Today, we’d like to introduce you to EJ Stern.
Hi EJ, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
I’m the co-founder of Fractional Law Firm, CMO, which my business partner, Katherine Wilson, and I launched 18 months ago. We each have more than 20 years leading marketing and business development for large law firms. Katherine and I worked together for nearly ten years and knew we wanted to work together again.
I’m a certified executive coach and former CMO of North America for a London-based firm. Katherine is a former litigator and held leadership positions in business development, branding, and marketing operations.
In Fall 2022, I was fielding calls from headhunters asking me to return to CMO positions at large law firms. And at that time, I had small kids. My answer wasn’t a no, never, but it was definitely a never now. It made me realize that if big law has such a need, there’s so much need and opportunity for small and mid-size law firms. So over Labor Day weekend at my parent’s lake house, I put pen to paper on that epiphany. I walked out two hours later with a logo mockup and told my husband I had this crazy idea. Three days later I called Katherine and we were off to the races.
We love working with and offering fractional services to firms large and small. We think everyone requires sophisticated legal marketing support, but not all law firms need a full-time solution. We’ve had the pleasure of working with more than 20 firms in our 18 months in business. It’s been an absolute blast helping small and midsize firms with their legal marketing strategy and implementation. We’ve also continued working with many big law firms on training workshops, key note addresses, and business development coaching.
Can you talk to us about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way? Looking back, would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
We’ve led marketing and business development for law firms for a long time. I think we’re pretty darn good at our day job! It’s the running of a business that’s been most challenging and figuring out when and how to scale so that we can best service our clients and grow the business.
We’re currently recruiting for our seventh full-time employee, which is so exciting. We are lucky to have a tremendously talented team working with us. Taking time away from our clients so that we can focus and work on our company to build best practices and processes has stretched both of us. It’s definitely been a learning curve trying to understand how to effectively operate a business!
Being flexible has been key as our business grows and evolves. As business owners, there have been many times when – as confident as we are with our clients – we wonder if we are making the right decisions for our team. Are we doing the right things? Do we have the right processes in place? So we have invested in the right advisors – legal, IT, financial.
We recently brought on a director of operations, which has changed our world. We know where our limitations are, and she has been such a gift to the organization. We are very excited to see how things evolve with her.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
There are not many companies that focus on what we do – bringing sophisticated business development and marketing strategies to small and midsize law firms. As with any professional services business, a lawyer’s best and highest use is generating business, providing excellent client service, and handling the legal work. We help lawyers hone those critical skills, and then we take on the burden of developing the strategy, setting the tone, and driving the marketing forward to ensure that they have a consistent approach, message, and vision.
We aim to deliver the same high-quality BD and marketing expertise that you would (or should) find in-house at a 1000+ lawyer firm. It has been rewarding to take that heavy weight off of law firms and bring a cohesive strategy and vision to life.
The crisis has affected us all in different ways. How has it affected you, and can you share any important lessons or epiphanies with us?
We started our business as people were returning to work post-pandemic. Covid-19 made employers and businesses alike realize that high quality, meaningful work can be done in remote settings. And with a remote business, we now had access to the best talent from across the country.
Our clients are across the US and Canada, and our team is spread across the country. While we enjoy meeting our clients in-person, the majority of our work is handled remotely. We are not limited or hindered in any way by working remotely and across time zones.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.fractionallawfirmcmo.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/fractionallawfirmcmo/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/fractionallawfirmcmo/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/fractional-law-firm-cmo/
- Tiktok: https://www.tiktok.com/@fractionallawfirmcmo
