How to Enable Value with Clients: Part 1

03.04.20 | Susan Duncan

Firms continue to make efforts to better understand and deliver more efficient and effective services by utilizing systems, people and technology. However, many partners in firms still resist change and are not aware of or comfortable with the many ways that their firms can and should be aggressively pursuing alternative and innovative processes to both…

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Smart Growth Part 7: Organic Growth of Revenue

12.03.19 | Susan Duncan

In our prior post, Smart Growth Part 6: Organic Growth of Talent, we discussed the need for growing your talent organically as well as through lateral hiring of associates and partners.  Today, when leaders and consultants talk about organic growth, they often are referring to the revenue side of organic growth.  In a highly competitive environment…

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Innovation Case Study 4: Morgan Lewis & Bockius

08.21.19 | Susan Duncan

Our prior three law firm case studies have featured a 75-lawyer firm in Chicago, a 550-lawyer US firm and a 1,100-lawyer firm all based in the United States except for 13 full-time lawyers in China. This case study is about global law firm Morgan Lewis, with more than 2,000 lawyers across 17 offices in the…

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Innovation in Law Firm Operations: Takeaways from LMA’s P3 Conference

06.26.19 | Susan Duncan

Nearly four hundred professionals gathered for the 7th annual P3: Practice Innovation Conference focusing on project management, process improvement and pricing and hosted by the Legal Marketing Association.  It was an impressive group of experts and very instructive to see how law firms continue to expand their commitment to legal operations and innovation in their…

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The Skills Gap Part 1: What Competencies will Lawyers Need to Stay Relevant in the Future?

05.15.19 | Susan Duncan

Our last three posts have addressed different aspects of innovation that are occuring in the legal profession:  Innovation Part 1: What It Is and What It Isn’t, Innovation Part 2: Insights from Expertsand Innovation Part 3:  ALSPs Are Expanding and Aren’t Alternative Anymore.  Inherent in all of this client-driven change and digital transformation is the…

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A Race to the Bottom for the AmLaw 200 and Below? Doesn’t Have to Be.

06.14.18 | Susan Duncan

A month ago, at a conference on change management, a managing partner of an AmLaw 200 firm asked a question that likely weighs on the minds of most AmLaw 200 managing partners, some of the AmLaw 100 firms and many of those below the top 200. His question was: We hear all the time that…

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Customer Experience (CX) Part 3 – Transform Your Firm with Superior Client Experience

05.10.17 | Susan Duncan

[Note: This post is co-authored by RainMaking Oasis and Jonathan Hollenberg of HawkPartners, a marketing strategy and research firm for Fortune 500 companies.] In our prior two posts Customer Experience (CX) Part 1 – Is It Different than Customer Service  and Customer Experience (CX) Part 2 – Mapping the Client Journey, we discussed the difference…

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Customer Experience (CX) Part 1 – Is It Different from Customer Service?

04.12.17 | Susan Duncan

Providing exceptional and consistent client service is critical to your firm’s success, but to be a real winner, you will have to deliver an exceptional client experience (CX).  With clients now in the driver’s seat and law firms aggressively competing to hold on to clients or take work away from others, we know that excellent…

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Sales and Service: The Loyal Client Life Cycle

02.15.17 | Susan Duncan

Law firms continue to compete aggressively for new clients and new work from existing clients.  We know from recent surveys by Citi and Altman Weil that client demand for outside lawyers remained flat in 2016 and is expected to do so again in 2017.  With the same or less work to go around, this means…

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Who are Law Firms Really Competing With and Why?

01.18.17 | Susan Duncan

Law firms are facing stiff competition when it comes to holding onto their clients, much less gaining market share. Given the flat growth in available legal work, law firms have been having to “steal” work from other firms to gain share. BTI Consulting’s Market Outlook and Client Service Review 2017 reports that while legal spending…

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Are Your Clients Turning into Customers?

02.19.14 | Susan Duncan

What’s the difference between a client and a customer? Lawyers, like other professional service providers, consider the term client to be more prestigious and most eschew any reference to clients as customers. But it may just be time to reconsider. First, clients are beginning to act more like custmers and second, law firms could benefit…

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Value Post 4: How Law Firms and In-House Counsel Can Co-Create Value

05.06.13 | Susan Duncan

As we proposed in our previous post Value Post 3: Like Law Firms, GCs Must Deliver More Value to Their Clients, general counsel face many of the same pressures that their outside lawyers do when it comes to demonstrating their value to their clients – the business side of their companies. Much of the legal press…

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Value Post 1: What Does Value Mean in Law Firms?

04.15.13 | Susan Duncan

“Value” is one of the most commonly used buzzwords of the first part of this century. Everyone is talking about it, promoting it, writing about it, offering it, demanding it, trying to measure it and bragging about it. First, let’s start with the Merriam-Webster definition of value: 1: a fair return or equivalent in goods,…

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Client Feedback: 10 Steps to Determine Where Your Firm Fits on the Satisfaction and Loyalty Curve

01.08.13 | Susan Duncan

In our last blog post In 2013, Will More Firms Finally Understand that Client Feedback = Better Revenue and Profitability?, we discussed why it is critical to seek feedback from clients and to ensure that they are not only satisfied but extremely satisfied. Extremely satisfied clients lead to truly loyal clients who are much more profitable to…

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In 2013, Will More Firms Finally Understand that Client Feedback = Better Revenue and Profitability?

01.03.13 | Susan Duncan

According to a recent ALM Legal Intelligence Survey, 68% of law firms put “Growing the Firm’s Revenue” as their top business strategy priority and 54% listed “Improving Firm Profitability” as their number three priority. “Client Performance Management and Client Satisfaction Measurement” was a fourth priority, however, only 56% of law firms said they plan to track…

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