We spend a lot of time training law firm Partners and Associates as well as business leaders to write better content in support of their brand’s marketing and comms programmes. In the process, we’ve learned how to get the best out of these people, and to make their lives easier.
Stop asking busy experts to start with a blank page. Instead, ask them to talk or use pre-written material. Across our executive content programmes in 2026, a spokesperson spends about 30 minutes on an interview that provides ample material for a published article, compared with hours spent on ideation.
Six proven methods that we use at Rostrum can help you get started.
Why does asking someone to write us 800 words rarely work?
The request fails because it asks a thinker to become a writer and adds a writing task to a diary already organised around client work. Most partners and executives reason clearly about their field all day. They rarely get a quiet stretch to shape that reasoning into clean prose, so the task drops down their to-do list until it’s forgotten.
“Can you write us 800 words” is the request that, across our programmes in 2026, seldom produced 800 words. The default assumption might be that the bottleneck is writing skill. This is almost never the case.
The bottleneck is really a diary with no gap in it and a blank document that offers the expert no foothold. It is an issue of time and structure. Experts already explain their views in meetings and emails; an ordered content process can capture and develop that material.
We routinely see how business development teams chase fee earners for copy that never lands. If you run marketing in a law firm, you live this daily. But the partner content problem has a process-driven answer.
Six methods can consistently produce publishable copy from busy experts. Each gives the expert a more manageable starting point than a blank document.
- The recorded interview. Interview the expert, record the conversation and develop the transcript into a draft for approval.
- The skeleton. Write a skeleton of the article which the expert approves before drafting begins.
- The reactive quote. Take a comment on breaking news and build a longer byline.
- The internal email. Use a sharp message already sent to form the core of an article.
- The client question. Rework an answer given to clients every week into a piece.
- The talk someone gave. Recycle a transcript of a speech into publishable copy.
How does the recorded interview work, and which question set makes it produce copy?
The recorded interview is the method that we find works most often. You book half an hour, record a structured conversation, transcribe it and edit the transcript into an article. The expert approves the result and doesn’t have to deal with an empty document.
We use a 12-question interview set, refined across our programmes in 2026, that moves from the broad claim down to the specific example. The questions force a position and call for the evidence behind it.
Around 30 minutes is a useful rule of thumb for the interview itself, based on our work with professional and financial services clients. It excludes our preparation, research and editing time, as well as the expert’s review of the draft. The time needed will vary with the subject and how much ground the interview needs to cover.
What is the skeleton method?
The skeleton flips the order of the work. We write a preliminary structure based on what we already know of the expert’s view, then send it over for correction. People who cannot start a draft will often happily fix a skeleton; reaction is faster than creation.
A trick we find effective is to be somewhat provocative in the assumptions of our initial draft. An article that takes a clear line can give the expert something to push against. Their corrections in the margin are the real content, which we can fold back in.
Send it with a short covering note that flags what you’re pushing and the questions you’re working towards. A short, clearly marked draft can make the review easier to fit into a busy day. The margin notes will carry the thinking to form a cohesive article.
How does a reactive quote become content?
When a regulator moves or a deal breaks, an expert fires off three sentences of comment for a journalist. A reactive comment can reveal a position worth exploring. A short follow-up conversation can establish the reasoning, evidence and qualifications needed for a longer piece. Expand that reasoning, bring in further evidence, and you have a potential article that outlives the news cycle.
Keep a file of every reactive comment your experts give across a quarter. By the end of a single quarter, one spokesperson can accumulate five or six quotes, and some of these will serve as the basis for a full article.
How do you mine the internal email you already sent for an article?
An internal email can be the best first draft available to members in a firm. Experts can write with real force when they are explaining something to a colleague who needs to act. These messages will contain structure and a clear, succinct point.
Ask experts to identify explanations that could be adapted for publication. They should share only material cleared for that purpose, with any relevant client, confidentiality and privilege checks completed. The voice is already there. You are editing something real rather than conjuring something new.
Where possible, ask your experts to copy you on the messages where they explain a decision. This habit alone can surface usable content starting points without less extra drafting work required.
How does the client question you have answered forty times become content?
The question you answer for clients every week is a finished article waiting to be written. If five clients have asked the same thing this quarter, there’s a visible information gap and your expert already has the answer rehearsed.
Record the expert answering the question, then develop the response into a draft for review and approval. The demand is proven before you write a word, which improves the likelihood of the piece being read.
Keep a shared list of the questions clients ask, dated as they come in. If the same question appears multiple times, move it to the top of the content backlog and try to arrange a recording.
How do you reuse a talk the expert already gave?
A conference talk is content the expert has already prepared, rehearsed and delivered. The argument is built, the examples are chosen, and while drafting is still needed, you have a better understanding of the speaker’s opinion.
Record the session, or work from the slides and the speaker notes. Transcription plus editing turns one talk into an article, or even multiple. One 40-minute talk can often yield a long article, a short comment piece and a handful of social posts - all from the same transcript.
How do you keep content production going?
Treat the work as a standing process with a backlog, a regular cadence and agreed measurement, and it is more likely to survive the first busy month.
Settle on a small number of themes, interview against them in batches and keep a running list of client questions as raw material. Batching interviews can reduce scheduling work. Agree the intended outputs and publication cadence in advance, and reserve time for review. Measure what the coverage actually does, where possible, using a framework agreed up front, so the expert sees a reason to give you the next half hour. We run executive content programmes on exactly this basis, and the system is what carries them past the point where willpower runs out.
These six methods supply the material. A regular commissioning and approval process keeps it moving.
Frequently asked questions
How do you get subject matter experts to create content?
You capture what they already produce rather than commission new writing. Record a structured interview, write an annotated draft for them to correct, or build a piece from an email, a client question or a talk they have already given. All these methods start from material the expert has already made, so the format suits busy schedules.
Is ghostwriting for executives acceptable?
Yes, when the ideas are the named author’s and that person approves and owns the final text. Editorial support is routine across publishing and corporate communications, and the standard we apply is that the expert supplies the thinking and stands behind every claim. The one rule is honesty: we do not conceal that editorial help was involved if anyone asks.
How long should an executive spend on a thought leadership piece?
Under the interview method, about 30 minutes of their own time per published piece, based on our programme timesheets in 2026. The agency absorbs the transcription, editing and research around that. Writing from a blank page typically costs the same expert several hours, which is why those pieces often go unfinished.
