I have previously suggested (here and here) that business intelligence (BI) would become more important in large law firms. The Wall Street Journal yesterday carried an O’Melveny & Myers employment ad for a position where BI is critical.
I periodically skim the employment ads in the Wall Street Journal (Tuesday editions). Yesterday I noticed O’Melveny is looking for a “Director of Practice Development and Market Information” and a “Practice Analyst.” This is interesting in two respects. First, I don’t recall seeing many law firms advertising in the employment ads. And second, both positions appear to emphasize BI.
The Director position will focus on “competitive intelligence gathering for strategic planning, litigation spotting, competitive firm positioning” and “provide strategic practice development support to practices, offices and key client initiatives, as well as overseeing teams engaged in the collection, archiving and updating of CRM and other marketing-related data.” The Analyst will monitor economic performance and spot trends. I suspect the Director reports to marketing; the Analyst “reports to Practice Managing Director.”
I’m not 100% sure what these jobs entail, but they seem centered on doing more with business intelligence. If this represents a trend, CIOs will have another constituency to support.
With this post, I have created a Business Intelligence blog category and re-categorized some earlier posts