Member Spotlight - Candice L. Clarke

By Diane Roka,  Practice Development Manager, Post & Schell, P.C.

How did you get into Legal Marketing?

It was quite by accident.  I was looking to get out of the financial industry after having worked for my last employer for 13 years.  I looked in a range of industries from advertising to education (applying to local universities marketing departments) to healthcare to local corporations and one day I ran across a CRM Marketing position, for a law firm, in Career Builder.  I had all of the CRM and electronic marketing experience and thought, “what the heck, maybe it won’t matter that I had never worked in a law firm.”

What surprised you the most coming into the legal industry from the financial industry?

Two things surprised me.  Number one, the use of paper and number two, how far behind the technology curve the legal industry seems to be.  In my previous company we were as paperless as we could be, right down to project workflow with incoming new accounts, changes to existing accounts and closing of accounts.  We used a Hyland Software application called OnBase which was all macros driven for every process in our firm across all departments and not one piece of paper was used for account transactions or employee transactions.  In addition to that we scanned all of our existing client paperwork prior to launching this electronic workflow/filing system, which consisted of roughly 12,000 client files prior to going paperless.   Coming into a law firm is completely different with client matter case files as well as our department having physical project folders, etc.  The law industry I am learning is paper intensive. 

For the technology part, the OnBase system was way ahead of the technology curve for financial firms when we implemented it in the 1999-2000 timeframe; we were breaking new ground as a firm.  I became used to being ahead of other firms and watching them follow our technology path.  We had VoIP, were on our 3^rd CRM system because of growth, our Web Site was linked into our CRM and all of our event registration was done online and that was four years ago.  Our latest CRM system was integrated with our client portfolio management system which also included client accounting for fees, Outlook contacts and calendars, in addition all of our sales people had mobile (via cell phone) access to their contacts within the CRM system.  In other words it was integrated with all of the enterprise wide business critical applications.  The financial industry has been using CRM for over 15 years and I am learning that law firms are much further behind.  I am also learning that law firms don’t utilize their firm data to the extent that financial firms do.  By this I mean that data seems to be in separate vessels throughout each department but not tied together or connected in a data warehouse for instance, there is a lot of manual updating of data that resides elsewhere in electronic form but it is not fed to those other systems.  I do get the feeling that law firms are beginning to think about using central databases where an update can be made in that one spot which then updates the information everywhere.  

What type of work did you do before your current position?

After being at the same company for 13 years I feel like I did everything; I worked in Operations, Client Services, Marketing, and even though I never worked in IT I was always very technology driven and in all of my positions worked very closely with the IT department, I was always the technical person within the department or one of few.  Within marketing alone I was involved with the Intranet site, all of the CRM products through the years, brochures, the Firm Web Site, client reporting and branding just to name the bigger items.  

How has it helped you in what you are doing now?

I feel like what I am doing now at Fox Rothschild is the culmination of all of my 13 years with my previous employer right down to working in the client services department, in my current job my client is the attorney.  Every day I use my project management experience, all of my technology experience, my past dealings with vendors from choosing a good one to implementation and roll out will come into play when we decide upon a CRM system, all of my electronic and Web experience helps me with the email blasts we currently send and provides ideas for all of the ones that I want to do in the future.  I know what is out there and I know the capabilities that exist, with that knowledge I want to take CRM and e-Marketing at Fox Rothschild to the next levels and beyond.   

How do you stay current?

On the CRM and e-Marketing side, I am an active member of the CRM Association, myCRMcareer, and the Electronic Marketing Association, in addition to subscribing to CRM Magazine.  

On the legal side, since joining Fox Rothschild I subscribe to Sites and newsletters from Law.com, Law Technology News and am a member of LMA.  

For marketing in general I belong to the American Marketing Association.