The Lawyer's Edge

Michael Mellor is the President and Founder of 742 Advisors, a boutique consultancy focused on law firm revenue generation, pitch operations, and go-to-market strategy. He designs revenue operating models that help firms win more work with less friction, covering pitch infrastructure, business development operations, experience management systems, and governance frameworks. Before founding 742 Advisors, Mike served as Chief Marketing and Business Development Officer at Pryor Cashman, where he rebuilt the firm's marketing department and transformed the function from a cost center into a revenue-generating operation. He previously held senior roles at Paul Weiss and Katten and served on KPMG's "Big Deal" team, leading pursuit strategy for some of the firm's largest opportunities. Mike has been recognized by Lawdragon as a Top 100 Global Leader in Legal Strategy & Consulting and received the Legal Marketing Association New York Chapter's Member of the Year Award.
WHAT'S COVERED IN THIS EPISODE ABOUT USING BETTER DATA FOR LAW FIRM BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT
Law firms can have exactly the sort of experience a prospective client is looking for and still have trouble finding it or remembering it when they need it. The information may be sitting in an old pitch, missing from an attorney bio, coded incorrectly in a firm system, or known only to the lawyer who handled the work. That creates a very practical business development problem when it is time to show a prospect what the firm has actually done.
Michael Mellor has spent his career inside law firms looking at why those gaps exist and how firms can close them. His approach starts with getting a clearer picture of the work lawyers have already done, then organizing that information in a way people can actually use. That can make business development easier without requiring another major technology investment and give firm leaders a more accurate view of where the firm has depth and where there may be room to grow.
In this episode of The Lawyer's Edge Podcast, Elise Holtzman talks with Michael Mellor of 742 Advisors about the information gaps that make business development harder, how law firm culture and incentives affect whether systems actually get used, why better data matters beyond individual pitches, and practical ways firms can start organizing what they already know without making another major technology investment.
3:27 - What the scramble for law firm experience looks like during a pitch
5:28 - Why centralized information matters beyond individual pitches
6:44 - How poor data hygiene affects law firm strategy
8:44 - Auditing lawyers' work to uncover business development opportunities
12:09 - Why business development plans often become a box-checking exercise
14:46 - Why law firm CRMs fail to solve the information problem
18:51 - How origination credit and compensation affect information sharing
22:39 - Starting small with attorney bios and existing matter information
24:27 - Building a useful database before investing in more technology
26:46 - Why lawyers need to document the work they have already done
MENTIONED IN HOW BETTER DATA CAN HELP LAW FIRMS WIN MORE WORK
742 Advisors | LinkedIn
Michael Mellor on LinkedIn
Get connected with the coaching team: hello@thelawyersedge.com
The Lawyer's Edge
SPONSOR FOR THIS EPISODE
This episode is brought to you by the coaching team at The Lawyer's Edge, a training and coaching firm that has been focused exclusively on lawyers and law firms since 2008. Each member of the team is a trained, certified, and experienced professional coach—and either a former practicing attorney or a former law firm marketing and business development professional.
Whatever your professional objectives, our coaches can help you achieve your goals more quickly, more easily, and with significantly less stress. To get connected with your coach, fill out our contact form.

Michelle Citrin is the owner of Michelle Citrin Studios, a personal branding and photography practice focused exclusively on women in law. She has more than 17 years of experience in photography and earned her degree from the Savannah College of Art and Design. Michelle also brings a background in fashion styling and design to her work, which she uses to help attorneys show up with the same authority they have earned in the courtroom or boardroom. She operates studios in Fort Lauderdale, Charlotte, and Asheville and works with clients around the world. Her work has been featured in Forbes, Ocean Drive Magazine, and NBC6, and she teaches continuing legal education programs across Florida on marketing, executive presence, and personal branding.
WHAT'S COVERED IN THIS EPISODE ABOUT HEADSHOTS AS A BUSINESS STRATEGY
For many lawyers, professional photography is something to check off the list when it is time to update a website bio or LinkedIn profile. That approach misses how much your imagery shapes the perception people form when they look you up. If your headshot no longer reflects your current level of experience, authority, and success, there can be a disconnect between the reputation you have earned and the way you are showing up online.
This is why Michelle Citrin approaches professional photography as an important part of a lawyer's larger marketing and visibility strategy. Your face is often the most recognizable part of your brand, and the images you use can help you stay memorable and top of mind while giving you more control over the narrative people encounter online. As AI changes how professionals market themselves, being human, using real imagery, and showing up as yourself become even more important to building trust.
In this episode of The Lawyer's Edge Podcast, Elise Holtzman talks with Michelle Citrin of Michelle Citrin Studios about using professional photography as a marketing strategy, matching your imagery to the authority you have earned, building visibility and trust online, and being human in a world of AI.
3:19 - What strong personal brands have in common
4:41 - Showing up consistently without being "loud"
6:31 - Treating professional photography as a marketing strategy
8:19 - Why your face is the most recognizable part of your brand
9:20 - Matching your imagery to your current level of authority
12:21 - Making your expertise more visible and staying top of mind
15:32 - Why accomplished lawyers can still feel uncomfortable in front of the camera
20:11 - Choosing a photographer who understands your audience and marketing goals
21:16 - Planning imagery around your target market and message
24:05 - Being human in a world of AI
26:36 - Building trust when clients are finding and vetting lawyers online
28:45 - Updating your photography regularly and continuing to show up
Mentioned In Why Your Headshot Is a Business Strategy, Not a Vanity Project
Michelle Citrin Studios
Michelle Citrin on LinkedIn
Get connected with the coaching team: hello@thelawyersedge.com
The Lawyer's Edge
SPONSOR FOR THIS EPISODE
This episode is brought to you by the coaching team at The Lawyer's Edge, a training and coaching firm that has been focused exclusively on lawyers and law firms since 2008. Each member of the team is a trained, certified, and experienced professional coach—and either a former practicing attorney or a former law firm marketing and business development professional.
Whatever your professional objectives, our coaches can help you achieve your goals more quickly, more easily, and with significantly less stress. To get connected with your coach, fill out our contact form.

Michael Roch is the founder and principal advisor of MHPR Advisors, where he advises managing partners, boards, and remuneration committees on partner compensation and governance. For more than 25 years, he has worked with law firm leaders across Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom, Europe, and the United States, as well as with accounting, consulting, and other professional partnerships. Originally trained as both an accountant and a lawyer, Michael brings a cross-disciplinary perspective to questions involving compensation, governance, finance, and tax. He is the co-author of The Partner Remuneration Handbook and co-leads a long-running global survey tracking how partners are paid across markets. Based in Zurich, Michael serves clients worldwide.
WHAT'S COVERED IN THIS EPISODE ABOUT PARTNER COMPENSATION AND LAW FIRM STRATEGY
Law firm leaders often believe their compensation system reflects what they are trying to build. Yet the way partners are paid may still reward them for holding tightly to client relationships, prioritizing their own originations, and resisting the collaboration the partnership says it values. As the business grows across offices and practice areas, those old approaches can become increasingly disconnected from where the firm is going.
Michael Roch explains that this often happens because partnerships fail to update compensation systems developed when they were much smaller. Changing the system requires leaders to be clear about what the business is trying to achieve and willing to let go of old paradigms that no longer support that direction. It also requires a closer look at what the partnership actually rewards, how partner contributions are evaluated, and whether the decision-making process reinforces the strategy or works against it.
In this episode of The Lawyer's Edge Podcast, Elise Holtzman talks with Michael Roch of MHPR Advisors about why compensation systems fall behind as firms grow, how origination credit can create conflict around client relationships, what firms should consider when compensating managing partners and other leaders, and why money is only one of the tools law firm leaders can use to influence behavior and retain talent.
3:45 - The three elements that shape a partner compensation system
5:20 - Why compensation systems fall behind as firms grow
10:19 - What a firm's compensation system reveals about its real values
14:58 - Why annual compensation memos cannot replace ongoing performance dialogue
20:13 - Origination credit, collaboration, and control of client relationships
24:23 - Putting rules and governance around origination disputes
28:38 - How firms should compensate managing partners and practice group leaders
35:16 - Why paying more rarely solves a retention problem
38:21 - The leadership responsibility partners have to associates and counsel
40:08 - Why reward involves more than compensation
Mentioned In How Partner Compensation Can Undermine Your Firm's Strategy
MHPR Advisors | LinkedIn
Michael Roch on LinkedIn
The Partner Remuneration Handbook by Michael Roch and Ray D'Cruz
SmarterReward™
Dr. Heidi Gardner | How Law Firms Can Increase Revenues, Grow Client Loyalty, and Improve Diversity
Get connected with the coaching team: hello@thelawyersedge.com
The Lawyer's Edge
SPONSOR FOR THIS EPISODE
This episode is brought to you by the coaching team at The Lawyer's Edge, a training and coaching firm that has been focused exclusively on lawyers and law firms since 2008. Each member of the team is a trained, certified, and experienced professional coach—and either a former practicing attorney or a former law firm marketing and business development professional.
Whatever your professional objectives, our coaches can help you achieve your goals more quickly, more easily, and with significantly less stress. To get connected with your coach, fill out our contact form.

What do you think is one of the most powerful obstacles to business development success for lawyers?
Despite their busy schedules, it isn't a lack of time. It's not about the lack of money, either. It's not even that you don't know how to do it, although law school certainly didn't teach it.
Simply put, it's your mindset. It's the stories you tell yourself that stop you from taking (or fully committing to) consistent, targeted action. And it's the biggest impediment I've come across again and again with lawyers I meet.
In this episode of The Lawyer's Edge podcast, you'll learn 7 tips that will help you cultivate a successful business development mindset. I'll teach you a thought process that will inspire you to start taking action in the direction of your goals and stick with it consistently!
WHAT'S COVERED IN THIS EPISODE ABOUT CULTIVATING A BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT MINDSET
2:57 - What business development success and that criminal law class you took in your first year have in common
5:27 - The first thing you can do to cultivate your business development mindset for success
8:14 - Two things you need to recognize about business development and one thing you shouldn't expect to see
11:26 - The people you shouldn't listen to and the responses you don't want to give to everyone else and yourself
14:12 - A change that'll make it more likely for you to focus on and engage with business development
Mentioned In How to Cultivate a Business Development Mindset
IGNITE Women's Business Development Accelerator 
Get Connected with The Coaching Team at hello@thelawyersedge.com
The Lawyer's Edge
SPONSOR FOR THIS EPISODE…
Today's episode is brought to you by the coaching team at The Lawyer's Edge, a training and coaching firm which has been focused exclusively on lawyers and law firms since 2008. 
Each member of The Lawyer's Edge coaching team is a trained, certified, and experienced professional coach AND either a former practicing attorney or a former law firm marketing and business development professional. Whatever your professional objectives, our coaches can help you achieve your goals more quickly, more easily, and with significantly less stress. 
To get connected with YOUR coach, just email the team at hello@thelawyersedge.com.

Joshua Wurtzel is a commercial and real estate litigation partner at Schlam Stone & Dolan LLP, a Manhattan boutique law firm that represents businesses, non-profits, and individuals in complex and corporate matters. He has successfully represented public and private companies and prominent individuals in both federal and state court. With his focus on aggressive litigation and his ability to develop creative and novel solutions to complex disputes, he brings a unique, out-of-the-box perspective to his clients' most pressing legal needs.
Before joining Schlam Stone & Dolan, Josh was an associate at Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP in its Securities Litigation and Corporate Governance group. He also previously worked as an intern for the Honorable Kiyo A. Matsumoto of the Eastern District of New York. He's a regular contributor to several legal publications (such as the New York Law Journal) and lectures on cutting-edge legal issues in the commercial real estate sector.
WHAT'S COVERED IN THIS EPISODE ABOUT HOW TO GET STARTED AS A RAINMAKER - AND SUCCEED!
Bringing new clients into a law firm not only drives a law firm's growth, but can also provide you with greater professional autonomy and an increased ability to call the shots in your own career. Despite the clear benefits to becoming a consistent business developer, many lawyers don't pursue business development success or struggle to achieve it.
In this episode of The Lawyer's Edge podcast, Elise Holtzman sits down with Joshua Wurtzel, a commercial and real estate litigation partner at Schlam Stone & Dolan LLP, to discuss his experience with building a book of business. Josh shares the challenges he faced on his journey to becoming a rainmaker and explains how networking and coaching have been instrumental in refining his approach to business development, team-building, and client relationships.
2:50 - Why Josh decided to start building his book of business and the early challenges and successes he encountered
6:22 - The impact of developing his book of business on Josh's approach to client relationships
9:18 - How Josh landed his first clients and honed his networking skills
11:42 - The importance of building trust over time and different strategies for developing lasting relationships
15:22 - The business development challenges that Josh continues to focus on overcoming
18:23 - How Josh has adapted his business development strategies over time and why he prioritizes business development
25:02 - How Josh maintains the momentum of his business development efforts when immediate results don't materialize
28:07 - The importance of building a team to support business development and manage client relationships
33:59 - Advice for associates, counsel, and junior partners looking to start building their own book of business and advance in their careers
38:29 - The role of self-confidence and belief in your success as a lawyer and aspiring rainmaker
MENTIONED IN HOW TO GET STARTED AS A RAINMAKER - AND SUCCEED!
Schlam Stone & Dolan LLP | Joshua's Profile
Joshua Wurtzel on LinkedIn
Joshua Wurtzel on Instagram
Business Networking International (BNI)
USA 500 Clubs
Get Connected with The Coaching Team at hello@thelawyersedge.com
The Lawyer's Edge
SPONSOR FOR THIS EPISODE
This episode is brought to you by the coaching team at The Lawyer's Edge, a training and coaching firm that has been focused exclusively on lawyers and law firms since 2008. Each member of the team is a trained, certified, and experienced professional coach—and either a former practicing attorney or a former law firm marketing and business development professional.
Whatever your professional objectives, our coaches can help you achieve your goals more quickly, more easily, and with significantly less stress. To get connected with your coach, fill out our contact form.