CASE STUDY

Drinker Biddle is one of the nation’s top full-service law firms, with 650 lawyers in 11 offices nationwide.  The product of a decade-long series of strategic mergers, the firm had built particular expertise in health care.  To help validate their market leadership, the practice leaders determined to develop an industry-specific marketing and branding initiative.

The firm has 14 distinct practice areas that each had significant health care clients and expertise.

But as typically happens in larger firms, particularly those that have grown rapidly through mergers, the lawyers in different practice areas and offices were not working together as well as they might have liked.  Rob McCann, one of the nation’s leading Health Care Antitrust lawyers, saw the opportunity to showcase all of the firm’s health care expertise under one umbrella, and help them work more closely together.

Rob conceived a strategic initiative to increase the flow of internal communication among the various health care-related practices, which would turn up new cross-selling opportunities and the chance to better serve their mutual clients.

Health Care group retreat:

The entire initiative was kicked off with a two-day retreat. Ross Fishman kicked off the program with a presentation to the health care professionals on cutting-edge marketing techniques. He detailed the process of developing the marketing platform, validating the results, and providing the context for the larger HC initiative.  It showed the value of cross-selling and integrating the entire group.

The HC leaders organized this retreat to set the tone for the marketing and client-service effort, allowing all the different practices to better understand what they did and how they did it.  This was the first big step forward toward the lawyers and other health care professionals working more closely together.

After interviewing dozens of health care lawyers, we discovered that the health care practice had a significant presence in the not-for-profit sector.  The lawyers closely identified with their clients’ mission of providing quality health care to the public; they proudly talked about their clients’ good work.

We built the message and marketing campaign around these powerful stories. Using poignant (but inexpensive royalty-free) imagery, the case study-based marketing platform:

  1. Describes the great work done in each of Drinker Biddle & Reath’s 14 health care-related practice areas
  2. Show how the lawyers are a proud part of their clients’ achieving their goals.

This integrated structure allows each of the individual practices to tell their own client-oriented stories, and shows health care clients and prospects how all the firm’s disparate pieces fit together into a cohesive unit.

“The results exceeded our expectations… creative, thoughtful, and fully engaged.”

– Elisse Lassiter, Business Development Manager
Drinker Biddle Health Care