Billable Mindset, Strategic Blindspot: Why MBD Must Start Thinking Like Lawyers to Drive Change

By: Jill Huse

Lawyers are trained to build cases. They think in precedent, construct arguments, track hours, and quantify value through output. In contrast, Marketing and Business Development (MBD) professionals often operate on intuition, creativity, and long-game positioning- none of which slot easily into a six-minute increment. This mismatch is more than a cultural quirk. It's a strategic barrier.

If we want to elevate MBD’s role as a strategic driver in law firms, we must start by thinking like the attorneys we support. Not in terms of content or style- but in discipline, structure, and value demonstration. To be seen as essential, we must speak the language of legal practice: show our receipts, build our briefs, and prove our ROI.

The Billable Hour Mindset

The billable hour isn’t just a pricing model—it’s a psychology. Attorneys live by it, measure their value through it, and often evaluate others based on how time is tracked and tied to revenue. When MBD teams fail to align with this mindset, we risk being seen as overhead rather than leverage.

That means we need to start tracking our own impact with the same rigor. Every cross-functional initiative, every pitch supported, every relationship advanced should be tied to measurable outputs. How many hours did it take? What was the outcome? Did we win the work? Did we shorten the sales cycle? Did we increase realization rates?

When we quantify our time and results, we not only build credibility—we start to reframe the value conversation.

Strategic value isn’t self-evident. In law firms, it must be proven.

Build the Case Internally

Attorneys aren’t looking for slogans—they’re looking for precedent. We need to present our ideas the way a lawyer would present a case: clearly, logically, and with evidence. Don’t just pitch a new initiative; show how it aligns with a firm priority, how it supports a specific practice group’s goals, and where similar efforts have delivered results.

Internal buy-in depends on the clarity of purpose and the strength of the argument. The more we adopt the structure of legal reasoning, the more seriously our proposals will be taken.

Teach, Don’t Tell

Most lawyers don’t fully understand what MBD teams do, and that’s on us. Education isn’t a side task—it’s a growth strategy. We should be regularly meeting with attorneys to share not just what we’re working on, but why it matters and how it connects to their goals.

I’ve always said we’re only as good as our last event or pitch, because those are the touchpoints where attorneys most often engage directly with our teams. It’s where we’re most visible and where our role is most narrowly defined. That moment of visibility can either reinforce outdated perceptions or serve as an entry point to reframe our value. We are, and we do, so much more than the last pitch deck or cocktail reception. It’s our responsibility to make sure they see that.

MBD should be seen as a resource for revenue generation, client insights, and practice expansion, not a PowerPoint support function. That perception shift requires proactive outreach, internal storytelling, and clear, compelling reporting.

Understand Their Business Like It’s Your Own

We often ask lawyers to care more about business development, but we don’t always demonstrate the same commitment to understanding their practice. That’s a miss.

MBD professionals need to know the client base, revenue goals, market pressures, and growth constraints of each group they support. Only then can we offer targeted, actionable, strategic counsel—just like a consultant would.

We can't just ask for a seat at the table—we have to show we're bringing intelligence that moves the conversation forward.

From Overhead to Strategic Engine

The future of law firm growth is not just about adding more attorneys or chasing lateral stars. It's about aligning insight, strategy, and execution across every client-facing function.

MBD departments have the potential to become the firm’s internal management consulting arm—translating ambition into execution, vision into visibility, and ideas into revenue. But to do that, we need to change how we think, how we work, and how we show our value.

Think like a lawyer. Operate like a strategist.