Keeping Pace with Changes in Big Law

Editor’s Note: The author of this post is the head of PR at Paul Hastings.

By Arielle Lapiano, Senior Public Relations Manager, Paul Hastings

Change was the word of the day at a recent gathering of law firm marketing and business development leaders, where panelists expressed concern regarding law firms’ struggle to keep pace with clients. The Law Firm Marketing & Business Development Leadership Forum, hosted byThe American Lawyer, gathered chief marketing officers, business development heads, and public relations leaders, along with a wide range of experts that serve the legal community, to discuss some lessons still being learned in the change curriculum facing big law.

While the panelists each shared their own unique perspectives, there were three key takeaways from the discussion:

1. Firms need to take the wheel from GCs

The prevailing wisdom is that there has been a power shift from firms to the General Counsels. “GCs are taking control,” said Rich Rifkin, regional sales manager at Thomson Reuters Elite. “When the buyer is in control, it changes the game completely,” he added. Law firms and clients alike expressed frustration regarding the impact this new power dynamic has had on communications between firms and clients.

“We should be driving the conversation and I fear we are not,” said José Cunningham, chief marketing and business development officer, Crowell & Morning. “We have to figure out what value we bring to clients,” he added. Indeed, panelists across sessions recognized the need for law firms to be more proactive in leading the conversation and the consensus was that firms need to focus that discussion more on value.

Clients were also eager for firms to help change the conversation. This was particularly clear when the topic turned to fee negotiations. “We need to move the conversation forward to have far more mature conversations [around pricing],” said Tim Roberts, vice president, legal services category manager-global purchasing & cost management, Deutsche Bank.

• 2. Put your money on value, not discounts

The notion of value was the central theme in the panelists’ discussion about fee negotiations. Unfortunately, many law firms are still focused on discounting, which panelists stressed can be the kiss of death in pricing negotiations.

It’s both easy for clients to ask for, and for law firms to suggest, discounts, but “the problem is it teaches clients not to trust the first thing we say,” said Danny Ertel, a partner, Vantage Partners. He went on to note that discounting rates “is a dangerous trend and corrosive to trust.” Deutsche Bank’s Roberts explained that discounts are not helpful on the client side of the equation either. “It ultimately doesn’t get us what we want as [a] client either.”

Many law firms are still focused on discounting, which ... can be the kiss of death.

So whatdoclients want? You guessed it: value. Of course this then begs the question, What is value? Ertel’s advice on how to define “value” for your firm is to use “all those skills lawyers have: creativity, responsiveness, and problem solving, which are part of lawyering” to impact fee negotiations. Unfortunately, this is still not happening at the majority of firms, he said.

Perhaps the most honest and revealing comment came from Yolanda Cartusciello, director of marketing, Debevoise & Plimpton, who said, “You have clients that know what you do and how much you charge better than you do.”

To meet the expectations of value-focused legal buyers, firms need to articulate their unique value and provide more certainty about what their services will cost.

• 3. You can’t improve what you don’t measure

From fees to big data to content marketing, while some firms may be embracing change, most have been slow to track their efforts. Law firms would be wise to steal a page from performance management guru H. James Harrington who said, “Measurement is the first step that leads to control and eventually to improvement. If you can’t measure something, you can’t understand it. If you can’t understand it, you can’t control it. If you can’t control it, you can’t improve it.”

“Without measurement, you are flying blind,” said Oliver Thoenen, content marketing manager at Stoel Rives, who shared his concerns about law firms’ lack of tracking when it comes to content marketing. As a result, most firms spin their wheels churning out content without any understanding of who is reading and reacting to it.

“Law firms are not learning what’s resonating with clients,” said Adrian Dayton, founder of ClearView Social. Accordingly, the “all about me marketing” at many firms that Wendy Bernero, partner with Bernero & Press bemoaned, seems likely to continue in the absence of hard evidence that might illustrate that clients want something different.

Overall, it was clear at this gathering of “wizards behind the curtain” – an analogy for CMOs coined by panelist Bill Crooks, partner with Priority Search International – that marketing, business development, and public relations professionals understand the importance of advancing change at their firms.

“The word ‘change’ is like a red blinking neon light,” said Thomson Reuters’ Rifkin. “The winners will be the firms where the leaders get it.”

Translating seeing the light into action will remain the biggest challenge for business development and marketing professionals.