So Much To Say: A Legal Podcast For People

“99% of the time, the folks on the team know what needs to happen.” - Mary Ellen Murrah

What if the biggest thing holding your career back is not your skill, your experience, or your ambition, but the story you have been telling yourself?

"I'm not a rainmaker."

"I'm bad at business development."

"I'm just not wired for networking."

They shape how we show up, what opportunities we pursue, and what kind of growth we believe is possible.

In this episode of So Much To Say: A Legal Podcast For People, Megan Senese and Jennifer Ramsey sit down with Mary Ellen Murrah, Chief Marketing Officer at Vista Consulting Team, for a candid conversation about career identity, authentic relationship development, law firm growth, consulting, operations, and the changing plaintiff-side legal market.

Mary Ellen shares how she moved from aspiring lawyer to legal marketing leader, what she has learned helping plaintiff firms grow, and why meaningful progress rarely comes from strategy alone. It comes from implementation, accountability, and the willingness to stop copying someone else’s version of success.

This episode is for anyone who has ever thought, “That’s just not who I am,” and wondered whether there might be a more honest, more effective way to grow.

You’ll hear about:
  • Why the labels we place on ourselves can quietly shape our careers
  • How to reframe business development as relationship development
  • Why authentic networking works better than forcing yourself into someone else’s style
  • Mary Ellen’s path from aspiring lawyer to legal marketing leader
  • What Vista Consulting Team helps plaintiff law firms actually implement
  • Why accountability is often the missing piece after a consulting engagement
  • The operational differences between plaintiff firms and traditional billable-hour firms
  • How private equity is reshaping the plaintiff-side legal market
  • What makes a law firm attractive for acquisition
  • Why growth often begins with questioning the story you have been repeating

Whether you are building a book of business, leading a team, growing a law firm, or trying to step into your next chapter with more confidence, this conversation offers a more human way to think about success.

Listen to the episode and consider what might change if you stopped defining yourself by the labels that limit you.

About Mary Ellen Murrah:

Mary Ellen Murrah is the Chief Marketing Officer at Vista Consulting Team, where she helps plaintiff law firms grow through operational strategy, leadership development, and marketing. With more than two decades of experience in legal technology, law firm leadership, and business operations, she works closely with firms across the U.S. and Canada to improve efficiency, strengthen culture, and prepare for sustainable growth.

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Love So Much To Say? Let us know! Drop a review, give us 5 stars in your favorite podcast app, and tell us what made you laugh, think, or just go “yep, that’s me.” Every review helps us reach more awesome humans who want to make legal…well, human. 
Bring these types of conversations to your law firm. These podcast conversations are the same ones happening quietly inside law firms. Through stage, we work with lawyers at every level and with legal marketing teams on client service, business development, and growth built on real relationships. If these themes are coming up inside your firm, let’s chat.

Creators and Guests

Host
Jennifer Ramsey
Host
Megan Senese

What is So Much To Say: A Legal Podcast For People?

Welcome to So Much To Say: A Legal Podcast For People where we explore the behind-the-scenes of work, law, life, and everything in between. We’re your hosts, business development and legal marketing coaches Jennifer Ramsey and Megan Senese, and we’re here to showcase the human side of the legal world, from marketing and consulting to the very real challenges of balancing ambitious careers with being human. This isn’t your typical, dry legal show. Instead, So Much To Say is a human-centered leadership, marketing, and culture podcast through the lens of law. We bring you real stories, candid conversations, and thoughtful insights that remind you that outside of being a lawyer or legal marketer, what makes you human matters too. So whether you’re navigating billable hours, building meaningful relationships, redefining success, or simply trying to stay human in a high-performance profession, this podcast is for you.
Stay human. Stay inspired. Namaste (or whatever keeps you human).

[00:00:00] Mary Ellen Murrah: 99% of the time, the folks on the team know what needs to happen, and sometimes it's just having an outside person come in and being like, "Look, this is what we're seeing. This is what needs to be fixed." That's where most consultants are like, "Okay, good luck. Here's the report. Take care. Good luck implementing that."
[00:00:17] And that's kind of where we are a little bit different, where we know that's the part where most people fall apart. "Hey, I know what I need to do. I don't know how to do it." So that's where we come in and really hold your hand and hold you accountable to those things.
[00:00:33] Megan Senese: Welcome to So Much to Say: A Legal Podcast For People, where we dive into the beautiful chaos of work, life, and everything in between. Outside of being a lawyer or a legal marketer, we wanna know what makes you human. And with that, let's get started.
I had asked Mary Ellen about the sentence that she put through in via email about labels, but I thought it was good and I should have recorded it, so here we are.
[00:00:59] Mary Ellen Murrah: I was telling Megan that, um, this c- this idea of, of labeling people kind of came up in my life with my kids. So I have an 18-year-old and a 15-year-old boy, and we were talking about labels. Like, you're the good kid, or you're the class clown, or you're, you know, you're always so conscientious. Things that we tell our kids that become this like their identity.
[00:01:21] And so it's like I glom onto this label of mine, but it is so reductive, right? Like if we just... I, I'm just the good kid, so, you know, the other kid is what? Like the bad kid? Yeah. Like no, that's not- Right ... that's not fair. We're all, we're all such shades of gray and not black and white. And I think it happens at work too, where we say, like we give labels to people, and I think those labels so very often don't serve us.
[00:01:45] They, they put us in a box, or we believe this label about ourselves, or we believe this label about somebody else on the team because we're always told that this person is X, rather than develop a true relationship with them and understand that they are a multitude of colors of gray, and I'm, I'm so much more than this label that has been applied to me.
[00:02:05] Megan Senese: The way that I've been opening up some of my f- very first like kickoff calls with lawyers that we coach is, how do you feel about business development? Mm-hmm. And I did this, I don't know, yesterday or two days ago, and the lawyer was like, "I'm bad at it." And I was like, "Well, thank you for that answer, but you didn't actually answer the you didn't actually answer the question if you really wanna dive down into it.
[00:02:29] You just told me your opinion, but you didn't tell me how you feel about it." And they're like- Right ... "Well, I'm not the rainmaker." I think it fits really nicely into just like the label conversation in terms of so many lawyers, whether you're in big law or a solo law firm owner, have put labels on themselves.
[00:02:48] I'm not a rainmaker. I'm not good at business development. I'm not good at networking. I'll never be fill in the blank. When if we really stop to think about, well, well, how do you feel about business development, if that person said, "Well, it scares me. I'm intimidated by it. I don't know what it means," like then we can start to think about- you're not being good at it.
[00:03:09] Is that actually the right label or you've just never done it? And that's a completely different conversation.
[00:03:14] Jennifer Ramsey: Yeah. I tell people there is no such thing as, as being... It's, it's neither good nor bad. Like, you just f- have to figure out what business, what business development means for you and how you like to do it.
[00:03:27] And, um, you can't, you can't really do it wrong or, or do it badly. If you put a little bit of thought into it and you do what feels genuine to you. We just, I just had this, um, I spoke to a bunch of lady lawyers at Lawyers Club here in San Diego, and we were talking about reframing business development to be relationship development.
[00:03:48] And we all know how to be in a relationship with someone, whether it's ourselves, our families, our coworkers, our community members. And so, like, just lean into that a little bit more. And you're not bad at it.
[00:04:00] Mary Ellen Murrah: No, I'm learning from that. And it's so interesting, too, what, what you all were just saying because I think what works for one person and their personality, it does come down to authenticity and the genuineness.
[00:04:10] I was talking to, um, Tim Mackey, who, who, um, is the CEO of Vista, um, and he was talking about conferences. And he was like, "Look, what I like to do is I come in the room, like, right after it's started, I walk down the middle, I sit in the front row, I ask a question, and, like, that's how I establish that, like, I know about this thing."
[00:04:30] And I'm like, "Oh, that sounds horrible to me." Right. Like, it felt like I'm, I'm coming in late to this event. I'm sort of, like, interrupting it. Like, it feels very, like, old white dude to me. Sure. And, like, he was like, "I've had so much success with this." And I was like, "That's awesome." Like, it's awesome that you've had success for this and that that works for you.
[00:04:48] But I would have to take a much different approach, A, to feel comfortable, and B, to be taken seriously. Yeah. 'Cause I feel like in that situation, I don't think I would be taken as seriously as he is in the same exact conference.
[00:05:00] Megan Senese: They'd be like, "Who's this rude woman introdu- Exactly ... interrupting? Don't you know
[00:05:04] Mary Ellen Murrah: your role?"
[00:05:05] Exactly.
[00:05:05] Megan Senese: Yeah. Right.
[00:05:06] Mary Ellen Murrah: Yeah. Who- And I also kind of feel like if I was the person on the stage, like for him, I'd be like, "You know what? Like, no, I'm, I'm talking right now." Like,
[00:05:15] Megan Senese: hold your, hold your horses a little bit. Yeah.
[00:05:17] Mary Ellen Murrah: Hold your questions for
[00:05:19] Megan Senese: the end, sir. Yeah. Well, I'm sure there's a piece of like, he is the CEO, and that prob- like, it works great for him, and you do you, boo.
[00:05:26] Mary Ellen Murrah: Exactly. That's okay. There's different ways to, you know, make relationships at a conference or make relationships, um, with other folks that you're networking with that don't necessarily involve that.
[00:05:37] Jennifer Ramsey: Or skip 'em all together. Skip the conferences all together if, if you don't feel comfort- You know, seriously, there's a lot of ways to build relationships, and honestly, sometimes going to a conference with 1,000 people, it's really hard to build a relationship.
[00:05:49] Mary Ellen Murrah: You're absolutely right.
[00:05:50] Megan Senese: Jen and I, we talk about this all the time because we approach business development fr- like very, very differently in terms of specific actions, but the overall arching theme of relationship development, we're 100% aligned, but the way that we both like to approach it is different, and that's like literally practicing what you teach, right?
[00:06:08] So I'd love to know a little bit, like, about your story. I'm sure you've heard it before, but lots of legal marketers do not choose to be legal marketers. It sort of either finds them or, or maybe, or maybe you did choose to be a legal marketer. I don't know. So talk to us about how you got to where you are today.
[00:06:28] Mary Ellen Murrah: Yes, absolutely. So when I went to college, I was an English major. I was both an English major and a mass comm major, and, and way back when, at the time, mass comm was, like, the marketing major, right? So when I was, um, getting ready to leave college, it was like you had two paths as an English major. You either went to be a teacher or you went to law school, 'cause they were like, "People who know English well can write well, so they either can teach it or go to law school."
[00:06:53] And I did not wanna be a teacher, so I was like, "Okay, I'll, I'll go to law school." Um, and I took the LSAT, and I was like, "I'm going down this path." And then I realized, like, this is not the path that I want at all, and I'm just sort of doing this. Again, the labels, like, you get really good feedback when you say like, "Hey, I wanna be a lawyer," and people are like, "Oh my God, that's amazing."
[00:07:12] And like, oh, I, I'm so fancy. And so that was like, I was craving that, like, yes, everybody tells me this is so great, and then I, when I really looked into my soul, I was like, "I don't think I want to do this." Um, so I started looking at jobs in marketing, and this was, um, at the time when, um, I used the newspaper to find a job.
[00:07:33] Jennifer Ramsey: We're fa- we're familiar. We
[00:07:34] Megan Senese: know
[00:07:34] Jennifer Ramsey: what newspaper is. We've been down that road.
[00:07:36] Mary Ellen Murrah: Yeah, no, I had really fancy card stock that I would print my resumes on. Oh,
[00:07:39] Megan Senese: yeah. Oh,
[00:07:40] Mary Ellen Murrah: yeah. Anyway, so I, there was a company that advertised locally that was looking for a, um, marketing director, and it was actually a software company, company that sold software to personal injury law firms.
[00:07:53] Which was just sort of a happy like, okay, I was sort of interested in the legal field-ish, um, and now I'm going to work for a software company that, um, sells specifically to personal injury law firms. And I was there for 17 years, so started out as director of marketing, and honestly, like, I had no business being director of marketing.
[00:08:11] This was my, like, first outside-of-college job, so I just sort of pretended like I could be a director of marketing and, like, it worked out. Um, but then eventually I was promoted to vice president of the company, and ultimately president of the company. So got to get that piece of how do you run a business, and how do you take care of folks that work for you?
[00:08:31] And all of those operations pieces became like, well, now this is really important in my role, whereas before I was just on the marketing piece. And not that there's anything wrong with just being on the marketing piece. I loved that. Um, but then got to sort of add to my plate that operations piece. Um, we were acquired by private equity, um, and that did not From a values perspective wasn't a great fit for me, so I left shortly after my time that I agreed to stay was over.
[00:08:59] Um, and then I joined the Vista team, um, and that was such a happy, like, good soft landing from the universe because I knew these folks. Everybody was very down to earth. We don't take ourselves very seriously, but we take what we do very seriously, and it was another organization that I knew from my time in the industry that worked, um, very closely mostly with plaintiff law firms, plaintiff personal injury law firms, um, and really got to know even more about the operations of a law firm from my time at Vista.
[00:09:26] Jennifer Ramsey: I have so many questions. A clarifying question for you. Are you the, the CMO, uh, obviously of Vista, but are y- do you perform or operate in like a fractional CMO capacity?
[00:09:39] Mary Ellen Murrah: No. So, I mean, and I should say n- not necessarily no. I'll say ish. Um, we don't really perform as a fractional CMO. What we do, where we do get involved with law firms in marketing is more that internal marketing piece, and I know this is a big difference between like personal injury law firms and maybe corporate law firms because the clientele is different, right?
[00:10:00] You're, you're selling to sort of everybody. Um, and so there is a big opportunity to stay in front of those folks and to, you know, offer them world-class service while they are under roof at your firm, while they are a client, stay in touch with them afterwards. So that's the part that we really touch, not necessarily like working with them on their business development or their agency work or anything like that.
[00:10:22] Jennifer Ramsey: Okay. It, it, it's interesting because as part of StageNow, we've had the opportunity to dip our toe a little bit into marketing for plaintiff side. I've had to learn how to do it, and it is, it's very challenging just because it, exactly as you just said, it's, it's more of a B2C type of model versus the B2B that we're used to where we work for law firms that are representing companies versus, you know, potentially representing a person, individual consumer.
[00:10:58] It is fascinating and, um, I wish I knew more.
[00:11:02] Megan Senese: It's a different approach, for sure, and we haven't had many, uh, maybe you're our first one. We haven't had many plaintiff side guests on our show because we, our exposure has always been on the big law side, on the corporate side, and then because of our network, right, that's the c- types of people who come through.
[00:11:19] Although recently, in the last couple of months, maybe six, seven months, I don't know if it's a little bit longer for you, Jen, we have been getting some more on the plaintiff side as well. And so that's been really interesting, so we're excited just to kind of pick your brain a little bit about like what those differences look like.
[00:11:35] Mary Ellen Murrah: I think that the, you know, the biggest difference, and maybe it's super obvious between the plaintiff side firms and the corporate firms, uh, is the kind of work. You know, it's, it's largely contingency fee work on the plaintiff side, which is such a different model and such a different... You know, it, it, it provides the opportunity to say, "Okay, how can we be as efficient as possible?
[00:11:57] How can we take a process and repeat it over and over again?" Where I feel like a, a billing firm is not necessarily looking for that same level of efficiency. You're not necessarily looking to make things faster or, you know, repeatable. It's more, "Hey, we're servicing this individual client. We're billing."
[00:12:15] And I think that provides a lot of a different culture for the p- for the lawyers who work in those firms as well, um, where, you know, maybe there's some- Maybe there's an attraction in saying, "I don't want to be beholden to an hourly billing process." And so there is some attraction in the plaintiff side, but it's a lot more up and down, right?
[00:12:36] Like, I don't necessarily have that same guaranteed salary across the way, especially if I'm participating in a way where I get paid based on the, the cases that settle and things like that. So I think there's an interesting, like, level of stress that comes in each one of those jobs, and it's just a different kind of stress.
[00:12:55] Megan Senese: Do you think there's more... I mean, I, I have never worked in a firm that did contingency. It was just too risky, right? And so do you think that there's more focus then on, like, actual results and outcome when you're f- like, fo- solely focused on a contingency? 'Cause you have to do whatever it takes to have a, some kind of desirable outcome
[00:13:16] Mary Ellen Murrah: I think, I think so.
[00:13:17] And I, I think that's a lot of times where we plug in where firms who have maybe been successful despite themselves or, um, have not really thought about... You know, they were like, "Hey, I went to law school. I'm gonna be a kickass attorney. Um, but I don't know squat about running a business. So I've sort of started this as a bit of a mom and pop shop, and, you know, it's kind of grown out of my ability to handle it like a mom and pop shop, and so now I need for money to come in and help us be more efficient and effective."
[00:13:46] Obviously, yes, the best firms are really focused on that. Um, and ultimately, at the end of the day, it should be about the client. It should not be about making this process as fast as possible. We're not trying to do that to the detriment of the client in any way. In fact, our, our mission, we say it all the time, is to help our clients help their clients.
[00:14:05] So ultimately, if we keep in mind at the end of the day that the client is the, the first thing, all of those things should line up to support that.
[00:14:12] Megan Senese: One of the things that I had flagged when I was looking at your website was you, you talked about, you know, fancy consulting speak, and it felt very much so similar to the way that we have positioned our business as well, where you're like, "This isn't the words you use, but this is how I remember it."
[00:14:29] It's like, "Do you know a bunch of fancy consultants who use jargon and acronyms, and they come in with slick suits? Like, that's not us. Like, we get in the trenches with you. We do the work with you, or we're alongside you. We're a team." And, and I love that, and I was like, oh, this is, like, such a perfect, like, alignment.
[00:14:45] Like, talk to us just a little bit more about, like, what do people come to you for?
[00:14:49] Mary Ellen Murrah: Absolutely. So typically, um, what clients come to us for is, "Hey, I'm, I'm, I'm growing too fast to be able to control this on my own, and I need some help. Maybe I've had some turnover, or maybe I'm trying to hire some folks and I'm, I'm struggling with it.
[00:15:06] Um, I don't know what reports I should be looking at. I just, I need some help getting some things in order." And what we typically do is we call it a law firm assessment. Um, before we can, you know, you have to go to the doctor and figure out what's wrong before you can prescribe the, um, the fix, right? So it's going, spending some time with that firm.
[00:15:23] We typically spend about two da- day and a half, two days with that firm, interviewing the owners of the firm, interviewing the folks that work there as boots on the ground team members, and getting a sense of, hey, what is your culture? What are people struggling with? Where are the spots where there's bottlenecks?
[00:15:37] Where are the spots where everybody's, like, tearing their hair out? And 99% of the time- The folks on the team know what needs to happen. And sometimes it's just having an outside person come in and being like, "Look, this is what we're seeing. This is what needs to be fixed." But then a lot of people, that's where most consultants are like, "Okay, good luck.
[00:15:55] Here's the report. Take care. Good luck implementing that." Um, and that's kind of where we are a little bit different, where we know that's the part where most people fall apart. "Hey, I know what I need to do. I don't know how to do it. I don't know how to have these meetings. I don't know how to talk to the team.
[00:16:10] I don't know how to get these reports in, in order." So that's where we come in and say, "We're gonna meet with you once a week on, typically on Zoom, once or twice a week depending on what needs to get done, and really hold your hand and hold you accountable to those things." Um, because you do need to have that accountability partner and say, "All right, we're gonna put a two-week timeframe on this."
[00:16:27] And then when the two weeks are up, "Did you guys finish this? Why? What was the, the thing that prevented you from, from getting this across the finish line? How can we prevent that from happening in the future? Um, how are we prioritizing this?" Those sorts of things. Um, but lately, you know, there's been so much in the, um, news and industry with private equity entering the space and what that means, and that's really shaken up how we're interacting with firms as well, because we're getting so many calls from people who are like, "Okay, what does this mean for me?
[00:16:57] How do I get my firm ready? What do I need to know? What is an MSCO? What is..." You know, that's... So a lot of our work lately has been educational in, in what this is.
[00:17:06] Megan Senese: And, and you have a, a PE readiness checklist, right? Yes, we
[00:17:11] Mary Ellen Murrah: do.
[00:17:11] Megan Senese: For firms. Yeah, so we'll, we'll include that in the show notes. I, I think a lot of people are super interested in that.
[00:17:16] Just even, even if I, even if you're not a plaintiff's side. Like, just to like know. I mean, I, people- Know what's
[00:17:22] Mary Ellen Murrah: going on,
[00:17:22] Megan Senese: yeah ... know what's going on, know what to look for, how to even start thinking about it. A couple of questions have come my way where they're like, "Well, we, we, big firm, might want to acquire little firm.
[00:17:33] Do you, Megan, know anybody that would like help us with that or how I would approach them?" I'm like, "Oh." So I like, this is like a good start where I'm like, "I don't know, you could talk to Mary Ellen." So I feel like that's like h- helpful just to have, for people to have in their back pocket as a starting point even.
[00:17:49] Mary Ellen Murrah: Yeah, absolutely. 'Cause a lot of times, you know, the acquirer doesn't necessarily know what they need to know about the person that they're ac- ac- acquiring, and the person being acquired is like, "How can I be attractive to, to these folks that may be looking to acquire me? What would make me an attractive firm for that?"
[00:18:05] Jennifer Ramsey: What is your ideal client profile? Like size, geography, number employ- of employees, types. Just what, out of curiosity, for people listening in to this.
[00:18:17] Mary Ellen Murrah: Yeah. Location doesn't matter. We work with firms all across the US and Canada. We have... Our team is largely based from their homes around the country, so that, that's not necessarily an issue.
[00:18:28] Um, in terms of size, it's interesting. Um, those very, very small firms like, you know, a, a solo practitioner or a few folks, they might be able to interact with us on a small level. We have a, a small product called Vista Institute where they can go and, and kind of learn things that they need to know. Um, but m- where we sort of have that sweet spot is when a firm, and typically it's a plaintiff side firm, um, is around like, I don't know, eight to 20 lawyers, and then the support staff underneath of them.
[00:19:00] Um, but we've got firms, we have a firm that's like five people that meets with us every week 'cause they just want that hand-holding. And we've got several firms that are like in the two, 300 person range that they either have a, a small project that they want to do, or they bring us in for a time period to say, "Hel- help us get this thing across the finish line."
[00:19:19] Jennifer Ramsey: What does your s- day-to-day look like, out of curiosity? I always find this an interesting question, and I sometimes don't even know how to answer it for myself, but I, when I think about it, I'm like, okay, no two hours are the same sometimes. So just, I mean, how does that work for you and then for Vista?
[00:19:37] Mary Ellen Murrah: In an ideal world, you know, I don't have as many clients anymore because I'm so focused on helping to grow Vista.
[00:19:44] So I still have a few clients that I work directly with that are kind of holdovers from when I was working as a consultant with clients. Um, largely my day is I do still go on firm assessments. I do still, you know, meet those, those firms. But a lot of times it is in a business development capacity of, hey, you know, who out there needs help?
[00:20:03] Who out there is maybe thinking about getting their firm ready for, to be sold? Who out there is, um, needing Vista services, but hasn't yet been part of our blue ocean? How can we touch those, those folks and get what we do in front of them?
[00:20:17] Jennifer Ramsey: So how do you market a firm like Vista?
[00:20:19] Mary Ellen Murrah: Well, now we're talking about like a, a B2B kind of marketing, right?
[00:20:23] Right. Yes. Because our ideal client is a law firm. Um, and that can be... You know, it's such an interesting industry and, and I'm sure you all see it as well, but it's so incestuous. Like, everybody knows everybody else. Every firm seems to like... It is almost like things happen in seasons, and lemmings just sort of go off a cliff, where it's like, hey, this, this thing is happening right now, and so all the firms are interested in this shiny thing.
[00:20:49] Um, and so it's finding those shiny things that, you know, maybe where we could plug in. And right now, that shiny thing tend... It, it has to be private equity. Um, that's such a big conversation right now. But, you know, a lot of times it's like, hey, what software are we using and so we can help get reports out of those software.
[00:21:07] So it's kind of finding those pain points and those things that everybody's sort of talking about. And, you know, you sort of look at the circuit of conferences and say, all right, w- well, it's AI because everybody wants to talk about AI, or it's this. And so what about that can be tied back to operations, and how can we be part of that conversation?
[00:21:25] Megan Senese: I would love to talk about the Vista team because there was so many ladies, and I was excited about that. And also, the, there's, it's, there's, like, a family dynamic as well, right? So do you wanna talk to, just, like, give us the overarching theme there? 'Cause then, because then I have a follow-up question after that.
[00:21:42] Mary Ellen Murrah: Yes. So, um, our CEO, Tim, both of his daughters work at Vista. Um, so Caroline is our chief of team. That's one of Tim's daughters, and Sarah is our chief relationship officer, um, and that's another one of Tim's daughters. And I always joke, like, they say it feels weird to call Dad Tim, and I'm like, "Well, I can just start calling Tim Dad."
[00:22:03] And we're all like, "It'll be better." Kidding, I would never do that. But, sorry, Tim. But it is, um, other than, than Tim and our, our programmer, we're entirely a, a woman-based team. So our, all of our consultants are women going out into, into the law firms. Um, and it's interesting because we had somebody tell us that that was, um, that was shortsighted of our, our company, and that we should have more men on our, um, consulting team, which is Interesting to me.
[00:22:32] Um, we sort of view it as a, a strength. I, I think that our team is stronger because of the amount of women that we have working on our team who are incredibly experienced, skilled, great at their jobs, and offer a very different perspective oftentimes than the folks that we're directly working with, um, which I think is really important.
[00:22:53] Megan Senese: Well, you recently posted, and or this is maybe even a title of a, of a upcoming program, "Your firm works because women do." It feels, it feels weird to have your, your shit read back to you, right?
[00:23:06] Mary Ellen Murrah: It does, right?
[00:23:07] Megan Senese: You do this to me all the time. I'm sorry. Yeah, talk to us about that, 'cause that was a juicy little sentence.
[00:23:13] Uh, so is it a, is it a, is it an event program as well?
[00:23:17] Mary Ellen Murrah: It's a- So there is an event that's happening, um, in August in Nashville called Lunch Hour Legal Marketing, and it's really an event specifically for legal marketers. And I'm doing, it's an Ignite style talk, so it's like five minutes, supposed to be like a spicy topic.
[00:23:32] The slides auto-advance like every 15 seconds. And so that was my title to sort of like get eyeballs on the, the content. Um, but, but I also truly believe it. Um, and, and- I'm not certain about corporate work, but in personal injury law firms, the amount of intake specialists, paralegals, um, office managers, it is so many women that are making a firm work.
[00:23:59] But we're not always represented at the leadership level, at the ownership level. Um, so I would say the majority of firms that we go into, not all of them, but the majority are men-owned law firms with a sea of women making, developing those relationships with their clients every single day, pushing that firm forward, really helping grow that firm.
[00:24:19] But those women often do so sort of in a vacuum. Um, they're not on the website. We don't promote them on the website. We don't necessarily always give them opportunities to be on the leadership team and share their perspective, share their very intimate knowledge of client relationships and what they're hearing and what they're seeing.
[00:24:37] So I, I really do stand by that your firm works because women do, and we're not necessarily giving women the... I, I shouldn't even say necessarily. We're not giving women the voice that they need at these firms.
[00:24:47] Megan Senese: Yeah. I, I think that's pretty accurate as well for m- m- most law firms. I don't know if it's a majority, but there are a lot of women lawyers, and then that number starts to decline as you get up in seniority in terms of, like, partnership and how much equity.
[00:25:05] If you looked at the equity percentage across on, in big law, it's mostly held by men. And that's the same for even, like, legal marketing associations. If you go to our, like, the big conferences, it's lots of women. And then the s- the more senior you get, the l- less likely there are women. I mean, there's not...
[00:25:21] That's, like, there's not any, but it is, it starts to dwindle out pretty, pretty flat. That little sentence jumped out to me that I was like, "Oh, I wanna talk about, I wanna talk about this and highlight it." And that's, like, the point of our show too, right? Is to make sure that we're getting voices on across the entire legal spectrum and ensuring that everybody is getting their voice amplified.
[00:25:41] So we love, we love that. I mean, as another woman-owned business, we love, love, love, love that
[00:25:46] Mary Ellen Murrah: Absolutely. And it's so frustrating too. I'm sure you see this, but like so many of the events that I go to, and even conversations that I'm in, we refer to attorneys as men. Like, we'll be like, "Those guys down the street.
[00:25:59] These guys don't do this. These guys blah, blah, blah." It's like, and, and you almost hear it as an afterthought. Sometimes people will catch themselves, be like, "Oh, and women," or... And, you know, and it's like, okay, thanks. Like the damage has already been done. Like, let's, let's... Can we use some inclusive language?
[00:26:13] It feels like it's a not difficult thing to do.
[00:26:17] Jennifer Ramsey: Are private equity firms hi- like, uh, retaining Vista then?
[00:26:20] Mary Ellen Murrah: That's a great question. Um, so at the moment, no. Although, we, um, we sort of see some of that potentially happening because there's an education that needs to happen for the private equity side too, right?
[00:26:33] Like they- Yeah ... they're moving into this market. They don't know a whole lot about the legal market, um, and especially the contingency fee market, 'cause that is not the same as what they are accustomed to for like acquiring accounting firms, right? Yeah. Um, so you have to understand that the cashflow does not just look like this.
[00:26:49] Like you have months that are really different and volatile, so how do you look at it more like e- every year versus every month? How do you have those like stakeholder meetings? Um, and so part of that, you know, we just had an event in Baltimore that was an educational kind of event, and there were private equity companies that came there.
[00:27:07] But one of the things that I think, you know, could be a potential for us is, um, offering those firm assessments, but for the private equity firms. Like, "Hey, is this firm ready? Is this firm ready to acquire? What does their reporting package look like? What does their whatever?" And that's not something that we have done yet, but I can certainly see that being something that happens in the future.
[00:27:26] Jennifer Ramsey: What's the best part of being a CMO in, in the legal, and what's the hardest part?
[00:27:32] Mary Ellen Murrah: Oh gosh. I think the hardest part is, um, dragging firms along, and like sometimes you want things more than they do. Um, and so you have to like reconcile in your head like, "I can't want this more than you. You have to participate in this process."
[00:27:47] Uh-huh. Um, because- Amen,
[00:27:49] Jennifer Ramsey: amen sister.
[00:27:50] Mary Ellen Murrah: Yep. Yes. I mean, a lot of people will say like, "I wanna do this and I wanna do this," and they have amazing goals, and we're like, "Awesome. All right. Here's the plan to get you there." And then it's like, "Ooh, that's a lot of work. I don't know if I wanna..." Yeah. Get you there.
[00:28:03] Yeah. So I feel like that's probably the hardest part. I think the best part is when it does work, right? And you get to see like the fruits of the labor that you have done, like the other side of it, and you see this firm growing, and you see like the leadership team really getting it and clicking and appreciating what you've done.
[00:28:21] Jennifer Ramsey: Words of affirmation and appreciation. Yes. That's what makes... Who doesn't
[00:28:25] Mary Ellen Murrah: like
[00:28:26] Jennifer Ramsey: to be appreciated?
[00:28:27] Mary Ellen Murrah: Yeah. I mean, come on.
[00:28:27] Jennifer Ramsey: I know, right? It's true.
[00:28:30] Megan Senese: That would be the best part for sure.
That's it for today. Join us next time on So Much to Say: A Legal Podcast For People.
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