Legal Marketing & PR

Emerson College to Offer For-Credit Course in Law Firm Marketing

By Larry Bodine, Esq.

Professor Silvia Hodges, of the Department of Marketing Communication at Emerson College in Boston will soon launch the first university-level for-credit course in law and professional services marketing.

"I am in the midst of prepping my upcoming course in professional services marketing for graduate marketing students at Emerson (heavy on the legal marketing side, thanks to several years in the industry). A visionary administration at the university and lobbying from my side made it possible that this May a group of graduate marketing students will read the first-ever (to my humble knowledge) 4-credit university course in our industry.

"There is no textbook yet, so I have to put together a reader with excerpts from a number of books and articles. A number of thought leaders from our industry will come and volunteer their time to make this idea come to life.

"In lectures, case studies and workshops we will examine how the professional services sector has undergone greater transformations during the past two decades than in the last two centuries and traditional conduct and approach no longer guarantee the success and survival, thus forcing the firms to compete in new ways, that is, embracing a service and marketing orientation. We will look at the fundamental concepts and strategies that differentiate the marketing of professional services from the marketing of tangible goods and non-professional services.

"Marketing challenges that arise due to these differences will be identified as well as the factors necessary for the creation of the right service experience and possible solutions for the management of the service experience. Client satisfaction and service quality issues, such as methods for tracking service failures and recovery efforts as well as retention strategies will be covered to ensure the assessment and improvement of the professional service delivery system that will lead to a seamless service experience for the client. The focus will be on strategy, which you will surely appreciate, not on operational tactics.

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Full post as published by Larry Bodine's LawMarketing Blog on March 20, 2008 (boomark / email).