Client-Driven Growth

Capitalize on Relationships the Firm Already Has with Existing Key Clients ' Possibly too much effort has been expended at trying to acquire new clients. But, as Woody Allen said, “Eighty percent of success is showing up,” and with regard to the firm's Key Clients, the firm's lawyers are already in the door. Further, the firm will have some help here, because many clients are pushing for the same thing ' consolidating more work into fewer law firms.

Make Client Service the Organizing Principal of the Firm's Culture and the Theme of Its Public Presence ' Tired of the internal bickering that emanates from the endless melodrama of lawyers' differing interests? Try taking the high road by elevating client service as the common goal of everyone in the firm, something the entire firm can rally around and work together on. At the same time, for its public face, a dedication to client service will distinguish the firm. In a recent review of the websites of the largest 50 law firms in the U.S., only a handful even mentioned “client service.” But, in your firm, you can make it a way of life.

Identify a Limited Number of “Centers of Excellence” and Build Them Out ' Since a firm has limited resources, it needs to select the practices in which it can be the “best in the world” and, accordingly, concentrate its investments. This is not to make “losers” out of any practices that are not designated as one of these areas. But, looking at the firm's client and practice base as an investment portfolio to be managed as such, the firm should continuously be reshaping itself by migrating its holdings toward the most profitable sectors (geographies, industries and practice areas) and gaining the highest yields possible from each of its investments (Key Clients).

Foundations of a Key Client Program

Listen to the Firm's Key Clients, in Depth, One Client at a Time ' Let the following, amazing phenomena of human nature work for you: 1) Clients want to talk and, given the right circumstances, will tell all; 2) A third-party interviewer can elicit much more candid feedback from your clients than you can, so hire one instead of doing it yourself; 3) Your clients know that you want to expand work and will volunteer ways you can do it and even offer to partner up with you to achieve it.

Respond to Your Key Clients' Wishes, Thoroughly, One Client at a Time ' After conducting the Key Client Interviews described above, get the Client Team working on the development of a Client Service Plan. This plan should specify action steps for building expanded long-term relationships and tactical means for correcting problems and capitalizing on any opportunities that might produce immediate mutual benefits.

Be Aware of the Difference Between Performing at an “A” Versus an “A+” Level ' Any one of your Key Clients has the purchasing power to demand the best when it comes to receiving legal support. Hence, if your firm is not performing at the “A+” level, possibly your client will seek out someone else who can. Accordingly, your volume will be slowly nibbled away through the process of marginalization wherein “even your best friends [read: your clients] won't tell you” that you're failing.

Put Your Client Teams on a Weight Training Program and Pump Them Up ' The key to the prowess of a Client Team is its leader, usually the Relationship Partner. If he/she is not an initiator or when he/she needs help, that is where the firm's CMO and supporting players come into play. They can: assist with analyses and research; help organize meetings; train participants in methodologies and business development tactics; and push, shove, prod and monitor to get results. If need be, have the Managing Partner or other colleague senior partner join in to keep things seriously targeted and on track.

Reprioritize the CMO's Job by Getting Him/Her Personally Involved with the Key Client Teams ' Because it takes gravitas to motivate and move partners, make sure that you are using the most senior marketing person available, your CMO, as an active and, if necessary, combative (in a productive sense) participant in the goings-on of each Key Client Team.

Operate a Firm-Wide Key Client Program ' For each Key Client, the following should be applied: 1) Designate a Relationship Partner(s) and a starting roster for the Client Team; 2) Research the history and raise questions about the relationship and services provided; 3) Identify the “holes” where firm capabilities might be relevant, but not yet provided; and 4) Line up the processes of the Key Client Interviews and Client Service Plans. Also, of course, put in place the requisite assignments of responsibility, including with regard to the firm Chair/MP, CMO and others.

Advanced Processes in a Key Client Program

Pursue Preferred Provider Relationships with Appropriate Key Clients ' The trends in legal cost reduction (including through processes like Six Sigma) and convergence continue as large companies concentrate more of their legal purchases in fewer suppliers ' and, concomitantly, ask for a volume discount. For a law firm serving one of these companies, the winning play is to package the so-called commodity or repetitive work ' taking it over from the company's other law firms ' while offering an alternative fee arrangement.

The two key points that distinguish this from a giveaway are: 1) When your firm consolidates this work, at the same time, it must build into its own operations the economies of scale that allow it to produce that work for less cost, including via delegation of labor (for example, paralegals in place of lawyers), Work Process Re-engineering (simplifying and making production more efficient) and Project Management (staying on-time, on-budget and on-quality specs); and 2) In these preferred provider relationships, the quid pro quo for a firm's consideration in pricing might include introductions to opportunities within the company to perform new, higher-level, higher billing-rate work and, in some cases, having the sponsoring company become a general advocate for a firm with regard to recommendations and referrals outside of the company.

Develop and Apply a Client Profitability Analysis ' Most law firms would consider this an anathema with regard to collegiality. But as W. Edwards Deming, one of the early innovators in modern management, famously said, “If you can't measure it, you can't manage it.” And this is especially true today with regard to client relationships, particularly if alternative fee arrangements are to be offered and opportunities to become preferred providers are pursued.

Consider Holding a Client Retreat with Certain Key Clients ' You may remember how effective some of your firm's partner retreats have been at raising pressing issues and in encouraging people to work together, form consensus, and develop practical plans. Well, the same processes can operate in an off-site retreat with representatives from a Key Client. Many of the ingredients would be the same: thoughtful selection of who should participate; an interesting, fun or beautiful retreat site; an agenda and structured exercises; a third-party facilitator; documented outputs and assigned responsibilities for follow-up ' and the right amount of socializing and relaxation. The greatest value of one of these client retreats might be the human bonding that could naturally occur.

Leveraging Further

Leverage Loyal Relationships by Operating a Client Advocacy Program ' Formalizing such a program might include: 1) Identifying the individual executive(s) in each appropriate Key Client who might fit the requirements for participating (having the aforementioned quid pro quo interests) and, then, inviting him/her into the effort; 2) Setting up opportunities to trade on these relationships, for example, for a company in which the firm is trying to get access, have the General Counsel of one of the firm's current clients introduce your lead lawyer as “my good friend” to the General Counsel of the target company. There even could be an outside Executive Advisory Board where seasoned players from your clients would meet as a group and provide insights and ideas to help the firm become the best that it can be.

Enhance Client-Service Skills, Firm-Wide, by Telling Stories Heard During the Key Client Interviews ' After Key Client Interviews have been conducted with a number of the firm's clients, summaries of the more instructive or generally applicable best practices and do's and don'ts can be synthesized and presented to the partnership during meetings and retreats.

Apply to Future Proposals the Insights Gained Through the Key Client Interviews ' If you know what turns on, and turns off, your largest and most valuable clients, then you can apply this learning to the acquisition of new clients of the same ilk. Doing so is similar to the very useful exercise of conducting Win/Loss interviews.

Client Experience Management

Take a Holistic View of the Subject of “Client Experience” ' Customer Experience Management is the current label that has been given to the most advanced processes by which companies attempt to understand and satisfy their customers. Law firms might learn a thing or two from these efforts. For example, an early step in the process is mapping out the “customer journey.” This journey includes the various steps involved and who in the company participates ' along with possibly others outside the company, for example, friends who might recommend the company or product ' that collectively impact the customer's ultimate decision to purchase. Translating this into the law firm arena, when a firm proposes to a client, involved in addition to the General Counsel might be the CFO as well as a representative of Strategic Sourcing (Purchasing). And the relevant participants from the law firm can include partners, associates, marketing professionals and possibly even a secretary who is merely answering the phone.

Reorient Attitudes Toward Client Service by Fostering “Employee Engagement” ' Surprisingly, it is still an evolving subject regarding how to get everyone in the firm oriented toward “doing their bit” in serving the firm's clients. Certainly, the partners can learn from hearing the feedback gained from the Key Client Interviews. And training and sensitivity sessions can be conducted that make associates and staff more aware of their ultimate impact on the firm's clients, including what actions they can individually take to make that impact the most favorably perceived.

Leverage Your Firm's Own “Unique Client Experience” ' Maybe your firm has unique approach to how it treats clients. Maybe, it is the firm's culture, the lawyers' attitudes, the personalities of your people, some of the traditions that have become part of the ethos, or other tangible or intangible attributes. After interviewing a number of client executives of a law firm, I can usually discern these differences, as nuanced as they might be. So, if these attributes can be identified, why not package and present them to the world as what the firm's clients ' and any other company that is fortunate enough to hire the firm ' will experience. This, then, can be your firm's unique client experience that, for your current and prospective clients, raises the standards of excellence and differentiates you from all the rest.

This article reviews a number of ideas for converting a law firm's key clients, the 20-plus largest, into an engine of revenue growth, via a Key Client Program.

Basic Tenets

Consider the Firm's Key Clients As Your Best Friends ' Too many lawyers and clients think of themselves as adversaries locked in endless fee-negotiating wars. Instead, if the firm has the right attitude and does the right things, clients will want to respond by contributing to the firm's success and will seek to partner with it, sometimes in a symbiotic manner.

Capitalize on Relationships the Firm Already Has with Existing Key Clients ' Possibly too much effort has been expended at trying to acquire new clients. But, as Woody Allen said, “Eighty percent of success is showing up,” and with regard to the firm's Key Clients, the firm's lawyers are already in the door. Further, the firm will have some help here, because many clients are pushing for the same thing ' consolidating more work into fewer law firms.

Make Client Service the Organizing Principal of the Firm's Culture and the Theme of Its Public Presence ' Tired of the internal bickering that emanates from the endless melodrama of lawyers' differing interests? Try taking the high road by elevating client service as the common goal of everyone in the firm, something the entire firm can rally around and work together on. At the same time, for its public face, a dedication to client service will distinguish the firm. In a recent review of the websites of the largest 50 law firms in the U.S., only a handful even mentioned “client service.” But, in your firm, you can make it a way of life.

Identify a Limited Number of “Centers of Excellence” and Build Them Out ' Since a firm has limited resources, it needs to select the practices in which it can be the “best in the world” and, accordingly, concentrate its investments. This is not to make “losers” out of any practices that are not designated as one of these areas. But, looking at the firm's client and practice base as an investment portfolio to be managed as such, the firm should continuously be reshaping itself by migrating its holdings toward the most profitable sectors (geographies, industries and practice areas) and gaining the highest yields possible from each of its investments (Key Clients).

Foundations of a Key Client Program

Listen to the Firm's Key Clients, in Depth, One Client at a Time ' Let the following, amazing phenomena of human nature work for you: 1) Clients want to talk and, given the right circumstances, will tell all; 2) A third-party interviewer can elicit much more candid feedback from your clients than you can, so hire one instead of doing it yourself; 3) Your clients know that you want to expand work and will volunteer ways you can do it and even offer to partner up with you to achieve it.

Respond to Your Key Clients' Wishes, Thoroughly, One Client at a Time ' After conducting the Key Client Interviews described above, get the Client Team working on the development of a Client Service Plan. This plan should specify action steps for building expanded long-term relationships and tactical means for correcting problems and capitalizing on any opportunities that might produce immediate mutual benefits.

Be Aware of the Difference Between Performing at an “A” Versus an “A+” Level ' Any one of your Key Clients has the purchasing power to demand the best when it comes to receiving legal support. Hence, if your firm is not performing at the “A+” level, possibly your client will seek out someone else who can. Accordingly, your volume will be slowly nibbled away through the process of marginalization wherein “even your best friends [read: your clients] won't tell you” that you're failing.

Put Your Client Teams on a Weight Training Program and Pump Them Up ' The key to the prowess of a Client Team is its leader, usually the Relationship Partner. If he/she is not an initiator or when he/she needs help, that is where the firm's CMO and supporting players come into play. They can: assist with analyses and research; help organize meetings; train participants in methodologies and business development tactics; and push, shove, prod and monitor to get results. If need be, have the Managing Partner or other colleague senior partner join in to keep things seriously targeted and on track.

Reprioritize the CMO's Job by Getting Him/Her Personally Involved with the Key Client Teams ' Because it takes gravitas to motivate and move partners, make sure that you are using the most senior marketing person available, your CMO, as an active and, if necessary, combative (in a productive sense) participant in the goings-on of each Key Client Team.

Operate a Firm-Wide Key Client Program ' For each Key Client, the following should be applied: 1) Designate a Relationship Partner(s) and a starting roster for the Client Team; 2) Research the history and raise questions about the relationship and services provided; 3) Identify the “holes” where firm capabilities might be relevant, but not yet provided; and 4) Line up the processes of the Key Client Interviews and Client Service Plans. Also, of course, put in place the requisite assignments of responsibility, including with regard to the firm Chair/MP, CMO and others.

Advanced Processes in a Key Client Program

Pursue Preferred Provider Relationships with Appropriate Key Clients ' The trends in legal cost reduction (including through processes like Six Sigma) and convergence continue as large companies concentrate more of their legal purchases in fewer suppliers ' and, concomitantly, ask for a volume discount. For a law firm serving one of these companies, the winning play is to package the so-called commodity or repetitive work ' taking it over from the company's other law firms ' while offering an alternative fee arrangement.

The two key points that distinguish this from a giveaway are: 1) When your firm consolidates this work, at the same time, it must build into its own operations the economies of scale that allow it to produce that work for less cost, including via delegation of labor (for example, paralegals in place of lawyers), Work Process Re-engineering (simplifying and making production more efficient) and Project Management (staying on-time, on-budget and on-quality specs); and 2) In these preferred provider relationships, the quid pro quo for a firm's consideration in pricing might include introductions to opportunities within the company to perform new, higher-level, higher billing-rate work and, in some cases, having the sponsoring company become a general advocate for a firm with regard to recommendations and referrals outside of the company.

Develop and Apply a Client Profitability Analysis ' Most law firms would consider this an anathema with regard to collegiality. But as W. Edwards Deming, one of the early innovators in modern management, famously said, “If you can't measure it, you can't manage it.” And this is especially true today with regard to client relationships, particularly if alternative fee arrangements are to be offered and opportunities to become preferred providers are pursued.

Consider Holding a Client Retreat with Certain Key Clients ' You may remember how effective some of your firm's partner retreats have been at raising pressing issues and in encouraging people to work together, form consensus, and develop practical plans. Well, the same processes can operate in an off-site retreat with representatives from a Key Client. Many of the ingredients would be the same: thoughtful selection of who should participate; an interesting, fun or beautiful retreat site; an agenda and structured exercises; a third-party facilitator; documented outputs and assigned responsibilities for follow-up ' and the right amount of socializing and relaxation. The greatest value of one of these client retreats might be the human bonding that could naturally occur.

Leveraging Further

Leverage Loyal Relationships by Operating a Client Advocacy Program ' Formalizing such a program might include: 1) Identifying the individual executive(s) in each appropriate Key Client who might fit the requirements for participating (having the aforementioned quid pro quo interests) and, then, inviting him/her into the effort; 2) Setting up opportunities to trade on these relationships, for example, for a company in which the firm is trying to get access, have the General Counsel of one of the firm's current clients introduce your lead lawyer as “my good friend” to the General Counsel of the target company. There even could be an outside Executive Advisory Board where seasoned players from your clients would meet as a group and provide insights and ideas to help the firm become the best that it can be.

Enhance Client-Service Skills, Firm-Wide, by Telling Stories Heard During the Key Client Interviews ' After Key Client Interviews have been conducted with a number of the firm's clients, summaries of the more instructive or generally applicable best practices and do's and don'ts can be synthesized and presented to the partnership during meetings and retreats.

Apply to Future Proposals the Insights Gained Through the Key Client Interviews ' If you know what turns on, and turns off, your largest and most valuable clients, then you can apply this learning to the acquisition of new clients of the same ilk. Doing so is similar to the very useful exercise of conducting Win/Loss interviews.

Client Experience Management

Take a Holistic View of the Subject of “Client Experience” ' Customer Experience Management is the current label that has been given to the most advanced processes by which companies attempt to understand and satisfy their customers. Law firms might learn a thing or two from these efforts. For example, an early step in the process is mapping out the “customer journey.” This journey includes the various steps involved and who in the company participates ' along with possibly others outside the company, for example, friends who might recommend the company or product ' that collectively impact the customer's ultimate decision to purchase. Translating this into the law firm arena, when a firm proposes to a client, involved in addition to the General Counsel might be the CFO as well as a representative of Strategic Sourcing (Purchasing). And the relevant participants from the law firm can include partners, associates, marketing professionals and possibly even a secretary who is merely answering the phone.

Reorient Attitudes Toward Client Service by Fostering “Employee Engagement” ' Surprisingly, it is still an evolving subject regarding how to get everyone in the firm oriented toward “doing their bit” in serving the firm's clients. Certainly, the partners can learn from hearing the feedback gained from the Key Client Interviews. And training and sensitivity sessions can be conducted that make associates and staff more aware of their ultimate impact on the firm's clients, including what actions they can individually take to make that impact the most favorably perceived.

Leverage Your Firm's Own “Unique Client Experience” ' Maybe your firm has unique approach to how it treats clients. Maybe, it is the firm's culture, the lawyers' attitudes, the personalities of your people, some of the traditions that have become part of the ethos, or other tangible or intangible attributes. After interviewing a number of client executives of a law firm, I can usually discern these differences, as nuanced as they might be. So, if these attributes can be identified, why not package and present them to the world as what the firm's clients ' and any other company that is fortunate enough to hire the firm ' will experience. This, then, can be your firm's unique client experience that, for your current and prospective clients, raises the standards of excellence and differentiates you from all the rest.