Legal Marketing Association Recognizes Jackson Walker and CMO Barbara Bell Malin at Your Honor Awards

October 28, 2024 | Spotlight



Jackson Walker is pleased to announce that the firm and Barbara Bell Malin, Chief Business Development and Marketing Officer, were recognized at the 2024 Your Honor Awards presented by the Legal Marketing Association’s (LMA) Southwest and West regions on October 24, 2024. The firm received the Marketing Technology Campaign Award for the firm’s cross-departmental industry mapping project and Barbara was honored with the first-ever CMO of the Year Award.

Marketing Technology Campaign Award

Jackson Walker proudly received the Marketing Technology Campaign Award, which is given to a law firm that has effectively leveraged technology for marketing purposes, in recognition of a novel initiative by the Marketing and Business Development, Information Technology, and Knowledge Services departments to revolutionize the way the firm understands and serves its clients.

In early 2024, the firm recognized the potential of new automation techniques and advancements in generative AI to streamline the process of categorizing clients by industry. Together, the cross-departmental team developed a Python program that utilized Chat GPT to categorize clients by Standard Industrial Classification (SIC) codes. This automated approach significantly reduced the time and effort required to locate and document accurate SIC codes for the firm’s clients.

The team transformed the SIC data to fit Jackson Walker’s own industry taxonomy and displayed the information in PowerBI dashboards. This enabled easy segmentation and analysis of client information, providing valuable insights for informed decision-making.

At the outset of the project, roughly 2,500 clients had SIC codes assigned. By the project’s conclusion, over 15,000 clients had SIC codes assigned, representing 98% of clients active over the last four years. This comprehensive data now allows Jackson Walker to target potential clients more effectively and consider ways to serve existing clients by investing in new capabilities or offering industry-specific insights.

The project was praised by the Your Honor Awards judges as a “brilliant use of AI in a very complex and needed exercise” and an “excellent example of internal use of AI for improving business processes.”

CMO of the Year Award

Barbara Bell Malin

The firm also congratulates Barbara Bell Malin on receiving the inaugural CMO of the Year Award, which honors a Chief Marketing Officer who demonstrates outstanding leadership, innovation, and impact within their firms and the legal marketing profession.

Since joining Jackson Walker in 2016, Barbara has been an integral part of the firm’s consistent revenue growth and advancement of diversity, equity, and inclusion and pro bono service goals.

“In my 40-year career, Barbara is hands-down the best marketing professional with whom I’ve worked,” said Alfred Meyerson, partner and chair of Jackson Walker’s firmwide Business Development Committee. “She’s exceptionally bright, diligent, creative, and positive – and is an outstanding leader. It’s comforting to know that she is in charge of such an important part of the firm.”

In her role, Barbara is a member of the firm’s business professional leadership team and leads a 23-member team of client development, communications, events, and marketing technology professionals to design and implement go-to-market strategies focused on client service and satisfaction. In addition, she co-leads Jackson Walker’s emerging technologies special interest group, which works to adopt cutting-edge tools such as artificial intelligence. She also serves as a member of the business development committee for Globalaw, an international network of more than 80 law firms in over 80 countries.

Barbara’s sophisticated approach to business development and marketing is informed by her experience as a practicing attorney, which includes a wide range of trial and appellate work.

She regularly speaks on topics such as legal innovation, the client experience, and business development. She has been featured on the Market Leaders Podcast, The Geek in Review, and Attorney At Law Magazine.

Outside of Jackson Walker, Barbara has served on LMA’s Professional Advocacy Committee since 2020 and has participated as a mentor in the LMA Southwest Region’s LMANext program. She has also served on the Executive Board of Women in the Know, a Dallas/Fort Worth-area group of high-level professionals working with local nonprofits to provide support, education, and fundraising opportunities. Additionally, she has served on the Fine Arts Board of St. Monica Catholic Church and as a mentor for Bridge to Leadership, an organization that connects multicultural leaders with professional mentors.

Barbara earned her J.D., magna cum laude, from Southern Methodist University School of Law and her B.S. in Commerce & Business Administration, summa cum laude, from the University of Alabama.

The 2024 LMA Your Honor Awards presented by the Southwest and West regions was held on October 24, 2024, during the LMA Tech West & Southwest Conference in Las Vegas, Nevada.


In This Story

Alfred M. Meyerson
Partner, Austin

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