A Day in the Life of Pintu Babu, Leader

This post is part of our ‘A Day in the Life’ segment, where we showcase the lives of legal professionals. The segment aims to help you make inspired and informed career decisions.

Can you describe your specific responsibilities in this role?

I work closely with the firm’s leadership team, including practice and sector heads, to strategically scale each business vertical organically. As in any professional services firm, the practice development team functions as the growth engine, combining strategic insight with actionable inputs for partners, strengthening market positioning through thought leadership, and deepening engagement with past and current clients to build sustainable pipelines.

This involves identifying emerging trends, developing compelling go-to-market (GTM) strategies, enhancing brand visibility across global platforms, leveraging legaltech to optimise outreach, and ensuring our thought leadership reaches and resonates with the right audiences.

I also collaborate with our support teams and oversee key functions including social media, events, CRM, relationships with journalists, engagement with regulators, and other high-impact stakeholder interactions.

The key difference is that while many of these activities were carried out manually five years ago, advancements in legal technology have now enabled us to automate a significant portion of these processes, allowing for greater efficiency and impact.

What initially drew you to a non-traditional legal role focused on practice development, and how did your legal training support this transition?

I’ve always been curious about how law intersects with strategy, communication, and influence. While I didn’t pursue a conventional legal practice, my legal education gave me a strong analytical foundation and a deep appreciation of nuance, something that’s crucial when you’re representing a law firm’s voice or advising on positioning in complex markets.

I saw this line work of ie. practice development as a bridge between the practice of law and the business of law, and that’s where I found my fit.

What is the most important thing you’ve learned since starting in this role?

Relationships matter more than anything else in the service sector. No matter how strong your messaging or pitch is, it’s the trust you build over time, with clients, colleagues, and collaborators, that makes the real difference.

What’s the one thing that surprised you about the job when you started?

How entrepreneurial the role is. High-growth marketing in law goes far beyond creating LinkedIn posts, it’s about stepping into the client’s shoes and asking, “Is this really the firm?” while constantly taking stock of the firm’s value in the market, and identifying opportunities in real time. Lawyers, given their focus on client work, often don’t have the bandwidth to take on this market-facing perspective.

That’s where our role comes in, acting as champions who bring entrepreneurial energy and fresh thinking to the way law firms position themselves, engage with the market, and ultimately grow.

What are the Pros and Cons of your work?

• Pros: You’re constantly learning. You operate at the intersection of law, strategy, and innovation. And you get to work with incredibly bright legal minds.
• Cons: It can get overwhelming during crunch times, especially when you’re managing multiple priorities for different practices. Also, being in a non-fee earning role means you have to constantly prove your value through results and relationships.

This space is still new for many law students. What top tips would you give aspiring professionals interested in legal operations, strategic communications, or business development in law?

• Be curious about the “why” behind everything, whether it’s a legal trend, a client’s business decision, or a firm’s marketing strategy.
• Build a strong foundation in corporate communication, digital marketing and social media, SEO and web analytics, data analytics and data visualisation, design thinking, PowerPoint and Excel, legaltech, knowledge management, and basic legal knowledge.
• Volunteer for cross-functional work, be it helping with an event, writing for the firm, or analysing performance data.
• Develop client-centric thinking. Learn to see every deal or litigation from the client’s perspective and focus on delivering measurable impact rather than just outputs.
• Stay ahead of trends, follow industry publications, attend webinars, and experiment with emerging tools and tech.

Please recommend any books or resources that you think every law student should explore.

• Marketing Management by Philip Kotler, Kevin Lane Keller
• Blue Ocean Strategy By W. Chan Kim & Renée Mauborgane
• To Sell Is Human by Daniel Pink
• The Trusted Advisor by David Maister
• Measure What Matters by John Doerr
• Harvard Business Review

Disclaimer: Interviews published on Lawctopus are not thoroughly edited to retain the voice of the interviewee.