On Thursday, 21 November, Gericó Associates organised an exclusive breakfast meeting with the heads of Marketing, Communication and Business Development from various business law firms at the CMS offices in Madrid. A meeting held as a prelude to the Gala Nacional del Derecho – Legal Marcom Awards 2024, to be held on 29 November at the InterContinental Hotel in Madrid.

The breakfast was hosted by our managing partner, Marc Gericó and our Of Counsel, Mireya Berteau, and was attended by Carlos Menor (Renault Group Spain), Ana Galindo (OHLA), Ana Delgado (Pinsent Masons), Ana Tortosa (Freshfields), Beatriz Cacho (Clyde & Co), Carmen Escamilla (BROSETA), Celia Domínguez and Claudia Mathe (CMS Albiñana & Suárez de Lezo), Patricia Wallace (Garrigues), Susana Alesón (Latham & Watkins) and Tatiana López (ECIJA), as well as María Sol Rubio and Irene Casanueva, on behalf of Gericó Associates.

During the session, the latest news from the Gala Nacional del Derecho – Legal Marcom Awards were shared and the session focused on key client and key account management, as well as client feedback and loyalty strategies.

Carlos Menor indicated that ‘beyond the technical quality required in the firm, the role of the partner must evolve’. In this respect, he stressed the need to ‘seek a mix between technical partners and commercial partners in law firms’.

Ana Galindo agreed that ‘negotiations are not all about technical disputes, commercial skills are also very important’. She also stressed the importance of law firms working on client retention, ‘law firms often try to build loyalty on a massive scale, for example, with events. I think it is a mistake to try to approach clients once a year at such events. In her opinion, ‘it often depends on one person in the team, who is the one who generates loyalty with the client’.

‘Unlike Spain, in the United States the feedback culture is very well established, which is why it is the biggest challenge facing the Spanish legal sector’

Our Of Counsel, Mireya Berteau, stressed that ‘the objective of a lawyer is not to position himself as a technical expert, that is the basis, it is not the differentiating point. What is expected is that they know their business very well, that they are a strategic partner, that they avoid risks, have knowledge of the market and establish a structured and orderly relationship with the client’. In turn, Marc Gericó added that ‘that’s what a rainmaker is all about, being a genius at selling all areas of the business’ and added that ‘unlike in Spain, in the United States the culture of feedback is very well established, which is why it is the biggest challenge facing the Spanish legal sector’.

Carmen Escamilla underlined the importance of having the figures of the commercial partner and the technical partner in all departments and that, at present, law firms are improving and investing significantly in business strategy, ‘we are giving it more and more relevance’, she said.

During the session, issues such as talent management, continuous training of teams, the importance of client feedback to improve service, insights analysis and the different types of loyalty actions were also addressed. In addition, details of what is to come in the Legal Marcom Awards 2024 were also revealed.

Thank you all for participating!