Wheeler Trigg O'Donnell LLP | Marketing & Business Development Writer

Marketing

Description

Job Title - Marketing & Business Development Writer

Summary/Objective:

Wheeler Trigg O’Donnell LLP (“WTO”) seeks an experienced writer to join its marketing team. We are looking for a dynamic and creative individual who also brings critical reasoning and analytical skills to bear for the firm and its lawyers. The Marketing & Business Development Writer is often the first contact for lawyers as they prepare to engage with a new client or prospect; as such, the person in this role is uniquely poised to serve as a connector of people and information across the firm.

About WTO

WTO is a national civil litigation boutique based in Denver. The firm’s 100+ trial lawyers and litigators represent sophisticated clients in courts across the country. WTO is a uniquely collaborative and collegial law firm. As a litigation boutique, our partners generally agree on where WTO is going in the market and how we can best get there. If you’ve worked in a full-services law firm or other professional services environment, you may appreciate how rare this is. For the marketing team, this means that there is very little in the way of distraction. We work on things that stand to make an impact for the firm. As a result, you can expect to plug into a sophisticated marketing and business development culture where expectations are high, new challenges arise daily, and your work will be genuinely appreciated.

Responsibilities:

Business Development:
• Lead the response for all pitches and proposals. This ranges from high-touch RFP (“Request for Proposal”) responses to boilerplate packets, as well as tailored pitch support pieces, such as custom brochures.
• Using the firm’s subscription tools and other resources, conduct research on and concisely summarize findings about clients, prospects, companies, counsel, and WTO’s competitors.

Marketing Collateral:
• Maintain website content, including practice descriptions and bios, and help draft new content.
o Ensure that all website content is accurate and up to date. Prompt lawyers to update their bios, and engage key lawyers in various practice areas to review firm content and make updates.
• In collaboration with the marketing team and external vendors, serve as the lead author of brochures (annual review, general firm information, recruiting, targeted pitch pieces), microsites, and other marketing products.
Public Relations & Social Media:
• Collaborate with team members and the firm’s outside PR agency to tell firm success stories and promote victories to national and local media and industry outlets.
• Collaborate with the Digital Marketing Coordinator to craft messages for social media.

Awards & Rankings:
• As needed, identify opportunities and lead the firm’s submissions to national and local awards and rankings directories. Examples include The American Lawyer Litigation Department of the Year, Chambers USA rankings, Law Week Colorado awards, Denver Business Journal awards, and similar opportunities.
• Interview attorneys to determine whether they and/or the firm have the right experience to be competitive for an award, help make a go/no-go decision, and draft the submission.

Advertising: Update ads and develop new ad messages according to existing contracts and opportunities.

Internal Communications:
• Draft regular internal marketing email (the WTO 360) and seek opportunities to improve it and other marketing/BD-related internal communications.
• Work with departments as needed to apply the WTO voice to internal communications.

Qualifications and Desired Characteristics:

• Prior proposal writing experience is required, preferably in a law firm or other professional services context.
• Three to five years of marketing or business development experience in law or other professional services is preferred.
• A Bachelor’s degree in marketing, journalism, English, or a comparable field is preferred.
• You are an excellent communicator. You care as much about client service as you do about telling powerful stories. Your communications skills—not just your writing skills—will be relied upon daily as you build relationships, steer projects to completion, and manage expectations. You appreciate the value of communicating early and often. You put as much care into the emails you send as the web copy you draft—and you also know when not to send another email and pick up the phone or connect in person instead.
• You can establish rapport with and build trust among the firm’s 100+ trial lawyers and litigators. They are deeply thoughtful and process information quickly. They are skeptics and critical thinkers. They are curious. You appreciate the need to tailor messages to them and prioritize information. The lawyers often respond with original questions and may point out weaknesses in ideas in order to create strengths. This doesn’t bother you—in fact, you like it. You know that together, you and they are crafting the best possible messages and products for the firm.
• You genuinely enjoy and have a talent for gathering complex information from various sources and bringing the most relevant ideas to bear in persuasive writing. Furthermore, you appreciate that to be successful in your role, you must be a student of WTO. You will make it a point to learn what different lawyers do, what the firm’s different practice areas are known for, and you’ll always be listening for opportunities to bring potentially relevant new ideas into the mix to add value based on your awareness of the firm’s work and history.
• You are a mimic. You can review prior work product and replicate that in substance and style.
• As much as you enjoy the drafting process, you also relish revising with others. At WTO, we will always go the extra mile if there is a way to say something better. To you, tireless wordsmithing to find the most apt expression is a game worth playing, and the prize is connecting with your audience to win new work.
• When something is not right or is incomplete, you are comfortable saying so, no matter who needs to hear it. You won’t pass off work product that you know is not up to standard.

Special Projects:

Special projects may include assisting with heightened or escalated month-end needs and testing of new software features. On occasion, weekend hours or extended weekday hours could be necessary.

Supervisory Responsibilities:

There are no internal supervisory responsibilities. The Writer will oversee projects and work product from outside vendors including graphic designers, website developers, and possibly other writers or content developers.

Work Environment

The Writer is one member of a close-knit, three-person marketing team. WTO’s collegial atmosphere is fostered not only by the lawyers, but by all members of the support staff. Our firm’s employees are proud of collaborating in service to our clients. Our commitment to teamwork allows us to tap multiple fields of experience from our range of practice areas, ensuring our ability to meet each client’s individual needs. Our team approach enables us to analyze a situation from several points of view until we uncover the advantage that makes the difference for our client.

This role has the opportunity for occasional remote work.

Salary Range: $70,000 - $80,000 per year, depending on qualifications and experience.

Benefits
 Health, dental, vision, life, and disability insurance
 Pre-tax flexible spending accounts for medical and other reimbursable expenses
 Tuition reimbursement
 A 25% contribution for public transportation and pre-tax withholding for transportation expenses
 Eighteen paid personal days and seven paid holidays per year
 A 6% employer-paid contribution to the firm's 401(k) plan and eligibility for voluntary contributions to the plan, both at the commencement of employment
 Employer contribution to health savings account of $300-$600 per year
 Wellness benefit of $350 per year
 Employee assistance program

Equal Opportunity Employer: We do not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, national origin, sex, age, disability, sexual orientation, marital status, genetic information or any other status protected by law or regulation. It is our intention that all qualified applicants are given equal opportunity and that selection decisions be based on job-related factors.