Media & Communications: New Ways to Provide Value

The thing is, in a way they are both right. The financial pressures that reshaped the legal sector during the global financial crisis may be cyclical, but the changes they wrought are here to stay. Business as usual is different now, and we're not going back to the “good” old days when the fa'ade of increasing billing rates masked a multitude of law firm management sins. At the same time, deep, lasting client relationships will always be at a premium, because there's no greater efficiency than knowing exactly when, how and why to act because you know the client's business like the back of your hand. And there never will be.

'Art Versus Science'

As a journalist, I covered the legal sector for the better part of two decades. In that time I saw variations of this argument with each new wave of technology or economic cycle. It basically boils down to an art versus science debate. The consultants, finance types and operations gurus see the legal business on a spreadsheet and recognize the chaotic mess that it often is. They push around numbers and rejigger their models until it makes a kind of sense. This is a perfectly sane and logical approach, but it's not a complete one.

The lawyers look at the same equation and see infinite variables. There's all manner of subjective legal expertise to consider, of course, but also the nuances and wrinkles that fold themselves into relationships over time, and into the law itself. The best lawyers are the ones with a combination of broad field view and deep client knowledge, who understand not just what to do, but why, and what's going to happen next. That kind of value is the ultimate intangible.

We all know law firms are in many ways challenged as businesses, and that lawyers often are not particularly adept at (or even interested in) the business aspect of legal practice. Recent collapses of venerable firms demonstrate the grave consequences for firms that make bad business decisions. At the same time, the practice of law has never been more sophisticated, subtle and challenging. Clients need good outside counsel as much as ever, if not more.

Business v. Legal Practice

The tension between business considerations and legal practice is a fundamental trait of the legal profession. It's the kind of a tension that characterizes any profession, and it's not necessarily a bad thing. It is counterproductive, however, to treat it as a problem that can be solved.

Early in my first newspaper gig, I recognized that similar tensions were built into the job. There was a tension between the writer and the editor, between the editor and the copy desk, between the editorial side and the business side, even between the entire organization and the clock. At times, these tensions could be extremely frustrating, but I gradually came to recognize them as animating forces ' obstacles that spark creativity.

The other fundamental tension in the legal sector is the real biggie: the tension between lawyers and clients. The interests of law firms and law departments will never completely align, nor should they. They have different reasons for being, different types of value and different professional responsibilities.

When I started reporting on law in the mid-1990s, it was still somewhat controversial to refer to the “legal industry.” Older lawyers would scold me: “It's a profession!” Now we throw around the term “legal industry” so casually that rarely do we pause to consider the still-profound responsibilities of the professional. Whether doctors, lawyers or even journalists, professionals are bound by responsibilities of public service; duties that are inevitably corrupted when their practices are treated solely as businesses.

Yes, law firms need to be better businesses, and yes, corporate counsel are going to keep finding better ways to understand and allocate their spend, but the legal sector will never be an industry in the literal sense. That's the core of where I take issue with the consultant's outlook. His projection looked at law as an industry on an inevitable path toward oligopoly. I don't know if that's even possible, but it's surely not palatable, and if the responses from the attorneys in the room that day are any indication, it's totally incompatible with the temperament and training of most lawyers.

'Better with Less

Where the consultant was right, though, was the fact that law firms have to do things better ' a lot better ' on everything from technology, to staffing, to service. And they have to keep getting better indefinitely. In this contest, law firms might well take cues from industry. Last month marked the death of Eiji Toyoda, the long-time CEO of Toyota who took the best of American manufacturing practices and applied them in the highly organized Japanese working culture. The result was Kaizen, a management system predicated on constant improvement.

There's a lesson there for law firms. “More with less” is the refrain we've heard endlessly since the financial crisis. I think a more appropriate way of looking at it is, “better with less.” An emphasis on volume fosters a quantitative perspective, but quality is the ultimate objective. In recent years, I've spoken with several general counsel who fired their outside counsel for cheaper alternatives in the wake of the financial crisis, only to hire them back later. The drop in quality and loss of institutional knowledge simply outweighed the cost savings they achieved.

Moreover, “more with less” feels like a forced austerity plan, one that carries a false implication that some bright day the scales will shift and we can go back to doing less with more. Embedded in “better with less,” though, is the seed of continual improvement, an objective that can actually be empowering.

Content Creation

Smart law firms are finding better ways to deliver more value all the time. One notable context is the increasing depth and quality of the content they provide openly to clients, the media and the legal community as a whole. Law firms that have embraced content creation and distribution become not just a valued information resource, but media outlets unto themselves. A few examples:

The excellent blog The Insider, written by the lawyers of Morvillo Abramowitz and hosted on Forbes.com, is a great instance of high-quality writing for a general audience that directly complements the firm's practice areas. I love content like this because it demonstrates the lawyers' subjective experience in a way that's far more engaging and accessible than a dusty white paper could ever be. It also shows that they're always thinking about how their practice relates to the broader world. The law involved may be esoteric, but the societal impact is often much more relatable. Not a lot of lawyers take the time and effort to draw those connections, and those who do really stand out.

Withers Bergman hosts some of the most interesting and ' yes, I'll say it ' fun live legal events I've ever attended, often on topics far removed from the legal aspects of the subject matter. Its Family Business Insights series, for example, throws a spotlight on the particular and sometimes peculiar dynamics of enterprises where the executives are related. Sibling rivalry and intergenerational friction are issues for any family, after all, but take on a whole new meaning in a company context. Events like these show that the firm understands and cares about the clients' needs in a way that goes well beyond legal exposure.

A growing number of firms, including Reed Smith, Paul Weiss and Dechert, are using video to deliver alerts and analysis. The use of video in law firm marketing is in its infancy, and that shows in many firms' initial efforts, but this is a medium with tremendous potential. As firms upgrade to mobile-optimized and multimedia-enabled websites, video will only get easier and cheaper to produce. The firms that are out there already experimenting with formats and styles are way ahead of the curve.

These examples represent new kinds of service, in which firms invest considerable time and resources. The end goal, of course, is business development, but the value they provide is shared freely with parties far beyond existing and prospective clients. What sets this type of effort apart from traditional marketing is akin to the classic writer's advice, “show, don't tell.” It's better because it shows. It demonstrates value, expertise, thoughtfulness and vision. The information shared is valuable because it is useful.

Conclusion

Effective content marketing is just one of many ways firms are creatively adapting to today's increasingly competitive marketplace. It's a good start, but it's just a start. A generation from now we will probably still be having heated debates on the future of the legal “industry.” Alternative fee arrangements will still be an unresolved discussion, and someone, no doubt, will be sounding the death knell of the mid-sized firm. But I expect many firms will have made quantum leaps in the ways they create and distribute information. I also expect those firms will be the ones clients want to hire, and the places lawyers want to work.

Steven Andersen is director of content and client strategy at Infinite PR in New York. He previously was a journalist for 19 years, covering law, technology, energy and finance.

Not too long ago, I witnessed an interesting argument. “Argument” may be too strong a word, call it a charged exchange. A heated discussion. On one side was a prominent legal sector consultant who painted a uniformly bleak portrait of the future of law firms. He projected that the majority of legal services would soon be commoditized and that fewer ' and larger ' firms would compete more viciously for less, and less interesting, work.

In this forecast, law departments will continue to develop in-house capacity and expertise, cutting further into law firms' bread-and-butter. Once proud professionals, lawyers would increasingly come to resemble legal factory workers, cranking out X units of legal product for rate Y, in a relentless march toward ultimate efficiency. I have to confess, I felt my brow furrow and my soul shrink a bit with each line item ' and I'm not even a lawyer. Call me old-fashioned, but the thought of turning a complex profession into millwork makes me cringe, and I couldn't fathom who would ever want to work like that.

On the other side of the debate was a top-tier law firm managing partner. He flatly refuted the consultant, emphasizing that the future of law firms was completely tied to the quality of their client relationships; that the more firms allow their services to be commoditized the more they erode client loyalty; and that capitulating to volume pricing at lower rates was tantamount to suicide.

The thing is, in a way they are both right. The financial pressures that reshaped the legal sector during the global financial crisis may be cyclical, but the changes they wrought are here to stay. Business as usual is different now, and we're not going back to the “good” old days when the fa'ade of increasing billing rates masked a multitude of law firm management sins. At the same time, deep, lasting client relationships will always be at a premium, because there's no greater efficiency than knowing exactly when, how and why to act because you know the client's business like the back of your hand. And there never will be.

'Art Versus Science'

As a journalist, I covered the legal sector for the better part of two decades. In that time I saw variations of this argument with each new wave of technology or economic cycle. It basically boils down to an art versus science debate. The consultants, finance types and operations gurus see the legal business on a spreadsheet and recognize the chaotic mess that it often is. They push around numbers and rejigger their models until it makes a kind of sense. This is a perfectly sane and logical approach, but it's not a complete one.

The lawyers look at the same equation and see infinite variables. There's all manner of subjective legal expertise to consider, of course, but also the nuances and wrinkles that fold themselves into relationships over time, and into the law itself. The best lawyers are the ones with a combination of broad field view and deep client knowledge, who understand not just what to do, but why, and what's going to happen next. That kind of value is the ultimate intangible.

We all know law firms are in many ways challenged as businesses, and that lawyers often are not particularly adept at (or even interested in) the business aspect of legal practice. Recent collapses of venerable firms demonstrate the grave consequences for firms that make bad business decisions. At the same time, the practice of law has never been more sophisticated, subtle and challenging. Clients need good outside counsel as much as ever, if not more.

Business v. Legal Practice

The tension between business considerations and legal practice is a fundamental trait of the legal profession. It's the kind of a tension that characterizes any profession, and it's not necessarily a bad thing. It is counterproductive, however, to treat it as a problem that can be solved.

Early in my first newspaper gig, I recognized that similar tensions were built into the job. There was a tension between the writer and the editor, between the editor and the copy desk, between the editorial side and the business side, even between the entire organization and the clock. At times, these tensions could be extremely frustrating, but I gradually came to recognize them as animating forces ' obstacles that spark creativity.

The other fundamental tension in the legal sector is the real biggie: the tension between lawyers and clients. The interests of law firms and law departments will never completely align, nor should they. They have different reasons for being, different types of value and different professional responsibilities.

When I started reporting on law in the mid-1990s, it was still somewhat controversial to refer to the “legal industry.” Older lawyers would scold me: “It's a profession!” Now we throw around the term “legal industry” so casually that rarely do we pause to consider the still-profound responsibilities of the professional. Whether doctors, lawyers or even journalists, professionals are bound by responsibilities of public service; duties that are inevitably corrupted when their practices are treated solely as businesses.

Yes, law firms need to be better businesses, and yes, corporate counsel are going to keep finding better ways to understand and allocate their spend, but the legal sector will never be an industry in the literal sense. That's the core of where I take issue with the consultant's outlook. His projection looked at law as an industry on an inevitable path toward oligopoly. I don't know if that's even possible, but it's surely not palatable, and if the responses from the attorneys in the room that day are any indication, it's totally incompatible with the temperament and training of most lawyers.

'Better with Less

Where the consultant was right, though, was the fact that law firms have to do things better ' a lot better ' on everything from technology, to staffing, to service. And they have to keep getting better indefinitely. In this contest, law firms might well take cues from industry. Last month marked the death of Eiji Toyoda, the long-time CEO of Toyota who took the best of American manufacturing practices and applied them in the highly organized Japanese working culture. The result was Kaizen, a management system predicated on constant improvement.

There's a lesson there for law firms. “More with less” is the refrain we've heard endlessly since the financial crisis. I think a more appropriate way of looking at it is, “better with less.” An emphasis on volume fosters a quantitative perspective, but quality is the ultimate objective. In recent years, I've spoken with several general counsel who fired their outside counsel for cheaper alternatives in the wake of the financial crisis, only to hire them back later. The drop in quality and loss of institutional knowledge simply outweighed the cost savings they achieved.

Moreover, “more with less” feels like a forced austerity plan, one that carries a false implication that some bright day the scales will shift and we can go back to doing less with more. Embedded in “better with less,” though, is the seed of continual improvement, an objective that can actually be empowering.

Content Creation

Smart law firms are finding better ways to deliver more value all the time. One notable context is the increasing depth and quality of the content they provide openly to clients, the media and the legal community as a whole. Law firms that have embraced content creation and distribution become not just a valued information resource, but media outlets unto themselves. A few examples:

The excellent blog The Insider, written by the lawyers of Morvillo Abramowitz and hosted on Forbes.com, is a great instance of high-quality writing for a general audience that directly complements the firm's practice areas. I love content like this because it demonstrates the lawyers' subjective experience in a way that's far more engaging and accessible than a dusty white paper could ever be. It also shows that they're always thinking about how their practice relates to the broader world. The law involved may be esoteric, but the societal impact is often much more relatable. Not a lot of lawyers take the time and effort to draw those connections, and those who do really stand out.

Withers Bergman hosts some of the most interesting and ' yes, I'll say it ' fun live legal events I've ever attended, often on topics far removed from the legal aspects of the subject matter. Its Family Business Insights series, for example, throws a spotlight on the particular and sometimes peculiar dynamics of enterprises where the executives are related. Sibling rivalry and intergenerational friction are issues for any family, after all, but take on a whole new meaning in a company context. Events like these show that the firm understands and cares about the clients' needs in a way that goes well beyond legal exposure.

A growing number of firms, including Reed Smith, Paul Weiss and Dechert, are using video to deliver alerts and analysis. The use of video in law firm marketing is in its infancy, and that shows in many firms' initial efforts, but this is a medium with tremendous potential. As firms upgrade to mobile-optimized and multimedia-enabled websites, video will only get easier and cheaper to produce. The firms that are out there already experimenting with formats and styles are way ahead of the curve.

These examples represent new kinds of service, in which firms invest considerable time and resources. The end goal, of course, is business development, but the value they provide is shared freely with parties far beyond existing and prospective clients. What sets this type of effort apart from traditional marketing is akin to the classic writer's advice, “show, don't tell.” It's better because it shows. It demonstrates value, expertise, thoughtfulness and vision. The information shared is valuable because it is useful.

Conclusion

Effective content marketing is just one of many ways firms are creatively adapting to today's increasingly competitive marketplace. It's a good start, but it's just a start. A generation from now we will probably still be having heated debates on the future of the legal “industry.” Alternative fee arrangements will still be an unresolved discussion, and someone, no doubt, will be sounding the death knell of the mid-sized firm. But I expect many firms will have made quantum leaps in the ways they create and distribute information. I also expect those firms will be the ones clients want to hire, and the places lawyers want to work.

Steven Andersen is director of content and client strategy at Infinite PR in New York. He previously was a journalist for 19 years, covering law, technology, energy and finance.