Counsel Collective · Brand & Reputation Architects
Behind the BrandThe Legal Edition
Behind every firm and company you can name is someone who built its voice. They are rarely the ones recognized. These are the marketing, communications and public relations leaders behind the legal profession, and the organizations they built.
Hover or tap any leader to read their citation.
The Firms
10 Leaders01
LMA Intl Past President
Kelly MacKinnon
Gibson Dunn
— Am Law 50
Spent years elevating the whole profession, not just one firm.
Chief Marketing & BD Officer
02
Amanda M. Bruno
Morgan Lewis
— Am Law 50
Built the programs that put her firm and her own team on the public record.
Global Chief BD Officer
03
DeNovo Editorial Board
Jeanne Hammerstrom
Benesch
— Am Law 200
Rebranded the firm, then got the trade press to cover the rebrand itself.
Chief Marketing Officer
04
OnCon Top 10 Marketer
Danielle Wuschke Paige
Nixon Peabody
— Am Law 100
Rebuilt the brand and the website, with the peer-judged awards to show for it.
Chief Marketing & Growth Officer
05
Jon Mattson
Stinson
— Am Law 200
The managing partner went on the record in The American Lawyer three times in twelve months.
Chief Marketing & BD Officer
06
Ex-Jones Day
Iwona Kesting
Kilpatrick
— Am Law 100
Her arrival was announced in June 2026. Kilpatrick Labs launched two days later.
Chief BD and Marketing Officer
07
Vanessa Torres
Lowenstein Sandler
— Am Law 200
Oversees marketing and business development at the firm behind VentureCrush.
Chief Marketing & BD Officer
08
Former Newspaper Editor
Allison Hickson
Much Shelist
— Boutique
Volunteers with scholastic press associations. Helped lead the rebrand. No CMO above her.
Director of Marketing
09
LMA Rising Star
Melissa C. Marshall
Levenfeld Pearlstein
— Boutique
Mentors in The Future CMO Club, developing the next generation of legal marketers.
Chief Marketing Officer
10
Nick Smith
Armstrong Teasdale
— Am Law 200
The 125th-anniversary program placed partner-bylined letters in business journals across seven markets.
Senior Manager, Marketing & Comms
The Providers
10 Leaders01
Publishes the PERSUIT 50
Andy Nester
PERSUIT
— Legal Ops
Built a ranking of law firms from real transacted spend. His product is elevating others.
Chief Marketing Officer
02
Elise Bergeron
Ironclad
— Contract Lifecycle
Owns State of AI in Legal and the event programming built to platform in-house leaders.
Chief Marketing & Strategy Officer
03
Biju Muduli
LinkSquares
— Contract Lifecycle
Runs LinkSquares+, a content property built for in-house leaders rather than the product.
Chief Marketing Officer
04
Reagan Attle
Clio
— Practice Management
ClioCon, the Legal Trends Report and The Legal Insider magazine. Three standing platforms for practitioners.
Chief Marketing Officer
05
Helena Wood
Juro
— Contract Lifecycle
A GC resource hub, a GC jobs board, and Scaleup GC, a 1,500+ member community of in-house legal leaders.
VP Marketing
06
Trevor Johnson
Priori Legal
— Legal Talent
Marketing lead at the company whose Client Advisory Board seats legal leaders from Meta, Google and Clorox.
VP Marketing
07
Jeff Soriano
Brightflag
— Legal Ops
In-House Outliers, and the Legal Operations Compensation Report, now in its fifth edition.
VP Marketing
08
Stacy Ybarra
Lighthouse
— eDiscovery
Law & Candor, a long-running legal technology podcast, past 80 episodes.
Chief Marketing Officer
09
Ex-Elevate CMO
Nicole Giantonio
Epiq
— Legal Services
Has built this same category machine once before, as CMO of Elevate.
Chief Marketing Officer
10
Ex-Notion, Ex-Slack
Rachel Hepworth
Harvey
— Legal AI
Arrived in April 2026 to shape the category narrative at the most watched company in legal AI.
Chief Marketing Officer
