Impact & Insight: Deborah Farone, Marketing Executive, Author, Founder of Farone Advisors

In the latest episode of Impact & Insight, Sally King, Managing Director of The Alexander Group and Principal of SFK Advisors, sits down with Deborah Farone, former Chief Marketing Officer at Cravath, Swaine & Moore, founder of Farone Advisors, and author of Breaking Ground: How Successful Women Build Thriving Practices.

Learn more in this candid, wide-ranging conversation about authenticity, ambition, and what it really takes to build a practice in today's legal landscape.

Find more at www.thealexandergroup.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:06

The women who were really very successful are the women who really are very authentic to who they are and don't follow the certain mold that they're given.

SPEAKER_01 0:19

Good morning, everyone, or good afternoon, depending on where you happen to be. I'm Sally King. I'm the managing director of the Alexander Group and also principal of SFK Advisors. Today we're talking with Deborah Farone, a good friend, and also one of the most respected and inspirational scions in the legal marketing and business development community. Deborah is a former chief marketing officer at Crevath and a founder as well as Deborah Voice, I might add, who I had the opportunity to speak with some years ago, and they were applauding her work there. And she's the founder of Perone Advisors. Deborah spent her career helping law firms and professionals elevate their strategies, strengthen their client relationships, and drive meaningful growth. She's also an established author with her latest book, Breaking Ground How Successful Women Build Thriving Practices, and serves as an inspiring and tactical guide for lawyers, firm leaders, and marketing professionals eager to understand and propel exceptional business development. Deborah, we're excited and delighted to have you on our podcast. First of all, I'm going to kick off with a first question. I think many of our viewers would aspire to have a career like yours. Before we chat about some of the aspects of the book, maybe you can provide a quick guide to your career and what were some of the key milestones and turning points of your career to bring you to where you are today.

SPEAKER_00 2:06

Sally, it's so nice to be here. And you know, my way of starting in business was a little bit haphazard. I knew I wanted marketing and communications. And my first job was at a PR firm called Ketchum. And one of our clients was actually Millbank. And I loved having them as a client. And although I had Hershey's as a client that I had to work on and was supervised on banking accounts as well, I just thought it was so fascinating to work with lawyers because based on what the news was, a lawyer could probably talk about a million things. So I kept that in the back of my mind. And while I was recruited to Towers Watson, the management consulting firm, I still kept on thinking, I wonder if law firms and law firm marketing is really going to take off. And then I was recruited to Deba Voice and Plimton and I started their first marketing department and stayed there for 14 years and didn't think I would leave to go to another law firm. I had been speaking to people at fashion companies and a whole slew of other product companies. But then Crevath came knocking and I thought, okay, maybe this could be different enough to be my next step. So I spent about 14 years also at Crevath and developed their business intelligence and marketing and PR, various divisions for them. So and in between, I taught at NYU and was uh president of the Legal Marketing Association in New York. So I did some other things on the side.

SPEAKER_01 3:44

But what prompted you to start for own advisors?

SPEAKER_00 3:48

Well, I felt that I had done the agency side early in my career, and then I had been in-house, and this was kind of the one tranche that I hadn't tried. And I really loved working with individual lawyers and law firms, and so I thought, how can I do something different but continue on that tradition and that joy that I have from that area? So it made sense. Um, at the same time, I was thinking about it. I was also offered the chance to write my first book, and PLI wanted to do something on understanding legal marketing and how all lawyers and law firm leaders could understand it. So I interviewed about 60 people for that book around the world and wrote it. Um, so it was nice. It was a good balance of both working with clients like Gunderson Detmer at the time and Deckert. Um, and then also writing and researching and talking to people about how they were marketing their firms.

SPEAKER_01 4:47

Right. I I think I remember it well when you left Kravath. And I'm gonna share with you that some years ago I had an opportunity to meet with Ralph Ferrara when he was still at Deborah's, and I asked him, you know, what he thought of non-lawyer professionals in law firms, and he said, for him, the most important non-lawyer professional at Debora Voice had been Deborah Farone. And you had helped him build his practice immeasurably, and he was just delighted for your support and your help. And it it shone a bright light for him because prior to that, he didn't think that non-lawyers could work in professional capacity in a warfare. So thank you for that. Um turning to that, what was who who were some of the people who've had the most influence on your career progression? And andor who challenged you to take the next step and how did they do that for you?

SPEAKER_00 5:46

It's a great question. Uh, you know, I was, I think I was mentored, whether they knew that they were mentoring me at the time or not, um, by a number of the women who worked at Debo Voice. I think Francie Blasberg, who was in charge of our private equity area, was incredible at making sure that I was invited to the right meetings and I was asked questions and I was brought into strategy discussions. And so she was really the difference between a mentor and a sponsor. She was very much of a sponsor. Um, and Barbara Paul Robinson, who was the first woman president of the New York City Bar Association, got me involved in starting a marketing committee for them. And so there were some incredible people along the way. And not all of them were women, I have to say, you know, and that's something I found in my book, too, that not all of your mentors have to look like you and be like you. You know, some of my greatest mentors were people like Alan Parker at Crevath, who then went on to be the general counsel and then I think the CEO at one point of Wells Fargo. Um, he was incredible at teaching me, you know, the discipline of project management. Um, Evan Chesler was very good at that as well. And so, you know, you learn, you pick up things as you go along, and you look at people who are successful and you say, what can I borrow from them? You know, what are they doing that helps them do their job? And whether they're a lawyer or a marketer, you can very often find things.

SPEAKER_01 7:19

Right. It's so interesting, as you know. I feel very strongly about inadvertent mentors and people who show up just out of the blue and you learn so much from them. It's a great story. So, this book I know is your second book. Um, the first coming is you as you noted as you left Law Firm Life about 10 years ago. I know the effort that goes into writing a book like this, but what was the inspiration for for this book? And how long did it take you to pull it all together? Because you you've got a pretty full practice as well.

SPEAKER_00 7:54

Yes, um, that that is a great question. It you know, it came to be because I kept on hearing these murmurs, and I'm sure you hear them too, you know, very often from women in firms who didn't feel that they had enough role models to really learn from, or they weren't trained on how to develop business, and they didn't think they could do it in the way of, you know, pounding your fist and saying, hire me. Um and so I kept on hearing that, and I thought someone needs to write a book about this and kind of filed that away. But then I was at a bar association meeting and I was speaking, and someone came up to me towards the end of the meeting and said, you know, I get asked to be in every pitch, my bio is always used, but then I'm never put on the matter. And she said, I think it might be because I'm African American and I'm a woman, but whatever it is, I don't get put on the matter. What do I do? And so we talked about how she could approach her firm and discuss it with them. But in my mind, I was thinking, if she had the ability to develop business, it would be amazing because she could create her own practice or go to another firm and do it, or start her own firm and do it. And so I started to think this idea of developing business and being able to have that capability allows you so much more freedom. It allows you options which you wouldn't have otherwise. And so for me, it's like having money in the bank. And I wanted to get that message out, particularly to women and to people who might not know how to develop business.

SPEAKER_01 9:27

Terrific. That's just great. Um, I think we're at the end of Women's History Month now, so it's particularly relevant at this moment. Um, and I'm delighted to be speaking to you about the book now and especially the challenges facing women in war firms and how that can be changed. I know all the book all the stories in the book are amazing and come with different different morals and and and lessons to be learned. But which of the stories in the book surprised you the most? And what did you learn from what you heard? If you learned anything.

SPEAKER_00 10:03

Oh, I I did, you know, I spoke with an incredible woman in Botswana who wanted to be a lawyer, wanted to learn how the business of law worked, and really had to go and learn German and win a scholarship to Germany in order to become a lawyer. And she was involved in something called the National Bar Association, which is predominantly an African-American bar association. I had never heard of it. And I've been doing this for a long time. And I thought, I am very closed off to what is going on in the rest of the world. And it was fascinating. We had a great conversation. She was an absolute inspiration. Um, and I spoke to a number of people who were first generation lawyers in their families who really just had to develop business. They had to, in order to survive at a firm or to be able to get to where they wanted to go. So those were those were surprises. But what wasn't a surprise, and I think you know, you were so good at this, Sally, is that I think the women who have done really well are very authentic. You know, they are authentic to themselves. They don't follow what was traditionally thought of as the male way of doing things. If it's Annalisa Reale, who works in Milan at Ciamenti, she loves the opera. She takes her clients to the opera and to dinner all the time. That's what she does. Another woman, Susan Iendi, who's at Baker Mackenzie, loves taking runs and walks with her clients and colleagues. And so the women who were really very successful are the women who really are very authentic to who they are and don't follow the certain mold that they're given.

SPEAKER_01 11:49

Right. And I think also, I hope, support other women.

SPEAKER_00 11:53

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 11:54

And have that supporter trait in them. So that's really good. Talking of that, from your research, what do the numbers really tell us about women's progress in war firm leadership? I feel that we've made some progress, but it isn't nearly enough. I think this week in The American Lawyer or somewhere, there was an article about 50% of the, it may have been, you may have been quoted actually, 50%, more than 50% of the women graduating law school, uh uh people graduating law school are women. And yet that does not translate into law firm leadership. It's been like that for a while. So what do you think the the numbers are telling us today? And and what do we do about that?

SPEAKER_00 12:40

I think the numbers are atrocious. You know, I think they're really very upsetting. And and what was so upsetting about that survey, I think initially it was done by NAP, was that so many firms did not even report their numbers this year because of what's going on in the world. And the the fact that we're graduating more women from law school than ever before, it's even more than 50%. Um, and that only 25% of the AMLO 100 are led by women, that tells us a lot. Um, and a small percentage are equity partners, I think it's 29%. So we've been saying for a long time that it's a pipeline issue, you know, that we're we're waiting for women to come up in the ranks. But the problem is if we've been saying that for 20 years and it's not happening, it's more than a pipeline issue. Um, I think it is some inherent bias. I think it is flexible work issues. Um, I don't know the answer to it. I only know one answer, you know, a tiny section of the answer is I just want to empower women so that they don't have to be at the beck and call of whatever bias is out there, that hopefully by having a skill set that they can use to help build a practice, that will make a difference for them. So I just want to give them that to at least have in their arsenal. But I do think what's going on is not a good thing. And I don't think it's one thing, I don't think one firm is better than the next at handling this. I think they're all struggling with it, you know, and I empathize with that. But I think we have to keep it on the front burner.

SPEAKER_01 14:20

Right. It occurs to me, you know, some years ago when I was at a very large firm, um, we had some some women who were in the realm to become partners at that time. Um, and for whatever reason, I remember having a conversation with one of these female associates, and the men somehow all believed that they were up and ready to be partner, and were shocked if they didn't make partner. The women didn't know whether they were in that catchment or not. And so I think there's a communication, how women hear differently to men. I I don't know, but it's it's it was interesting to me that the men all just assumed that they were going to make partner and the women didn't have that same sense of self. So there's something in that as well. But you know, as we as we think about this, in your opinion, what can and should law firms be doing to support and train associates for leadership roles in law firms, specifically women, but I think all associates. I think the UK law firms may have more structured training programs, certainly from my perspective and my experience. I also think that might be equalizing now. And I think chief talent officers or chief professional development officers are more inclined to work with their peers in the firm. Um I can only tell you that as a product of a single sex high school, I often wonder if separating men and women for some training might make sense, especially with regard to what I just said about female associates not knowing that they were going, they were up for partnership. Um but you know, that might permit women to learn to speak without being spoken over. That's certainly a trait that I learned from single sex education. Um, but of course, what about BD, BD training for all associates? When should that start? So I just said a lot. So I apologize, but but what do you think we can do and how should chief business development officers address this?

SPEAKER_00 16:34

There are a lot of questions about it. I don't blame you for asking it that way. I think that um the first thing is that we need to realize you need to train associates early on. It's never too early to train people who are working within law firms to be client-centric and to be building networks. Because what happens is, and I can remember sitting down with newly minted partners at one particular firm, and they said to me, you know, we don't have any contacts. We we've been behind a closed door working for the last seven years. And so what happens is twofold. One, they have developed some kind of bad work habits in the sense that they're not getting out and they're not meeting with clients and they're not meeting with people on their level at the client company. So they're losing out of all these potential client contacts and people that they knew in law school. And, you know, that's a tragedy. And also they've developed these bad habits as far as business development is concerned. So by the time they're partnering you have to train them, it's a lot more challenging. I think the firms that are really ahead in this are training people day one on how to build a network, on how to speak with clients, on what they should know about a client. They're also talking about building trust and how you do that. And they see some firms are doing that really well. And I think that's great and it makes a difference. It used to be, yeah, certain firms would say, no, we're not going to do that, we're not gonna waste the money on people who aren't gonna be here forever. Why would we do that? But as someone who's gone through the system of being at a law firm, if someone offers you training, you see that they're making an investment in you, and it's a great thing. So there's no loss to doing that. Right. Have you helped phones put together structured training programs for associates? I have. I have, and it's it's amazing because it makes such a difference when the program is not a one-and-done, you know, but a curriculum where we can say, okay, this is the first program, but this is the second, and this is the third, and this is the fourth. And not that I necessarily need to be involved in all of them. I don't. I think certain programs can be taught by partners explaining what they've done, how they've won their business. But I think it needs to be a consistent, you know, um, a consistent commitment to really training people over time. And different people will learn different ways. So you need to make some of it visual, some of it written, you know, you need to think about how you're teaching them these skills. And I go back to my days teaching adults at NYU. It's not the easiest thing. You know, it's hard to keep someone's attention when they're thinking, I have a heavy-duty workload, I have a client buzzing me on the phone. So that's why they really do need professional training.

SPEAKER_01 19:34

Yeah, I I couldn't agree with you more and saw firsthand when I was working for one of the Magic Circle firms, they had a lawyer's development program that kicked in, I think, year four for an associate. And they literally took the associates off site and had them run through, you know, building a client pitch, whether to pitch or not, and and and doing all those things in front of seasoned partners. But it was structured and it was just so valuable. It also gave the firm an insight into who had that extra extra item that just pushed them over the edge and and just made them a more complex and valuable member of member of the team.

SPEAKER_00 20:20

So I love that. I think you know, there are creative things that you can do in teaching people, whether it's, you know, I I've used a technique involved in design thinking where you know we group associates together at a table, they create an associate, they describe what the associate's background is like and what kind of life they have. And then they're given a scenario. This associate has to build a practice. How do they do it? You know, and getting them to apply their ideas is just it's a great way of learning. You know, they're learning by doing.

SPEAKER_01 20:54

Right. I agree so so much. Um, lastly, for those of us now, and I'm speaking for myself, not necessarily for you, to quote Tina Brown, but in the last trimester of our careers, not our lives, what can we do to support and help those still building? Who have your mentors been and why were they so important to you? And what three themes or advice would you share with our viewers today?

SPEAKER_00 21:25

Well, what I think we should do as far as giving back, and that's a three-part question. I have to see if I can hold all the questions to my mind. What I think we should do if I'm going back. That's okay. Um I think what we need to do is still stay involved, whether that means through associations. You know, I'm going to speak at LMA in New Orleans because I want to train people so that they can go and do some of this in their own firms. I think you have to stay involved in the community and meet with people. I met with two people this week already. And had career conversations about their careers. I think you have to do that. It's just part of being a professional. Not everyone does it. Not everyone is necessarily giving. I've also had, you know, things happen this week where, you know, I'm surprised that people aren't more giving. I, but I think it's very important to do, especially in your in your third trimester. Um, and it brings you joy, it brings you satisfaction. And I think it's it's just an important part of this age that I'm in. Um, so that helps. The mentors, again, I've had men and women. They've been in the law firm and outside of the law firm. Probably my greatest mentor was my mother. Um, she was an amazing salesperson. She was, you know, number one in the state many years. She was just really incredible and very charismatic. And I could never match up to her energy level, but you know, it was uh very formative growing up with someone like that. And um so I think you know, she was a huge mentor, but so were all the professionals. And then you were asking me what three things that I I would tell someone who is in their career. I would I would say, first of all, be responsible for your own career. Don't believe that an organization is always going to be there to train you. You know, go out, learn, educate yourself, continue to educate yourself, take classes, even if they're not in law or in marketing, take them anyway. You know, we've Sally and I we've talked about this. I mean, I've I took a class in auctioneering because I was so fascinated with that process, not knowing that it would necessarily come into my life later and be helpful. It was just fun. Um, or chinoiserie, I took a class in like the furniture uh periods that used it. I mean, very interesting to just expose yourself to things. So I think that's very important. I think, second of all, building a network is vital, making sure that you're building and maintaining a network because very often your next job or your next client is not going to come from that first ring of network. It's gonna come from the second ring, it's gonna come from who those people know. So you want to have a diverse network. I think that's really vital. And I think third is to um I think third is to make sure that you are developing a niche, you know, figuring out what it is that brings you joy and what you want to do, and then making sure that that makes economic sense. But I think experiencing kind of build how to build your own niche, and I mentioned this in the book and give some instructions and some workshops for it, but I think it's very important to figure out what it is that you want to pursue so that you have a strategy if you're marketing yourself, and strategy should always come before tactics. So before you go out on wild speaking engagement tours, figure out what it is that you want to be known for.

SPEAKER_01 25:11

That's so smart and so wise, Deborah. Thank you. I would also say, and you you touched on it, but I think people who I I've been surprised, and I know you probably are from time to time as well. Somebody phones you out of the blue and asks for some advice or counsel there in the next stage of their job search. And I always tell them reach out to people because people like Deborah Faron are often willing to help. Um, and they'll at least give you some ideas and some thoughts. And it it is one of the more rewarding parts of life at this point to be able to help other people. So, Deborah, you've done that consistently. Thank you so much for your time today. Um, really appreciate it. I know we could go in many different directions, and perhaps next time we will with a glass of wine.

SPEAKER_00 26:06

Sally, it's always a pleasure to speak with you. You're you're brilliant and fun.

SPEAKER_01 26:11

Thank you. Thank you.