Sonnenschein Loses its CMO
Late-breaking newsflash: Sonnenschein, Nath & Rosenthal announced late Sunday that 100 lawyers, including 40 partners, from Thacher Proffitt & Wood will be joining the firm's New York office, effective January 1. The hires increase Sonnenschein's total headcount to about 800 lawyers, nearly doubling the size of its New York office. The news comes after reports on Friday that King & Spalding is no longer in the running to acquire a substantial portion of Thacher, which it had pursued in recent weeks. Details at http://www.law.com/jsp/article.jsp?id=1202426950688
Sonnenschein, a 700-lawyer firm headquartered in Chicago, has gone through two rounds of layoffs of lawyers, other timekeepers and staff. Also this year the firm had to rescind offers to law students it had hired and shortened its summer associate program, as was widely reported.
Now the firm, which has 15 offices in the U.S., Europe, Asia and the Middle East, has lost its Chief Marketing Officer Brian Lambert. You may recall that I wrote in this blog that he was hired only 10 months ago. See "Sonnenschein Hires New CMO."
This is part of a rash of departures of CMOs from major law firms. The fault does not lie with the highly-talented marketers. Lambert, for example has a Harvard law degree and an engineering degree, plus experience at McKinsey & Company, and Wachovia, as I reported earlier this year.
Cutting marketing is a big mistake for law firms. It's like dumping jet fuel while you're trying to keep an airliner aloft.
