1. 22 STRATEGIES / THE JOURNAL OF LEGAL MARKETING ◾ NOVEMBER / DECEMBER 2015
within a particular profession and outlines
the associated competencies and skill sets
required for professionals to be successful
in those areas. BOKs develop and change
over time and grow with the organization
and the profession.
To develop a BOK, an association gener-
ally reaches out to experts and leaders in
the industry to contribute their expertise
and experience.
BOK, LMA-Style
In launching its BOK initiative, LMA wanted
to ensure its continual development and
delivery of learning opportunities and its
position as the industry’s trusted resource
for professional development. To that
end, the board reached out to a broad
cross-section of association members to
solicit their participation in the Educational
Advisory Council (EAC). The EAC drives the
BOK initiative has collaborated for most of
2015 to develop comprehensive content
for it. As it is an ongoing initiative that will
evolve and grow with the profession, EAC
participants will be appointed on an annual
basis to strategize, guide best practices
and serve as ambassadors.
“The results of this project will be a mas-
ter blueprint of essential learning that we
can provide to our members as a resource,”
says Amatangelo, who has shepherded the
EAC through the BOK development pro-
cess. One of the first steps the EAC took
was to identify the key domains in the legal
marketing profession:
• Business Development drives
new business and increased
revenue for the law firm, both
directly and indirectly, through client
and prospect outreach, attorney
coaching and mentoring, and market
intelligence.
• Business of Law includes under-
standing the legal profession, evalu-
ating firm financial and operational
performance, building strategies to
leverage market opportunities and
implementing practices that maxi-
mize performance.
• Marketing Management and
Leadership establishes and effec-
tively manages a highly functioning
marketing organization through
people and processes that foster
collaboration and drive overall busi-
ness objectives.
• Client Services consists of the
techniques, processes and standards
by which law firms’ professional staff
serve the lawyers in the firm and the
clients of the firm, including the dis-
ciplines of project management and
process improvement.
• Communications entails develop-
ing and implementing internal and
external messaging strategies to
broaden the impact of the firm’s
programs and brand position.
• Technology Management includes
identification, implementation and ef-
fective management of the technolo-
gies and technology staff that support
marketing and business development.
Those of you with a background in
psychology may know of a model
of personal development called
the “Four Stages of Learning”:
In the first stage, dubbed “unconscious
incompetence,” an individual does not un-
derstand or know how to do something and
does not necessarily recognize the deficit.
The second stage — “conscious in-
competence” — involves recognizing that
a skill gap exists and that it would be valu-
able to close it.
In the third stage of “conscious compe-
tence,” an individual demonstrating a skill
can describe what is required to perform,
but may require significant concentration to
execute it successfully.
When an individual reaches the fourth
stage of “unconscious competence,” the
skill has become second nature.
Many members of LMA have a high
level of unconscious competence in many
areas. They have built their skills through
education, training, experience, feedback
and coaching.
Paradoxically perhaps, the purpose of
LMA’s BOK is to turn the clock back and
help our members recall and understand
the skills during the conscious competence
phase. For example, in the “Business of
Law” domain, the BOK has an inventory of
eight specific competencies, such as “Busi-
ness Structures and Trends” and “Firm
Practice Strategy and Planning.”
These competencies are broken down
to an even higher level of granularity. Thus,
a marketer who is competent in “Strategy
and Planning” will know, among other
things, how to establish a capacity for firm-
wide strategic planning and how to convert
a broad strategy into a marketing plan for a
practice group or attorney.
‘Conscious Competence’ Is the Key to Growth and Leadership
BY IAN TURVILL

2. WWW.LEGALMARKETING.ORG 23
With direction from Amatangelo, EAC
members then formed a working group for
each domain, with some members serving
on multiple subcommittees depending on
their range of experience and areas of ex-
pertise. Working group members invested
hours in dissecting the domains to identify
key competencies, as well as the skills and
capabilities needed to perform on both a
fundamental and advanced level.
What’s in it for You?
In a nutshell, the LMA BOK will provide clear
standards for performance, development
and assessment at every level of a legal
marketing career. Those new to the
profession — regardless of seniority — will
have a clear, defined outline to reference in
determining necessary skills, and veterans
in the field will be able to assess their
teams with objective standards.
From an individual standpoint, this docu-
ment will serve as a guide to what skills are
expected within particular domains in the
legal marketing profession and allow indi-
viduals to plot
a successful
course for continu-
ous advancement in their chosen areas. The
BOK will help them to identify the next steps
to move forward in their careers.
From an institutional perspective,
it will provide substantive direction for
both hiring managers and supervisors.
The competencies translate well into
job descriptions, which will be beneficial
when developing new roles at a firm and
assessing both candidates and incumbents.
The BOK will serve as a useful tool as part
of a performance review process as it
provides concrete, objective standards that
can be discussed or identified as goals for
an employee.
And while the BOK will be crucial
in these applications, its primary
purpose, of course, will be to fuel the
educational offerings provided to LMA
members. Ensuring that the association’s
programming is aligned with these
identified competencies will allow LMA and
its chapters to tailor educational content
specifically to members’ needs.
Ultimately, programming will be
“labeled,” and aligned with particular
domains and competencies and searchable
within LMA’s online Knowledge Center.
What’s Next?
Stay tuned over the next several months
as the LMA education team and the EAC
refine the BOK, identify key ways to begin
implementing it across the association
and showcase it through the 2016 annual
conference programming.
Trish Lilley is the chief marketing
officer at Fox Rothschild LLP in
Philadelphia. She can be reached
at TLilley@foxrothschild.com.
Why Do This?
First, until now, there has been no
single document that defines the full
range of skills necessary to perform at the
highest level of legal marketing. Each of
us has come to our roles through different
paths: from other marketing careers,
through transition from lawyers’ positions
or straight out of school. For the first time,
you will be able to review your own base of
knowledge and assess whether you have
all that it takes to fulfill your role. The BOK
will be vital to our collective and individual
growth as legal marketers.
Second, one of the most important
functions of leaders is to teach others.
Senior marketers may have developed their
skills to the point where they can perform
at a superlative level, but they may not be
able to enunciate explicitly what they do to
attain their objectives. The BOK closes the
gap and defines for someone who has the
relevant capabilities how they can share
their understanding with another.
The BOK will be an essential tool at all
levels of the legal marketing profession. I
encourage you to embrace it, to learn from
it and to become highly competent
— consciously — in as many
respects as you can.
Ian Turvill is the chief
marketing officer of
Freeborn & Peters LLP.
He is also a member
of LMA’s Educational
Advisory Council.