Networking

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Michelle O’Driscoll has been in the legal marketing industry for more than 30 years, which means she’s pretty much seen and done it all.

As the Senior Business Development Manager at Sheppard Mullin LLP in San Francisco, Michelle is responsible for leading strategic practice group and industry team marketing initiatives to help lawyers increase their revenue and expand visibility.

In her bio, she calls herself “results-oriented, a connector and a “doer” and a critical member of any marketing SWAT team” which I think is clever and terrific.

Michelle previously worked in marketing roles for Bingham McCutchen, Sedgwick and Heller Ehrman. She is the mother of identical twin sons and co-authored the popular book “Play Around the Bay: A Guide to Bay Area Outings for Families with Young Children,” first published in 1999.

Learn more about her in this Women Who Wow profile.

An effective social media strategy can (2)

There are so many reasons to use social media and if you are going to do so, it’s important to create a social media strategy for your organization whether it…

I am so excited to have Deborah Farone in the Women Who Wow series as she is truly someone I admire and someone who is the epitome of a woman who wows (also our last names rhyme). She is brilliant, generous with her time and advice, and she is a woman who supports other women.

In case you don’t know who Deborah is, she created and managed the marketing departments for two of the world’s most highly respected law firms, Cravath, Swaine & Moore and Debevoise & Plimpton. She now runs a consulting firm Farone Advisors, where she works with company leaders and C-suite professionals to produce innovative programs in the areas of strategic planning, business development, marketing communications and key client management.

Somehow she found time to write a book in 2019! It’s one of my favorite industry “encyclopedias” and not just because I’m quoted in it. The book “Best Practices in Law Firm Business Development and Marketing,” published by PLI, was based on more than 60 interviews of law firm leaders, innovators, technologists, academics and marketers.

Learn more about Deborah.

In this Women Who Wow profile, get to know Alexis Robertson, the Director of Diversity & Inclusion at Foley & Lardner LLP.

A former lawyer and legal recruiter, Alexis became a D&I professional after realizing that practicing law and serving as a legal recruiter wasn’t her true passion. She was able to take valuable skills from those positions and pivot to a diversity and inclusion career first at Baker & McKenzie and now at Foley & Lardner.

As Alexis noted in one of her terrific LinkedIn posts (you should follow her on LinkedIn!), if not for the pandemic, she would not have launched what she often refers to as her “pandemic podcast.” She says it was the need to introduce herself and check-in on attorneys that led to her personally calling 100 attorneys within her first few months at Foley.

She says that need created the space for the most amazing one-on-one conversations, which inspired a podcast unique to Big Law focused on showcasing human stories, highlighting the unique professional paths of Foley attorneys. The podcast is called The Path and the Practice and you should check it out.

Learn more about Alexis and her career path in this Women Who Wow profile.