Senior Business Development Specialist

About Ropes & Gray

Ropes & Gray is a preeminent global law firm. The firm has been ranked in the top three on The American Lawyer's prestigious A-List for eight consecutive years and #1 on Law.com's UK A-List twice in the past three years - rankings that honor the "best of the best" law firms. The firm has approximately 2,500 lawyers and professionals serving clients in major centers of business, finance, technology, and government in Boston, Chicago, Dublin, Hong Kong, London, Los Angeles, Milan, New York, Paris, San Francisco, Seoul, Shanghai, Silicon Valley, Singapore, Tokyo and Washington, D.C.The firm has consistently been recognized for its leading practices in many areas, including asset management, private equity, M&A, finance, real estate, tax, antitrust, life sciences, health care, intellectual property, litigation & enforcement, privacy & cybersecurity, and business restructuring. Ropes & Gray is an equal opportunity employer.

Overview

About Business Development at Ropes & Gray: 

The Business Development department’s commercial objective is to grow firm revenue and take market share, in collaboration with partners, other attorneys and business colleagues, by leveraging and generating the firm’s offering: 

Business development is part of a broader business support organization in a collaborative work environment. The business development team is a specialist business support function with a range of offerings focused solely on business development in the firm’s practice groups, industry groups and client teams including new business pursuit; key account management; business development skills & coaching; pitches and proposals (including RFPs); and client feedback.

The Senior Business Development Specialist (BDS) will be an integral member of the Business Development Team.  The BDS will work under the direction of the Director of Business Development to provide strategic, commercial, and practical support on the implementation of strategic and commercial business and client development priorities. The BDS is expected to collaborate closely with business development and other colleagues across all global offices to support the development and execution of integrated marketing and business development plans that grow Ropes & Gray’s share of wallet, increase the firm’s brand, visibility, attract new clients, and drive client satisfaction and loyalty.

Responsibilities

• Support the Business Development Director - Industry (BDD) on the development and execution of business development and marketing efforts designed to generate new business and improve market visibility on certain cross-practice initiatives, including the investment bank industry and our network of international firm relationships.
• Develop an understanding of the industry group’s ambitions, helping to identify, assess, and pursue new clients.
• Support the BDD in maintaining and executing account plans for two priority investment bank clients, including stakeholder mapping, meeting cadence and follow‑through, pipeline/CRM hygiene, performance dashboards, and cross‑practice pursuits aligned with the BDD and relationship partners.
• Support the BDD in overseeing our global legal coverage and specialty law firm networks, including referral tracking and analytics, capability and coverage mapping, data and compliance hygiene, onboarding and periodic reviews, and relationship health scorecards.
• Support the BDD in maintaining internal reporting and communication frameworks to track progress and share outcomes. Communicate best practice business development activities and successes across the group.
• Help to drive the development of existing relationships in collaboration with other relevant business support colleagues including:
  • organizing, participating in, and maintaining business development meetings and being responsible for certain aspects of client and target development efforts.
  • developing a strong knowledge of the investment banking industry and international and boutique law firm ecosystem including by commissioning and conducting business research to keep abreast of industry/market intelligence and to support the BD strategy and proactively sharing relevant insights with the BDD and team.
• Support pitching and new business generation by assisting the BDD and the business development team in project managing pitches, proposals, and RFPs, ensuring timely completion, document storage, and follow-up actions as directed, including:
  • maintaining up-to-date pitch content, mate