Taking time out of your office to attend a conference can be tricky: on the one hand, you want to mastermind with other experts in the legal industry, but you also worry about the extra expense or missed opportunities. Sometimes, however, you can get a lot out of a legal conference if you choose the right one to attend. Not all conferences are created equal.
Held all over America throughout the year, you can attend conferences to get more networking opportunities, identify initiatives worth implementing, and absorb insights from industry leaders.
Here are the best legal marketing conferences to keep on your radar.
Hosted by the team here at Rankings.io, this is your chance to really evaluate and grow your personal injury law firm. The conference grew out of the popularity of the marketing agency's popular podcast, Personal Injury Mastermind. Hosted for the first year in 2024, this conference is specifically designed for lawyers who want to go to the next level with their marketing efforts.
The theme of this conference is helping you become the GOAT: greatest of all time. Come ready to take an honest look at what's holding you back and to get the insight you need to refine your law firm's reach and online presence with better digital marketing plans.
You can expect to learn a lot about SEO content marketing and social media, paid ads, and so much more here.
The speaker lineup is filled with expert lawyers who excel in their own legal marketing, so you can hear their real insight into what's working right now.
The Game Changers Summit is hosted by the team behind Crisp Video. It's an invitation-only event primarily for firms that work with Crisp and their coaching. The conference promises that it's the best networking event in the legal industry, and it has multiple keynote speakers and side sessions to help you think about the next year in your law firm. The conference typically has celebrities and high-level entertainment come in to round out the event, too.
Many legal business development professionals and high-earning lawyers attend this conference, so it's a good chance to learn some of their behind-the-scenes secrets.
If you're not familiar with the Game Changers conference, you may want to check out the founder, Michael Mogill, who has written a book in the legal space.
Every year, the Legal Marketing Association hosts a large in-person conference for its members. Held over just a few days in a rotating location, more than 1,000 lawyers and legal professionals show up to attend sessions and network with one another. If you are hearing what's getting results in other law firms all over the country, this is the one for you.
Since the LMA's main focus is on marketing and helping law firms get potential clients, this one is probably the most helpful for an attorney who wants to beef up in the marketing area specifically.
Clio is a leading provider of law firm practice management software, so this conference serves a few purposes. First, it's a place where a lot of the "who's who" in legal get together for some programming managed by Clio. Second, Clio always unveils new updates to their software and insights from their annual legal tech report. Third, there are lots of breakout sessions, and many are focused on legal marketing.
It's only two days, but they are action-packed, so this is a perfect solution if you can only take a few days off from your office.
This conference is hosted by the Brain Injury Association of California and is spread over four days. There are multiple tracks for lawyers who attend this conference, and it's all designed to cater to lawyers practicing in any area that impacts patients with traumatic brain injuries. That means it's not relevant for those outside of medical malpractice, personal injury, or workers' comp.
This conference is marked as "medical school for lawyers," so it's less designed to help you master your marketing and more designed to help you better understand ways to effectively represent clients with complex brain injuries.
Held each February in rotating locations hosted by the American Bar Association, this is a big legal conference focused not entirely on marketing but still with plenty of relevant programming in that space. TechShow is heavily supported by exhibitors and sponsorship opportunities, so you can meet the up-and-coming founders in the legal software space, too.
This is a great conference to see what's new and what's working best in the world of legal technology. A range of speakers cover a lot of different topics, and the expo portion gives you a chance to connect with new and emerging tech solutions for your law firm.
Sometimes you can get a lot out of attending a conference with tracks all geared towards one practice area. Typically, the programming in these events is designed to match what's working in other law firms and news and updates in the practice area in question. That's the case for the Annual Labor and Employment Law Conference hosted by the American Bar Association.
If you want a one-stop shop to get all your CLE credits in employment law, this is it. You might pick up some marketing tactics along the way, too.
Hosted by ALM, this is the longest running tradeshow and conference in the legal space. This is a broad conference with some marketing-specific material shared, but is set up to help you leave reinvigorated and refreshed for the next steps.
Bear in mind that this one has a lot of general advice and inspirational material in it but you'd need to be intentional about which sessions you attend if you're wanting marketing content only. This one is also a major conference, with over 6,000 people in attendance in previous years. Some lawyers can find that overwhelming if they're looking for a smaller audience or different atmosphere specific to marketing or a certain practice area.
Why should you attend legal conferences this year?
Planning ahead to attend marketing conferences for lawyers can give you confidence and peace of mind about your law firm's growth. When you know what you want to achieve, you can narrow down your shortlist of potential legal marketing conferences to choose something that aligns with the crowd you'd like to network with and the kinds of information you want to learn.
Some of the best reasons to attend a conference include:
- Getting out of the office to focus on the rather than just working in it
- Learning new tips and tools you can use to work more effectively
- Seeing the latest trends in technology or content marketing
- Learning about marketing strategies in action
- Meeting new people who can share insights or become referral partners
- Get inspired to come back to your office and do things differently
- Create a roadmap for your law firm's growth
- See various approaches to pricing
- Identifying ways to build your own thought leadership
- Discover the business development strategies that win other firms new cases
If you're looking for ways to find new clients and maximize your law firm's time and focus, consider choosing at least one conference to attend this year.
