When Ballard Spahr created a full-time client interviewer position in 2008, the firm wasn’t the first to do so but the gig was still a rarity in the legal industry. For Chairman Arthur Makadon, the concern was that every firm would create the position and its value would be diminished with clients viewing interviews the same way they see law firm e-mail alerts.
But if one good thing came of the recession, it was that most firms didn’t begin to invest in client interviews and Ballard Spahr’s interviewer, Debra Nussbaum, “had a free run at it,” racking up more than 160 client interviews, Makadon said. Nussbaum left the firm last year to handle marketing for a group of lawyers who split off from Ballard Spahr in South Jersey to form Hyland Levin. Since then, the firm has been looking to hire someone new. It found that replacement last month in Melissa R. Margulies.
