Inside many law firms, partners have long viewed chief marketing officers as the face of high-priced cost centers that don’t always deliver enough value to justify their cost. So, it is maybe not unexpected that their teams were among the first to be affected by layoffs and budget cuts when the pandemic struck last year.

However, a new narrative around the marketing department has evolved recently. Double-digit revenue growth is no longer a given and many law firms need to steal market share from their competitors to stay afloat. In this context, law firms have been more optimistic about investing in marketing, with a particular focus on technological initiatives. According to a recent survey of 127 companies in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom, 84 percent expected to expand their marketing technology initiatives over the next year.

This interest is backed by an extraordinary growth of technological tools: in 2011, there were approximately 150 marketing technologies tools on the legal service market; today, there are over 8,000. Data is the fastest-growing category within that universe.

CMOs and other business development leaders are discovering that acquiring and exploiting data is their greatest bet at supporting revenue growth in this environment. After all, data is the equivalent of jet fuel for law firms. To take off, businesses require high-quality data that can be tracked, structured, and utilized.

For over ten years Latin Brains has been providing high quality and insightful data for law firms around the globe.