Mary Porch

Mary is a marketing, business development and PR specialist who has been helping law firms in East Anglia to thrive and grow for over 20 years. She has worked on a freelance basis since 2020 and enthusiastically adds her extensive expertise to that of the in-house marketing team at Fraser Dawbarns. She combines strategic input with helping to introduce new initiatives and provide legal sector marketing expertise and guidance to the rest of the team.

Career

Mary has a BSc (Hons) 2:1 in Publishing and Psychology from Oxford Brookes (then Oxford Polytechnic), which she obtained as a supposedly mature student aged 24. Previous years had been spent travelling and working in various guises.

She then developed her practical marketing, PR, publishing and business development skills over 13 years while supporting members of two national networks, one legal and one accountancy. Mary’s first in-house role in the legal sector was with a law firm in Peterborough as their first BD Director. She later spent over ten years with a larger regional East Anglian law firm in a series of marketing roles, culminating as BD Director.

Expertise

Mary has a wide range of expertise and experience, including in the following areas.

• Professional services marketing strategy
• Public relations
• Internal communications
• Law firm strategy development
• Publishing
• B2B and B2C marketing strategy implementation.

Recognition and Feedback

Former colleagues and collaborators have described her on LinkedIn in the following ways.

“Mary has a clear-sighted, no-nonsense approach to marketing and a ‘can-do’ attitude to building professional relationships. She is organised and efficient but underpins all her interactions with humour and empathy.”

“Mary is a delight to work with: she is level-headed, calm, politically astute, strategically and commercially aware and great at getting things done.”

“Mary has a keen insight into her field and a pragmatic approach when it comes to implementation. She clearly knows her stuff and uses her knowledge and skills effectively to bring results for both the team and individuals she works with.”

Personal Interests

Mary has been a Trustee of Citizens Advice West Suffolk since 2017 and Chair of the Trustee Board since 2021. She has a wide range of interests which result in visits to various theatres and music venues. She is also a fan of city breaks and is trying to visit the places which were not on the holiday list when she had young children. Mary swims in the summer months and has sporadic attempts at picking up a golf club which provide more enjoyment than success.

Her four adult daughters and three grandchildren help to ensure that she doesn’t have sufficient spare time to get bored!