Thought Leadership: An Underutilized Tool in an Impactful Business Development Strategy

Shannon Duffy Lombardo drives strategy for business development initiatives firmwide at Saul Ewing. As director of business development, she strives for growth in lateral attorney integration, attorney training, and other initiatives, and find that thought leadership helps effectively showcase a firm’s capabilities to a curated audience.

Lombardo advises that bylined articles, tip sheets, blog entries, and speaking engagements provide mentorship opportunities for younger attorneys and seasoned attorneys to collaborate at the firm. Often, Lombardo finds that attorneys struggle to find the time to develop writing or speaking opportunities or figure out where to start.

“Direct invitations to meaningfully contribute thought leadership to and in forums ripe for business development don’t typically find their way to attorney inboxes on a regular cadence,” Lombardo writes. One of the methods she mentions includes consultants GrowthPlay’s “Dream Out Loud” mentality, which encourages people to share “hopes and dreams and goals” with their network. If someone wants to become a thought leader in their industry, they could talk to colleagues, business managers or law school alumni about possible opportunities. 

In that same line of thought, Lombardo also advocates that attorneys “practice proactivity” and pursue quick meetings with professionals instead of a formal call for proposals. The worst that could happen is that you make a new contact that may help with building your brand down the line.

Are you interested in learning more about thought leadership?  Read more in this law.com article.