Law Firm Management

Improving client service is especially important, as general counsels of large companies have revealed to BTI Consulting that more than two-thirds would not recommend their primary law firm, 50% plan to try a new law firm for a substantive matter this year and they plan to cut nearly 40% of their outside firms by 2008. With decreasing client loyalty, firms need to spend more time improving client service as well as building barriers to entries to other outside law firms.

Two firms from the MLF 50 are standouts in the area of client-centric marketing activities and for different reasons.
The first, Winston & Strawn, led by Director of Business Development and Marketing Partner Barbara C. Sessions, embarked on an overall visibility campaign with an overarching theme on client-focused service and they did this via their Web site.
No less outstanding in harnessing client-centric based marketing is the firm of Holland & Hart. In 2006, the marketing department, led by Director of Marketing Mark Beese (or as he refers to himself the 'Marketing Guy') engaged in several new initiatives; each of them intimately involving the firm's clients, with the goal of deepening Holland & Hart's relationship with current clients and attracting new ones. The firm's advertising campaign has evolved to highlight innovative and successful clients as part of the Holland & Hart trademark western wilderness.

Partners are saddled with one of the most important yet difficult tasks related to managing a team of lawyers: providing constructive feedback. Feedback is a partner's tool to improve performance, efficiency and service quality.
The objective in giving feedback is to enhance performance by supplying information to guide the individual toward the level and quality of work that is expected.

As we turn the calendar to 2007, law firm leaders will once again be able to tell their partners that their firm hit ' or exceeded ' budget and that their income will increase. That's the good news.
The bad news is that, as firms have grown more profitable and pushed harder on the drivers of their firms' economics, it is becoming difficult to identify ways to ensure that the double-digit increases in profitability will continue. After all, the economic model of law firms has only a handful of levers (rates, realization, leverage, utilization, expenses). Once firms pull as hard as possible on each lever, there is not much more they can do. For law firm leaders, managing the expectations of their partners will become a more difficult challenge, particularly since a good portion of those partners have come to expect double-digit increases in profitability each year.

It used to be that an employee desiring to steal $2 million from your company would have a hard time doing so unnoticed. Today, that employee can do so undetected while having a casual conversation with you in the office. Unfortunately, in the current environment, the legal system is not forgiving toward companies that take a more relaxed approach with respect to protecting their own sensitive information.

Practice group structures, marketing departments, Chief Information Officers, even off-site operations centers ' each of these now commonplace elements of big law firm life is a manifestation of the business focus these firms have adopted. We all see it, with varying degrees of approval. Global law firms now develop and follow business strategies. Slowly, these firms are bringing a similar business focus to their lateral partner recruiting. For partners who think they might switch firms at some point, and for firms doing battle for talent in the lateral market, bringing a business perspective to your analysis can save a lot of time and energy. A properly prepared business plan will prevent the loss of countless (otherwise billable) hours and, more important, help avoid making the wrong move.

According to studies cited by TechnoLawyer, approximately 80,000 new Web logs (blogs) launch every day, including dozens of law-related blogs (blawgs). A dedicated blogger myself (www.lawbizblog.com), I have found the experience to be a powerful form of marketing communication that continually connects me to actual and potential clients in ways I never anticipated.
Before members of your firm enter this technological brave new world, however, they should give due weight to the economic benefits and consequences of blogging. Here are some points worth considering.

Some of the law firms mentioned in this issue have provided Marketing the Law Firm with marketing materials for consideration for inclusion in the MLF 50. There is no connection to any editorial contributions from the firms and the commentary is solely that of the author, who does not receive any compensation from the firms mentioned.