Growth Planning Season: Where Second Chairs Shape Strategy

The latest LMA Second Chair Virtual Roundtable explored how senior marketing and business development leaders can bring sharper strategy, discipline, and insight to growth planning.

For many firms, budget planning season marks a point where ambition meets capacity. It is also an opportunity for second chair leaders to translate firm priorities into practical choices: where to invest, which opportunities to elevate, and how to turn planning conversations into intelligence that supports more proactive client service throughout the year.

Throughout the discussion, it became clear that growth planning is most valuable when it moves beyond collecting budget requests and becomes a disciplined way to connect firm strategy, market opportunity, and client need. Several themes emerged that can help second chair leaders play a more strategic role in that process.

Growth Planning Is Where Influence Compounds

Growth planning is more than an administrative exercise of templates, deadlines, and roll-ups. It is one of the few moments when strategy becomes visible: what the firm will prioritize, what it will deprioritize, and what it may need to stop doing. Even when senior marketing and business development leaders do not own final budget decisions, they shape what leadership sees, how tradeoffs are framed, and where limited resources are directed.

Moving Beyond the Loudest Voices

A recurring question was how to decide which practices, offices, sectors, or partners should receive support. Participants acknowledged that internal politics, tenure, and persistence often influence resource allocation, but emphasized the need to assess opportunities across the firm and prioritize investments that advance strategy, client priorities, and long-term growth.

The group also discussed how to balance responsiveness with discipline. Engaged lawyers and active groups can create momentum, but firms also need to recognize emerging opportunities that may not yet have visible advocates or strong internal influence.

Using Data to Make Defensible Choices

Participants highlighted the value of combining client trend reports, matter data, market intelligence, marketing activity tracking, and financial performance to understand where investment is producing results. They also cautioned against relying only on top-line numbers; qualitative context and evidence of follow-through are essential to sound decision-making.

The 10% Test: What Would You Start, Stop, or Continue?

One exercise asked leaders to consider what they would do with either a 10% budget increase or a 10% reduction. Its value was not simply financial; it forced clearer thinking about what to start, stop, and continue based on strategic value, capacity, and expected impact.

Keeping a Living List of Future Investments

A practical takeaway was to maintain a running list of desired investments, including technology, process improvements, staffing needs, campaigns, and new programs. Evaluating those ideas by impact, effort, and strategic alignment keeps strong concepts visible when they are not funded in a given budget cycle.

Rolling Up Plans to Find Synergies

Individual plans can look reasonable in isolation, but the roll-up process can reveal repeated client priorities, overlapping event ideas, similar thought leadership themes, and opportunities for cross-practice collaboration.

Reporting Back So Leadership Sees Tradeoffs

The planning process should not end with a static summary of requests. Senior leaders need to see tradeoffs, trends, and implications: where demand exceeds capacity, where groups are pursuing similar opportunities, where investments are misaligned, and where emerging priorities may warrant support.

Making the Case for Relationship-Building Programs

Participants also discussed how to justify client-facing programs when outcomes are valuable but not always directly attributable to revenue. Relationship-building programs can strengthen client ties, surface concerns, and contribute to retention, but they require clearer success measures and more disciplined follow-up capture.

Turning Planning Into Year-Round Intelligence

Another important takeaway was that growth planning should create value beyond the budget cycle. Done well, it gives marketing and business development teams intelligence they can use all year. This may include which clients require more engagement, which sectors are gaining attention, where capacity is strained, and where proactive support could make the greatest difference.

AI as an Investment Intelligence Tool

AI surfaced as a potential tool for connecting planning inputs across practices and offices, identifying patterns, and reducing silos. Participants emphasized that technology should support — not replace — experienced judgment, business context, and strategic interpretation.

The Strategic Opportunity for Second Chairs

The roundtable reinforced that growth planning should not be viewed as a once-a-year exercise. The most effective firms treat it as an ongoing source of market intelligence, helping leaders understand where demand is changing, which clients and sectors are gaining importance, and where strategic investments can have the greatest impact.

For second chair leaders, that creates an opportunity to move from administrators of the process to advisors within it. By bringing together data, business context, and institutional knowledge, they can help ensure that planning conversations lead not only to budgets but also better decisions throughout the year.

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More From the LMA Second Chair Series 

Leading from the Middle: Takeaways from the LMA Second Chair Roundtable

The Power and Paradox of Second Chair Leadership