How to Hire the Right Community Growth Coordinator
The Hiring Process Most Firms Completely Miss
with Molly McGrath
SESSION FOCUS
You are not hiring a marketer. You are hiring a relationship operator who happens to work in legal — and the profile is nothing like what most firms post. The best candidates are rarely in legal marketing at all. They are pharmaceutical reps, title company reps, former teachers, event planners, nonprofit development officers, and recruiters. People who already live on a calendar of face-to-face meetings and are comfortable being told no.
This session walks the full Smart Hire® process for this role — the job ad, the traits that actually predict performance, the behavioral questions, real market compensation ranges, and the part nobody talks about: how you structure the pay. Model Rules 5.4 and 7.2(b) put real limits on compensating a non-lawyer for business development, and a per-referral commission can put a firm sideways depending on the state.
IN THIS SESSION, YOU’LL:
✔️ Learn which five backgrounds produce the strongest hires — and the one background that looks perfect on paper and fails every time
✔️ Get the behavioral interview questions that separate a relationship builder from a nice person who interviews well
✔️ See current compensation ranges for the role, including what firms are actually posting
✔️ Decide full-time versus part-time, and in-house versus virtual (this is the one role that cannot be fully remote)
✔️ Understand the bar advertising and fee-sharing considerations before you write the comp plan, not after
THE CHALLENGE THIS WEEK
Write the job ad before you need it.
Use this week’s framework and draft the posting for a Community Growth Coordinator at your firm. Then run the comp structure past someone who knows your state’s rules on non-lawyer business development pay.
THE CLOSER
Hire someone to sit behind a screen and you will get activity.
Hire someone to sit across a table and you will get cases.