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A Lesson in CRM: What Matters to Lawyers Are Matters

By Barry Solomon
November 22, 2004

Client relationship management (CRM) applications succeed within the law firm environment when they address both the organization's strategic needs, as well as the user's individual needs. For instance, time and billing systems achieve firm wide goals of providing visibility and efficiency in the client billing process. These systems also relieve lawyers from the manual drudgery of managing and calculating their billable hours. Both the organization and individual lawyers obtain obvious value from these systems. Win-win.

But with so many CRM products in the marketplace with varying capabilities, there seems to be a growing disconnect between the strategic value that firms enjoy from these solutions, and the benefits derived by individual lawyers. The challenge therefore becomes one of focus. If lawyers do not clearly understand how CRM directly helps them do their jobs more effectively, they will not use the system nor contribute relationship intelligence for the benefit of others. And without lawyer buy in, the rest of the implementation will suffer rendering it more difficult for marketing, business development teams, marketing and management to likewise benefit.

This begs the question, what is the role of CRM technology in the daily workflow of the lawyer? It must be viewed as a tool to help them service client matters and win new client matters more effectively. If the CRM solution is tailored with that purpose in mind, the benefits to lawyers will be apparent and they will participate, ensuring the overall success of the implementation. Towards this end, leading CRM providers that have a keen understanding of these issues have developed the next generation of CRM systems that take a matter-centric approach.

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