Don’t obsess about using AI, obsess about having a strategy, Published in the Daily Journal LA

Segal McCambridge Chief Marketing and Business Development Officer, Jennifer O’Donnell, published an article in the Daily Journal LA, where she draws on insights from Passle’s CMO Series Live, a one-day forum for chief marketing officers, business development leaders, legal technology executives, and in-house counsel focused on growth strategy, collaboration, and the operational realities of AI adoption in law firms.

O’Donnell explains that many firms are adopting AI faster than they are building policies, training, and shared standards to support responsible use. This underscores the need for high-quality data, disciplined intake, and cross-functional workflows within modern legal marketing and business development.

“AI can accelerate research, drafting, and analysis, but results depend on whether a firm’s internal information is current, structured, and governed. The same accelerant can lead to increases in problems and errors if AI is fed ‘bad’ data,” O’Donnell writes. She connects data hygiene to growth by showing how experience data, client insights, and marketing content can become enterprise assets.

The article also notes that competitive advantage is becoming increasingly operational. Firms that connect business intelligence, competitive intelligence, proposal development, CRM adoption, and experience management into more integrated systems will be better positioned to act quickly, collaborate across practices, and deliver more relevant client insights.

Read the article in full, click here (subscriber-based).