No Clubs Required: EJ Stern on How the Best Rainmakers Break the Mold

She tore up her law school applications in her senior year, planned to get a PhD, and instead built a career that did not exist yet. Meet EJ Stern, co-founder of Fractional Law Firm CMO and a 20-plus-year veteran of AmLaw business development.In this episode of The Mostly Legal Podcast, Amanda Koplos and Rob Joyner sit down with EJ for a candid and very funny conversation about how small and mid-sized firms can compete with the big shops, why succession planning for business services is the issue keeping her up at night, and how LinkedIn quietly became the most important business development tool in legal.Topics Covered:Why she chose marketing over law school, for a dollar more and an extra half hour of sleepHow women build business differently, and the book No Clubs RequiredThe fractional CMO model and why a 30 to 75 attorney firm is the sweet spotWhy less than 10 percent of partners are classic rainmakers, and the other paths that workSuccession planning for the people who actually keep the firm runningWhy "non-lawyer" is the wrong word, and what to say insteadBuilding a personal brand on LinkedIn without the cringe and skipping the AI slopBeing a mom boss and getting real presence, not just the promise of it