Case Study
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Structure Assessment
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Competitive Analysis
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Role Architecture & Title Strategy
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Compensation Alignment
Structure Assessment & Strategic Realignment of a Law Firm’s Marketing & Business Development Function
A leading Am Law 200 firm engaged us to conduct a comprehensive structural assessment of its Marketing & Business Development (M/BD) function. Firm leadership recognized that growth ambitions, evolving client expectations, and increasing competitive pressure required a thoughtful evaluation of whether the team was optimally structured, right-sized, and competitively positioned for both current and future demands.
The mandate was clear:
- Benchmark against peer firms
- Assess whether the team structure and roles were aligned with strategic goals
- Ensure compensation was market-competitive
- Develop a forward-looking organizational model to support sustainable growth
Our Approach
We conducted a multi-layered structural review grounded in data, market intelligence, and practical operational insight.
Structure Assessment
We analyzed the firm’s current M/BD structure – a team of 12 professionals – against comparable peer firms, evaluating:
- Identification of structural gaps and redundancies
- Recommendations for right-sizing (both expansion and consolidation where appropriate)
- Design of an optimal future-state organizational model
- Clear articulation of role accountability and ownership
We focused not just on headcount, but on ensuring the right mix of strategic, operational, and specialist capabilities.
Competitive Analysis
We analyzed the firm’s current M/BD structure against comparable peer firms, evaluating:
- Team composition and reporting lines
- Span of control and leadership layers
- Role specialization vs. generalist coverage
- Alignment to revenue-generating practices and industries
This included benchmarking both current state realities and projected future-state needs.
Role Architecture & Title Strategy
We provided counsel on how roles and titles should be structured to:
- Improve clarity internally
- Strengthen recruiting competitiveness
- Enhance retention and career progression pathways
- Align with peer market positioning
This included recommendations around leveling, title consistency, and appropriate layering based on the firm’s specific context.
Compensation Alignment
Using our proprietary data we conducted a comprehensive salary assessment of:
- Current roles vs. market benchmarks
- Future-state roles under the proposed structure
- Competitiveness within the Am Law peer set
This ensured recommendations were both strategically sound and financially realistic.
Strategic Outcome
The firm received a comprehensive, data-backed structural roadmap that:
- Clarified the optimal design of its M/BD function
- Identified areas for strategic investment and refinement
- Strengthened its positioning for future recruitment
- Ensured compensation alignment with market realities
- Provided leadership with a forward-looking growth framework
Most importantly, the engagement moved beyond theoretical advice. It delivered a right-sized, right-people, right-process model tailored specifically to the firm’s ambitions and operating environment.
Our Perspective
Structural assessments are not about expansion for expansion’s sake. They are about intentional design; aligning people, process, and investment to strategy.
By combining organizational design, compensation intelligence, and recruitment expertise, we help firms build business functions that are not only competitive today, but built to evolve tomorrow.
Pave your team’s path to a stronger structure with clearer roles and direction.
Create a structure that supports your team’s success and reporting lines that drive measurable outcomes.
