Rankings, Submissions, and Awards Specialist

Finnegan•Washington, DC

9d•$80,000 - $95,000•Hybrid

About The Position

Finnegan is more than just a law firm – we are a powerhouse of innovation and strategy growth. We pride ourselves on providing top-tier intellectual property services globally. Our success is rooted in our emphasis on relationships with our clients and each other. We care about every individual, and it is why many professionals have spent their entire careers at Finnegan. We are seeking a Rankings, Submissions, and Awards Specialist who will focus on maintaining market recognition for the firm through consistently contributing to and submitting to directories and publications of relevance. The specialist, working with the directors, will work to increase rankings and recognition for the firm and its lawyers via promotion of case and client wins, firm initiatives, and lawyer accomplishments. The specialist, working with the directors, will endeavor to consistently improve the firm’s efficiency and application of best practices pertaining to directories and rankings. The specialist serves as a central point of contact and works closely with department colleagues, lawyers, firm management, and the firm’s intelligence and communications teams.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree in communications, public relations, marketing, journalism, or a relevant field required with at least 4 years of experience in a professional services environment.
Familiar with annual and periodic rankings published by American Lawyer, Law360, Legal 500, Intellectual Asset Management, World Trademark Review, and Managing Intellectual Property, among others.
Excellent writer.
Strong communication, oral, written, and interpersonal skills; ability to influence persuasively and effectively with a collaborative orientation, particularly via writing. Detail oriented with good grammatical, editing, and proofreading skills.
Detailed organization and project management skills; demonstrated ability to navigate sensitive and difficult situations with ease, strong analytical and problem-solving skills, and ability to think critically. Ability to set priorities, plan, organize, follow-through, delegation, and negotiation skills is required.
Ongoing and proficient use of technology applications that are commonly deployed to organize information, schedule calls and meetings, coordinate tasks, and manage projects.
Ability to handle confidential and proprietary information relating to the firm and its clients.
Polished presentation and interpersonal communication skills required to work with attorneys and staff and to be an effective external representative of the firm with clients, prospects, professional peers, consultants, media, and vendors.
Able to be a self-starter and work independently as well as within cross-functional teams.
Comfortable working in a fast-paced environment, able to prioritize multiple tasks, and complete simultaneous assignments with minimal supervision.
Experience with Windows-based word processing, database programs, and spreadsheets.
Ability and willingness to be a team player and to work overtime when necessary.

Responsibilities

Lead case summarization and processing efforts for the firm, including drafting summaries.
Work with attorneys to gather information about specific cases, matters, and attorney achievements.
Work with others to coordinate and maintain the firm’s experience management system to track summaries on the firm’s cases/matters, tagging to the associated attorneys as well.
Oversee the case win process and draft work summaries for external marketing materials and surveys.
Process the summaries and track attorney responses.
Coordinate adding the information to the experience database from internal email messages regarding case outcomes, case/matter summaries for surveys, and representative engagements posted to the website and used in external marketing materials.
Assess the value in participating across various opportunities and make recommendations to relevant stakeholders as to whether the firm should participate.
Maintain submissions dashboard to proactively begin drafting survey and directory submissions for internal review.
Align submissions with the business strategies of the firm and strictly follow client preferences and ethical considerations.
Track the firm’s response to surveys requesting information on the firm, its practices, offices, and attorneys, working with other departments to track their response to non-practice-specific surveys.
Draft compelling narratives about the work and accomplishments, highlight the success of the firm’s attorneys, firm strengths and developments, and client accomplishments.
Coordinate review and completion.
Manage client referee tracking and data maintenance, including securing approval from attorneys.
Evaluate the merits of new directories, respond to inquiries regarding participation, and if responding, develop firm data and profile information.
Track assessments and feedback in CRM.
Liaise with the editors and researchers at publications to understand and keep up with methodology and submission guidelines and use that information to enhance future submissions.
Answer inquiries from various ranking/directory publications and identify and communicate opportunities with the applicable team members.
Coordinate and maintain the firm’s various directory listings and profiles, including Managing Intellectual Property, The Legal 500, Intellectual Asset Management, World Trademark Review, etc.
Execute the checklist to promote firm and attorney rankings/ awards externally and internally and track accordingly.
Communicate to the relevant stakeholders when new rankings/results are published.
Draft press releases, media mentions, and social media posts and coordinate with team members on posting accordingly.
Track individual and firm rankings and coordinate updates to marketing materials and professional biographies as appropriate.
Provide periodic reports on survey and directory activity, including success rates of awards submissions.
Monitor the progress of projects to meet schedules and other deadlines.
Role includes working with vendors, department staff, and other firm personnel to facilitate workflow.
Conduct process improvement and tactical analysis after each annual or periodic cycle for rankings and submissions and make recommendations for improving specific submissions steps or the overall process.
Maintain files related to job responsibilities, including firm experience, surveys, awards, directories, checklists, etc.
Coordinate the creation and review of various department procedure sheets as needed.
Develop and monitor annual budget for relevant areas of responsibility.
Provide support on other projects and serve as back-up, as needed.
Assume all other tasks assigned by CMO, directors and managers.