Is Your Firm Using Its Practice Groups To Maximum Advantage?

While changing the way current PGs are formed and managed might initially be too tough a road to hoe, presenting ideas on how PGs can be used more effectively, may persuade senior management to try a marketing-friendly approach to the formation, leadership and direction of new ones. And, if you can make that happen, firm management may see the value in those ideas and restructure existing PGs.

For example, most firms don't have a written manual for how to run a practice group, including a job description for practice group leaders (PGLs). In fact, Durham, has only run across one firm in his consulting career with such a manual.

Where to start? Create practice groups ' or reinvent existing ones ' as if you were building a new business. Develop plans that give direction for the groups.

Set goals. Foster mechanisms for internal and external information flow. Outline strategic rules.

Starting simply helps. First, establish a sense of the new practice groups' roles within the firm. Next, remind firm management of the importance of choosing appropriate personnel to head up each group. Says Durham: 'Leadership is a very important function. True leadership can be learned. Go to conferences. Learn skills. Take some time to learn.' He also believes true leaders exhibit a mutual learning attitude. There's a willingness to listen, to ask questions, to sublimate ego and to take a long-term approach. 'This is difficult for lawyers,' he says, who typically think short-term.

Focus on teamwork, which makes people more willing to participate, and ask for feedback regularly. 'I have yet to see a practice group that is good at giving feedback to its leadership,' says Durham. 'When running a business group in your law firm, ask the people in your group 'What could we be doing better?” To enhance the quality of your PGs, elicit comments on meeting timing, agendas and emphasis. Ask: 'How am I doing as a leader?'

According to Durham, 'The biggest mistake is to have one person try to run a practice group. Is your practice group leader principally a leader, or principally a manager?' In his opinion, many PGL's are chosen because they're feared, rather than liked. This type of leadership doesn't result in successful practice group outcomes.

Roadmap to Success

Developing a roadmap, says Bodine, is a good place to begin efforts to turn a non-functioning or poorly-functioning practice group program into a winner. The purpose of such roadmaps, is to make PGs think strategically ' to look at the PG as part of a larger team.

Roadmaps help a PG instill a sense of urgency and excitement. They get the point across to PG members that planning must be done ' and by the deadline. They send the message: 'Yes we're serious. Yes this counts,' says Durham. He recommends you assign specific responsibilities and deadlines. Give bonuses and benefits when things are done on time. Trying these approaches will help the lawyers within these groups understand that the group is more than a name for the firm to give its practice areas, but can be a effective conduit to the industry and thus more clients. Let's face it, attorneys are the ones who will benefit from effective PG management, so if they see that there is a real business purpose behind the PG, they'll buy in and see the marketing value of the PG.

Both experts recommend you involve everyone in the process. 'You want lawyers acting as owners, not employees. The more you involve people, the better. The more you get lawyers to view clients as a firm asset, the better,' says Durham. 'When you look at a client you can't have a client be a personal possession of a particular group,' Bodine says. 'The client is an asset of the firm. Focus on your key clients.'

Setting Goals and Defining Targets

Developing a roadmap means you must have specific targets and end goals in mind. Your PGs shouldn't just travel along with no planned destination. Map out your end point and then, use accountability to get results. 'If we don't improve our value proposition in this particular survey to a specific level, you're fired.' Might resonate. Or, if you rank #5 in an annual survey of particular import to your practice specialty, aim to be #1 or #2 by next year's survey.

Other PGs pick specific revenue targets. A sample goal might be to improve revenues by 10% within a set period of time. Or, you might try to move a PG from 12 clients with billing levels in excess of X, to 15. Other goals, says Bodine, can be: to publish a book within one year on a particular topic; hold a seminar and present it to four clients in the next 6 months; increase profits by 15%; hire one lateral partner who has the clients we want or expertise that will give us a new area to serve existing clients; maximize client growth; or minimize client loss.

Whatever the strategic goals, says Durham, 'get the whole PG to buy in and invest ' not just two or three senior partners. Get associates involved. Invest everyone with responsibility. Share ideas.'

If a marketer can have a plan worked out, complete with goals and objectives, then present the entire plan to managemnt, you might have a shot at getting the chance to get involved in PG management.

PGs As Marketing Tools

Regardless of your ultimate involvement in PG formation and leadership, most firms don't make the most of the marketing opportunities inherent in these groups.

Durham suggests firms 'think innovatively about specific ways you deliver services. Fixed fee jobs. Risk assessment packages. You still need to remember that ultimately the sales force is your individual attorneys.' PGLs should ask:

• What as a PG are we doing to encourage the individual and team to maximize our efforts?
• Are we making it possible for lawyers to spend more time with clients, serve their best interests, be trained properly?

Don't ignore your firm and PGs reputation. Learn how the practice and its various PGs are viewed. Do you want to change or expand those public images? PGs can discuss how to address this challenge via public relations and advertising.

Two hot marketing approaches according to Bodine:

Key client teams. He suggests you print out a list of the firms' top 50 clients (based on profitability) and build client teams around them. Invite all of your PGs to be members and attend the key client team meetings. Ask each attorney to bring a list of contacts to the first meeting. The attorney with the longest relationship with the client will talk about the client's history. Set a goal of increasing the firm's share of a client's legal budget. Conduct a SWOT analysis: Strengths Weaknesses Opportunity and Threats. 'Understand that to guess is cheap, to guess wrong is expensive,' says Durham. If you have a key client team you want to grow, you need to involve the client in your discussion. The more research, the more likely you'll be to tout your client teams as successes. Treating the client as a firm asset and building a team around that asset has been a winning approach for Texas-based Thompson & Knight (a 300 attorney firm), which formed 50 client teams in one year, and advertises that fact on its Web site.

Industry practice groups. This structure takes advantage of the way clients think. Clients don't see themselves as customers of a PG, they see themselves as a member of an industry. Even in-house counsel see themselves as business executives first and attorneys second. Bodine suggests this approach as the most effective way to cross-sell services to clients. Firms, he says, need to lift their heads up: 'Look beyond the boundaries of the PG. Look at the industries. Sort through the clients ' the first go doesn't need to be specific with SIC codes. Look at your top 100 clients and roughly assign them to industries. You'll determine your depth. This may lead to an industry-oriented event. Go after the top players in the city in this field.'

Research as a Basis for Strategic Plans

PGs are set up to serve specific client types and industries. Use that aspect to your advantage by looking to your marketplace for guidance. Ask members of your PG for advice on a half dozen clients to talk to. Ask the clients what's going to be important to them in the coming years. What are their key issues? Make sure you're spending the right amount of time on the important stuff.

A client focus group can help a develop next year's strategy for a particular PG. Ask them:

• What do they think is meant by added value?
• What are the keys of service and responsiveness they look for?
• What kind of ideas do they want?
• How can you show them you care?

Larry Bodine of Larry Bodine Marketing, Glen Ellyn, IL, suggests you take a look at your client intake form. Are you capturing the data you need? 'You should capture who referred a client to the firm ' what industry they're in. You may not be asking either of these on your intake forms now.' You also want to be able to sort according to industry. Make sure you have a good contact management or CRM system for storing and disseminating important data.

How do you motivate lawyers to get the client information you need?

Jim Durham, president, The Law Firm Development Group, Dedham, MA, recommends [marketing staff] talk directly to the clients if the attorneys are willing. 'Get somebody to let you talk to their client. Use this to convince the next attorney to let you talk to a client,' he says.

To ease into the process, says Bodine, find a pilot PG (say three attorneys) that wants to do client surveys. Have them pave the way with the clients. Then go ahead and do the interviews. He suggests you send out your chief marketing officer (CMO). Durham recommends Managing Partners visit when the topic is client satisfaction, but agrees that marketing personnel can conduct interviews or surveys that are more about an industry.

You can also couple information garnered from clients with industry statistics to help prove points.

The Bottom Line on PG Success

Think creatively and differently, says Durham. 'Practice groups are set up and expected to perform and leadership either doesn't pay attention or meddles. Law firms must decide they'll get out of the way ' and direct as necessary, but turn the practice groups loose to succeed,' he says. 'Put the right people in practice group leadership roles. Those who are appropriate and have the skills.'

The message from Bodine and Durham is clear. To shift PGs from administrative tools to profit-generating teams, firms must go after practice group management in a serious way.

Editor's note: Audiotapes of 'Successful Practice Group Management and Marketing' are available on http://www.lawmarketingportal.com/.

Practice groups (PGs) are a common fixture in most mid- to large-sized law firms. Many firms use them in administrative or 'traffic cop' roles. However, marketers can use PGs to help market not only the attorneys within those groups, but the firm as a whole.

In order to get your marketing-savvy views and ideas on efficient PG management heeded and implemented, you can go to firm management with how other firms have made their PGs more than just a logical arrangement of practice areas ' into operational units that increase revenue, boost profits and cement client relationships.

The attendees of the recent 'Successful Practice Management and Group Marketing' virtual seminar, sponsored by Martindale-Hubbell, led by Larry Bodine of Larry Bodine Marketing, Glen Ellyn, IL and Jim Durham, president, The Law Firm Development Group, Dedham, MA, discussed some of the ways in which they have made more of PGs than traditional purposes.

While changing the way current PGs are formed and managed might initially be too tough a road to hoe, presenting ideas on how PGs can be used more effectively, may persuade senior management to try a marketing-friendly approach to the formation, leadership and direction of new ones. And, if you can make that happen, firm management may see the value in those ideas and restructure existing PGs.

For example, most firms don't have a written manual for how to run a practice group, including a job description for practice group leaders (PGLs). In fact, Durham, has only run across one firm in his consulting career with such a manual.

Where to start? Create practice groups ' or reinvent existing ones ' as if you were building a new business. Develop plans that give direction for the groups.

Set goals. Foster mechanisms for internal and external information flow. Outline strategic rules.

Starting simply helps. First, establish a sense of the new practice groups' roles within the firm. Next, remind firm management of the importance of choosing appropriate personnel to head up each group. Says Durham: 'Leadership is a very important function. True leadership can be learned. Go to conferences. Learn skills. Take some time to learn.' He also believes true leaders exhibit a mutual learning attitude. There's a willingness to listen, to ask questions, to sublimate ego and to take a long-term approach. 'This is difficult for lawyers,' he says, who typically think short-term.

Focus on teamwork, which makes people more willing to participate, and ask for feedback regularly. 'I have yet to see a practice group that is good at giving feedback to its leadership,' says Durham. 'When running a business group in your law firm, ask the people in your group 'What could we be doing better?” To enhance the quality of your PGs, elicit comments on meeting timing, agendas and emphasis. Ask: 'How am I doing as a leader?'

According to Durham, 'The biggest mistake is to have one person try to run a practice group. Is your practice group leader principally a leader, or principally a manager?' In his opinion, many PGL's are chosen because they're feared, rather than liked. This type of leadership doesn't result in successful practice group outcomes.

Roadmap to Success

Developing a roadmap, says Bodine, is a good place to begin efforts to turn a non-functioning or poorly-functioning practice group program into a winner. The purpose of such roadmaps, is to make PGs think strategically ' to look at the PG as part of a larger team.

Roadmaps help a PG instill a sense of urgency and excitement. They get the point across to PG members that planning must be done ' and by the deadline. They send the message: 'Yes we're serious. Yes this counts,' says Durham. He recommends you assign specific responsibilities and deadlines. Give bonuses and benefits when things are done on time. Trying these approaches will help the lawyers within these groups understand that the group is more than a name for the firm to give its practice areas, but can be a effective conduit to the industry and thus more clients. Let's face it, attorneys are the ones who will benefit from effective PG management, so if they see that there is a real business purpose behind the PG, they'll buy in and see the marketing value of the PG.

Both experts recommend you involve everyone in the process. 'You want lawyers acting as owners, not employees. The more you involve people, the better. The more you get lawyers to view clients as a firm asset, the better,' says Durham. 'When you look at a client you can't have a client be a personal possession of a particular group,' Bodine says. 'The client is an asset of the firm. Focus on your key clients.'

Setting Goals and Defining Targets

Developing a roadmap means you must have specific targets and end goals in mind. Your PGs shouldn't just travel along with no planned destination. Map out your end point and then, use accountability to get results. 'If we don't improve our value proposition in this particular survey to a specific level, you're fired.' Might resonate. Or, if you rank #5 in an annual survey of particular import to your practice specialty, aim to be #1 or #2 by next year's survey.

Other PGs pick specific revenue targets. A sample goal might be to improve revenues by 10% within a set period of time. Or, you might try to move a PG from 12 clients with billing levels in excess of X, to 15. Other goals, says Bodine, can be: to publish a book within one year on a particular topic; hold a seminar and present it to four clients in the next 6 months; increase profits by 15%; hire one lateral partner who has the clients we want or expertise that will give us a new area to serve existing clients; maximize client growth; or minimize client loss.

Whatever the strategic goals, says Durham, 'get the whole PG to buy in and invest ' not just two or three senior partners. Get associates involved. Invest everyone with responsibility. Share ideas.'

If a marketer can have a plan worked out, complete with goals and objectives, then present the entire plan to managemnt, you might have a shot at getting the chance to get involved in PG management.

PGs As Marketing Tools

Regardless of your ultimate involvement in PG formation and leadership, most firms don't make the most of the marketing opportunities inherent in these groups.

Durham suggests firms 'think innovatively about specific ways you deliver services. Fixed fee jobs. Risk assessment packages. You still need to remember that ultimately the sales force is your individual attorneys.' PGLs should ask:

• What as a PG are we doing to encourage the individual and team to maximize our efforts?
• Are we making it possible for lawyers to spend more time with clients, serve their best interests, be trained properly?

Don't ignore your firm and PGs reputation. Learn how the practice and its various PGs are viewed. Do you want to change or expand those public images? PGs can discuss how to address this challenge via public relations and advertising.

Two hot marketing approaches according to Bodine:

Key client teams. He suggests you print out a list of the firms' top 50 clients (based on profitability) and build client teams around them. Invite all of your PGs to be members and attend the key client team meetings. Ask each attorney to bring a list of contacts to the first meeting. The attorney with the longest relationship with the client will talk about the client's history. Set a goal of increasing the firm's share of a client's legal budget. Conduct a SWOT analysis: Strengths Weaknesses Opportunity and Threats. 'Understand that to guess is cheap, to guess wrong is expensive,' says Durham. If you have a key client team you want to grow, you need to involve the client in your discussion. The more research, the more likely you'll be to tout your client teams as successes. Treating the client as a firm asset and building a team around that asset has been a winning approach for Texas-based Thompson & Knight (a 300 attorney firm), which formed 50 client teams in one year, and advertises that fact on its Web site.

Industry practice groups. This structure takes advantage of the way clients think. Clients don't see themselves as customers of a PG, they see themselves as a member of an industry. Even in-house counsel see themselves as business executives first and attorneys second. Bodine suggests this approach as the most effective way to cross-sell services to clients. Firms, he says, need to lift their heads up: 'Look beyond the boundaries of the PG. Look at the industries. Sort through the clients ' the first go doesn't need to be specific with SIC codes. Look at your top 100 clients and roughly assign them to industries. You'll determine your depth. This may lead to an industry-oriented event. Go after the top players in the city in this field.'

Research as a Basis for Strategic Plans

PGs are set up to serve specific client types and industries. Use that aspect to your advantage by looking to your marketplace for guidance. Ask members of your PG for advice on a half dozen clients to talk to. Ask the clients what's going to be important to them in the coming years. What are their key issues? Make sure you're spending the right amount of time on the important stuff.

A client focus group can help a develop next year's strategy for a particular PG. Ask them:

• What do they think is meant by added value?
• What are the keys of service and responsiveness they look for?
• What kind of ideas do they want?
• How can you show them you care?

Larry Bodine of Larry Bodine Marketing, Glen Ellyn, IL, suggests you take a look at your client intake form. Are you capturing the data you need? 'You should capture who referred a client to the firm ' what industry they're in. You may not be asking either of these on your intake forms now.' You also want to be able to sort according to industry. Make sure you have a good contact management or CRM system for storing and disseminating important data.

How do you motivate lawyers to get the client information you need?

Jim Durham, president, The Law Firm Development Group, Dedham, MA, recommends [marketing staff] talk directly to the clients if the attorneys are willing. 'Get somebody to let you talk to their client. Use this to convince the next attorney to let you talk to a client,' he says.

To ease into the process, says Bodine, find a pilot PG (say three attorneys) that wants to do client surveys. Have them pave the way with the clients. Then go ahead and do the interviews. He suggests you send out your chief marketing officer (CMO). Durham recommends Managing Partners visit when the topic is client satisfaction, but agrees that marketing personnel can conduct interviews or surveys that are more about an industry.

You can also couple information garnered from clients with industry statistics to help prove points.

The Bottom Line on PG Success

Think creatively and differently, says Durham. 'Practice groups are set up and expected to perform and leadership either doesn't pay attention or meddles. Law firms must decide they'll get out of the way ' and direct as necessary, but turn the practice groups loose to succeed,' he says. 'Put the right people in practice group leadership roles. Those who are appropriate and have the skills.'

The message from Bodine and Durham is clear. To shift PGs from administrative tools to profit-generating teams, firms must go after practice group management in a serious way.

Editor's note: Audiotapes of 'Successful Practice Group Management and Marketing' are available on http://www.lawmarketingportal.com/.