, their rankings in those directories and realistic goals for the upcoming year can help them prioritize the submissions so that they may take some time out of their busy schedules to work on them.

2. Get Organized!

Benjamin Franklin put it best when he said “by failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.” Therefore, be sure to discuss with departments beforehand exactly what the submission requires, including practice area definitions and what each lawyer will need to contribute. Moreover, you should predetermine which partners will be put forward for rankings beforehand to prevent future roadblocks caused by office politics. Lastly, ask the partners what major changes have taken place over the last year so they can be included in the submission before the partners begin editing.

3. Send the submission draft a month ahead of the deadline.

This will ensure that you can set reasonable internal deadlines for the department and edit the submission one more time before sending it back to the partners for final approval.

4. Keep emails short and to the point

There is no need to make the partners feel like working on a submission is harder than it is, especially if all they need to do is make minor updates. Making the work appear to be more manageable will usually help them to hop to it!

5. It never hurts to pick up the phone

If partners are not responding to your emails, don’t be shy to text, call, or better yet, go to their office and check on the status of the submission. Attorneys are busy and can sometimes forget about submissions amid their other work, so popping in can remind them that these rankings are important and hopefully make it next on their to-do list.

6. It helps to delegate

When you are dealing with many submissions, it may get complicated and confusing to deal with multiple departments, secretaries and lawyers. This is why I oftentimes recommend electing an associate or intern as a point of contact for a department. This way, someone who knows and has greater access to the partners can take an active role in pushing the submission forward.

7. Hire a legal marketing company

All of this may sound daunting, and that’s because it is. Hiring a legal marketing company can help take some of the load off stressed and overworked in-house marketing teams by helping them establish a clear strategy, draft and edit submissions, as well as set internal deadlines to keep you on track.

For more information regarding legal marketing assistance, please refer to the Tier One website: https://tieronerankings.com/