Business Development is a Leadership Choice, not a Department
- hace 2 días
- 3 Min. de lectura
As part of the Lexington Insights: All About Clients series, Mari Cruz Taboada and Katie Dignan, examine a frustration repeatedly expressed by law firm leaders – that is despite spending more, building bigger teams and adopting smarter tools, business development outcomes still seem to fall short.
Our experience suggests the problem is rarely technical. It is one of leadership, clarity and institutional discipline.
Strategic clarity before structure
Firms organise BD in many ways: by sector, by practice, by client teams or through specialist functions such as pitching and communications.
None of these models is inherently superior. What matters is whether the structure reflects the firm’s strategy now and whether it can evolve as the business changes. Where a firm lacks this shared sense of direction, business development will always be fragmented.
Partners pursue rational individual agendas, but without an agreed view of where the firm is heading, so clients receive mixed signals and internal teams are pulled in different directions.
In a belief that structure is the right starting point, firms replicate what appears to work elsewhere, rather than designing something that fits their own ambitions and culture.
But the result is noise, short-termism and constant firefighting.
Partner-led does not mean partner-only
The most effective BD models are always partner-led but never partner-exclusive. Authority and credibility at the client interface sit with partners, and initiatives falter when leadership is handed over entirely to professionals without sponsorship. Equally, firms that fail to use their BD professionals properly, waste scarce capability.
In practice, this means being explicit about roles:
· What partners must lead and own.
· Where BD professionals add most value.
· How associates are brought in early to build commercial and client skills.
With both good lawyers and good BD professionals in short supply, deliberate deployment of effort matters more than ever.
The talent and retention problem
An increasing number of firms tell us they can hire lawyers but struggle to attract and retain experienced business professionals. Remuneration is part of the story, but progression is a bigger problem. BD professionals rarely have clear career paths, access to ownership or a credible long-term future within the firm.
When these individuals leave, firms lose far more than headcount. They lose years of institutional memory, client insight and informal know-how. Retention of BD professionals is exactly the same as retention of lawyers. It is much more than pay – it needs clarity of role, fair evaluation and visible recognition of contribution.
From individual effort to institutional capability
Law firms still rely too heavily on individual relationships and personal ways of working. When successful approaches are not documented, they cannot be replicated, and continuity is lost when people move on. While judgement and personality will always matter, many elements of BD can and should be systematised.
At the same time, firms now collect more client and market data than ever before. So access to information is not the challenge – meaningful analysis is! Insight that cannot be translated into partner language rarely influences behaviour. This is where skilled BD leadership can make the difference, connecting data to planning and action.
Ultimately, business development is not a support function to be delegated and forgotten. It is a leadership choice. Firms that are clear about direction, explicit about expectations between partners, and deliberate about how professionals are empowered and rewarded are far better placed to respond to clients and build sustainable growth.
When BD is treated as a collective leadership responsibility, rather than a departmental task, it becomes not only more effective but more engaging for the people doing it.
