Musical Chairs: Why Law Firms Keep Hiring the Same Marketing & BD Talent
Uncover the reasons behind the legal game of Musical Chairs: Why law firms keep hiring the same marketing & BD talent and what it means.
In the world of legal recruitment, there’s an unwritten rule that has governed hiring practices for decades: when a senior marketing or business development position opens up, firms simply reshuffle the same pool of talent. It’s musical chairs at the highest level, with roughly 90% of Director-level roles in business development and marketing filled by candidates moving from one law firm to another.
But what happens when the music stops and firms realise they’re all sitting in the same chairs they occupied years ago?
The Innovation Gap
Recently, Opus Resourcing was approached by one of the world’s leading law firms with an unusual brief. They needed a Director of Business Development and Marketing, but they explicitly didn’t want the usual suspects. Why? Because they’d recognised something that’s been quietly apparent for years: innovation in marketing and business development within the legal sector is lagging behind other industries.
While sectors like technology, finance, and professional services have embraced marketing automation platforms, AI-driven client insights, predictive analytics, and sophisticated MarTech stacks, many law firms are still relying on traditional relationship marketing, branding, content management and manual processes. The gap is stark—where other industries are using AI for competitor intelligence, personalising client communications at scale, leveraging CRM systems to identify cross-selling opportunities, and deploying marketing automation to nurture leads efficiently, legal marketing often remains trapped in legacy approaches.
When you continually hire from the same talent pool, you perpetuate the same thinking and the same technological limitations.
Why the Status Quo Persists
The musical chairs phenomenon exists for understandable reasons. Legal is a unique sector with its own compliance requirements, professional standards, and cultural nuances. There’s a comfort in hiring someone who already speaks the language, understands the partnership structure, and knows how to navigate the sensitivities of working with senior lawyers.
But this comfort comes at a cost: stagnation.
The Fresh Perspective Advantage
Our client recognised that breaking this cycle required courage. They needed someone who could bring:
- Innovative marketing strategies proven in more progressive sectors
- Modern business development techniques that go beyond relationship-based selling
- Digital-first thinking that meets clients where they actually are
- Data analytics / AI capabilities to drive decision-making
- Change management experience to help transform traditional approaches
These skills don’t require a legal background to be effective. In fact, not having one can be an advantage, allowing the candidate to challenge assumptions and ask “why do we do it this way?” without being constrained by “that’s how it’s always been done.”
The Search Beyond Legal
By opening the search to candidates from asset managers, financial services, consultancies, and other professional services sectors, we’ve been able to present our client with genuinely diverse perspectives. These candidates bring tested methodologies from environments where marketing and business development innovation is essential for survival.
The result? Our client is now considering candidates who can drive genuine transformation rather than incremental improvement.
A New Model for Legal Recruitment
This assignment represents a potential shift in how progressive law firms approach senior recruitment. Rather than viewing industry experience as the primary qualification, forward-thinking firms are prioritising:
- Transferable skills and proven innovation over sector-specific experience
- Strategic thinking and transformation capability over knowing the current landscape
- Fresh perspectives over familiarity with existing practices
The Bottom Line
Musical chairs might be a fun party game, but it’s a poor strategy for building a competitive edge in an increasingly demanding market. The legal firms that will thrive in the next decade are those willing to break the cycle, look beyond their immediate sector, and bring in talent that can genuinely move the needle.
Sometimes the best person for the job is the one who doesn’t look like every other person who’s had the job before.