Client Profiling and Segmentation

Until recently, law firm management has been largely indifferent to focusing on business development as an area of scrutiny in which measurable success could be achieved. Instead, many law firms chose to rely on anecdotal and institutional knowledge of “what works” to drive their strategy of finding, retaining, and growing billable hours. While this approach may work well when times are good, it is somewhat contradictory when times are bad (i.e., “what works” is no longer working). Thus, as firms have experienced rather tumultuous fortunes in the last two years and a reduction in billable hours, more and more firm managers have taken a hard look at the business development function and allowed those within these departments to expand and adapt their focus. This has led to a greater need for information and a new outlook on how business development managers look at their law firms.