From the Ground Up: How Regional Business Development Teams Drive Firmwide Growth

With complex client needs that are global in scope, law firms must deliver cross-border and cross-practice solutions while leveraging the strength of local relationships and market intelligence. While firm leaders set the strategy and vision, it’s business development (BD) and marketing teams who translate that vision into traction with clients, media and the broader market. These teams understand their unique practices and industries, foster the closest relationships with attorneys and are often the first to identify emerging opportunities.

Practice areas are not always fully based in one office location — sometimes there are lone practitioners sitting thousands of miles away from the BD professional assigned to their group, disconnected from their immediate colleagues. How are those attorneys supposed to stay engaged in BD? That’s where regional BD teams come in. Focused on office dynamics rather than practice needs alone, regional professionals support all groups and seniority levels, offering real-time, in-person guidance and a consistent point of connection.

At Crowell & Moring, I’m part of a dynamic team of BD and marketing professionals across 12 offices. While each market operates differently, one constant remains: regional teams are not only executors of firm strategy; they are creators, connectors and culture carriers. When empowered, these teams can become some of the most effective drivers of firmwide growth.

Seeing Through a Local Lens

Legal marketing professionals know that BD is not one-size-fits-all, neither for the market nor for the attorneys we support. Regional teams must tailor their approach based not only on local dynamics and media preferences but also on the specific needs of each practice and the unique styles and goals of the individual attorneys. While BD professionals aligned to practice groups bring deep knowledge of the clients and legal issues, regional teams offer critical market intelligence; context about the business environment, competitive landscape and local opportunities strengthen the overall strategy. That is why it is essential to include regional voices in conversations about client targeting, pitch positioning and visibility efforts.

Unlike group-aligned BD professionals who are focused on the trends, issues and clients of one specific practice or industry, regional professionals must be fluent across multiple areas and adapt quickly to shifting priorities. They balance the expectations and work styles of dozens of attorneys at once and must understand how to position different services in the local market. It’s both a breadth-of-knowledge and people-skills game that requires agility and trust.

For example, the competitive landscape in New York often centers on financial services, requiring messaging that is precise, credential-heavy and timed to industry cycles like proxy season or earnings reports. Meanwhile, a California team focuses on technology and innovation narratives, where agility and brand personality play a larger role.

Successful firms are doubling down on this market-specific knowledge and investing in regional support. Whether it's attending local GC roundtables, building relationships with regional reporters at legal publications or collaborating with city-based economic development councils, regional BD teams bring irreplaceable intel to the table.

Small Wins, Big Results

Some of the most successful firmwide initiatives start locally. A single media placement in a New York publication turned into a firmwide content campaign. A regionally hosted client roundtable in Chicago sparked cross-practice collaboration and expanded conversations globally. And a casual conversation at a New York alumni event led to a multi-practice pitch for a Fortune 500 prospect.

These examples are not outliers; they are proof that regional efforts, when aligned with firm goals, can scale into major opportunities. Firms that treat regional BD teams as strategy partners, and not just support, are better positioned to seize these moments.

Relationships Are Strategy

One of the most important, yet often undervalued, strengths of regional BD teams is relationship-building. Unlike their practice-aligned counterparts who may support attorneys remotely or by subject area, regional professionals are embedded in the offices, meeting attorneys in hallways, talking through pitches over coffee and getting invited into conversations at earlier stages. That proximity builds the kind of trust that makes informal coaching and early opportunity-spotting not just possible, but expected.

For example, in my role I have helped attorneys identify when their client relationships were broad but shallow. When they knew multiple contacts at a client but had not built meaningful engagement or positioned the firm for growth. In these cases, I have partnered with them to develop strategies that deepen relationships, such as facilitating introductions to other relevant partners, organizing attendance at local industry events, delivering timely and business-relevant client alerts, or crafting tailored thought leadership that reflects both the client’s interests and the market environment. These small but strategic moves not only reinforce the firm's value but also help attorneys feel more confident and proactive in their outreach efforts.

It's also worth noting that relationship-building extends beyond attorneys. Regional teams often maintain the strongest local media relationships, event partnerships and client introductions. Those ties are critical in an increasingly skeptical and noisy market.

Partnering with Regional Leadership: Beyond BD

Regional BD professionals often wear multiple hats, especially in offices outside the firm's headquarters. One of the most impactful, yet sometimes overlooked, roles we play is supporting the office managing partner (OMP) and serving as part of the local administrative leadership team. This includes helping the OMP stay visible in the local legal and business community, shaping the office’s public presence and identifying opportunities like speaking engagements, local board involvement and regional partnerships that align with both the attorney’s interests and the firm’s broader strategic goals.

We also help bridge firmwide priorities with local execution. Whether it’s ensuring office staff and attorneys are informed about the firm’s strategic plan, growth initiatives or business development campaigns, or creating communication channels that foster transparency and engagement, regional BD teams are often at the center. Our ability to communicate contextually by translating firm goals into locally relevant actions strengthens office culture and ensures that attorneys and staff feel included, aligned and invested.

Driving a BD Mindset Through Local Coaching and Consistency

Across many firms, there is a growing recognition that BD cannot sit with a few rainmakers. A true BD culture engages attorneys at every level, from senior partners to junior associates, while equipping them with practical, market-specific tools to act.

Regional teams are instrumental in shaping this culture. We help new attorneys identify cross-selling opportunities. We build habit-forming programming that integrates BD into existing workflows. We make BD feel less like a mystery and more like daily practice.

Regional professionals also manage a wide range of personalities, from junior associates learning to what their BD style is, to senior partners accustomed to certain routines. That means tailoring the message, coaching style and level of involvement — on the fly. While practice focused BD teams can specialize in depth and subject matter, regional teams specialize in translation: taking firm strategy and turning it into practical action across many groups, roles and personalities.

Because regional teams are physically present, we often build relationships in informal, organic ways, catch up during office lunches, chatting between meetings or stopping by an attorney’s office with a quick idea. These touchpoints might seem small, but they lead to consistent trust-building that allows us to coach more effectively, offer timely insights and understand attorney goals in a deeper, more practical way.

Collaboration Without Borders

Of course, regional efforts do not live in a vacuum. The best firms find ways to align local energy with global ambition. At Crowell, we have experimented with shared BD calendars across regions, firmwide client target tracking, and monthly idea exchanges among marketing leads.

It isn’t always seamless; time zones, bandwidth, and different regional priorities can create friction. But when there is a shared purpose and mutual respect, collaboration becomes a multiplier. A template created by the Washington office for client onboarding, for instance, became the foundation for a global rollout. A roundtable format piloted in California was quickly adopted in London.

This kind of knowledge sharing allows the firm to scale innovation, while still respecting local control.

Where Regional Teams Are Powering Firmwide Investment Strategies

Law firms are making targeted investments in three key areas, and regional BD teams are playing a role in all of them:

1. Client Intelligence Platforms: Tools that help attorneys understand client businesses, industries, and market trends in real time. Regional teams often lead the training and implementation locally.
2. Marketing Technology Enhancements: From smarter email platforms to advanced CRM integrations, firms are investing in tools that can deliver insights and content at the right time, to the right client. Regional marketers are essential in driving adoption and testing messaging.
3. Talent & Training: There is a greater focus on building BD capabilities across all levels of attorney seniority, especially in competitive markets. Regional teams are often the ones delivering that training.

How Regional BD Teams Are Experimenting with AI to Drive Smarter Engagement

Artificial intelligence has entered BD conversations in meaningful ways. While firms are still navigating how to use it safely and strategically, regional teams are already exploring use cases such as:

• Summarizing geographic market trends for pitch prep
• Generating first drafts of content tailored to specific sectors or regions
• Categorizing client alerts or news coverage by relevance and industry

Regional insight is key here, and AI needs context to be useful. BD professionals can provide that context by fine-tuning prompts, aligning outputs to client expectations, and ensuring messaging is relevant to local markets.

The Tools Regional Teams Rely on to Translate Strategy into Action

While no tool replaces relationships and strategy, there are several that regional teams consistently cite as effective:

• High-performing email campaign platforms with segmentation by geography and industry
• Media monitoring tools that flag region-specific mentions or coverage opportunities
• Interactive event tracking dashboards that tie local events to follow-up action items and business development plans

But the most effective “tool” is still human: the BD professional who knows what is happening on the ground and can translate insights into action.

Conclusion

In an international firm, it’s tempting to view local efforts as purely tactical, focusing on event logistics, regional sponsorships, or office-specific visibility. Regional BD and marketing professionals are strategic force multipliers. We have a deep understanding of our markets, our attorneys, and the nuances that shape client expectations in each region. Often, we’re the first to spot emerging opportunities or potential risks, whether it’s a shift in competitive positioning, a relationship at risk, or a chance to connect the dots across practices. When empowered and included, regional teams can shape strategy, not just execute it.

Their ability to flex across practices, personalities, and priorities sets them apart from group-focused professionals. They don’t just deepen client relationships they build the internal relationships that make cross-practice collaboration and local execution possible.

By investing in these teams, empowering their collaboration, and respecting their insight, firms do not just support regional success; they ignite firmwide growth. And in this market, that is a competitive edge no firm can afford to overlook.