After lunch on the first day of the P3 Conference, we had the opportunity to listen to a client discussion – which, if you read Zen regularly, you know is a favorite of mine!  Moderator Vince Cordo (@vcordo), the Global Director of Client Value at Reed Smith led a panel that included Nick Bagiatis, the COO of Reed Smith, Lesley Garafola (@plgarafola) of Duke Energy, Gonzalo Frias of Duke Energy, and Kimberly Levinson of PNC. 

The delegate packet told us: 

Tracking and reporting on the value and the cost of legal services had become top priority. Value promotes the adoption of management practices that allow all participants to achieve their key objectives. This session is a discussion on how clients are working with firms to track spend by a law department with a focus [on] measuring value. Until you can get that data, you[r] best option is to keep pushing for lower costs. Comprehensive performance management programs are being introduced by corporations in ever economic sector. Most include key performance indicators (KPIs). These indicators and the programs they support are comprehensive because they are much more far-ranging than budget and other financial indicators. Clients want programs which reduce waste and which encourage all resources to be dedicated to the top priorities set by executive leadership. It reflects the transition of the legal function from a classic position of support to one which is likelier to add value." 

 

Continue Reading Law Firm Partner and Client Discussion: Creating the Win-Win

The second breakout session that I attended on Thursday morning at the P3 conference was "A Case Study on Profitability through Pricing and Client Value," presented by Redwood. 

The program told us: 

For years the legal profession’s main focus with respect to ‘profit’ has been on driving productivity and revenue. Well before the boom in alternative fees this perception had changed drastically. Now in a new world with heavier client demands, budgeting needs, alternative pricing, and changing structures the true drivers of profitability have come under additional scrutiny."

Attendees of this session will learn about the components and changes within the drivers of profitability. In addition they will engage in a case study using real data under a pseudonym to analyze trends, identify wayward pricing strategy, and hone in on alternative ways to look at a firms’ [sic] profitability." 

Continue Reading Driving Profitability through Pricing and Client Value

A post came through my reader last night, with 7 Tips for Starting a Content Marketing Strategy. Now, I know what you’re thinking, that the idea of crafting a "strategy" around delivering valuable information to your audiences is a bit icky.  But I promise that it’s not – this is about identifying what is of most use to your clients and potential clients (and influencers and amplifiers), and making sure that you’re not committing what we call RAM (Random Acts of Marketing). 

I’m also sensitive to the use of "marketing" here – I am a marketer myself, and have a great deal of respect for legal marketers, in no small measure because we’ve had to adapt and develop into much more robust and significant roles in recent years. But I know there are some who think of marketing as a necessary evil, or just "those guys down the hall who put together our brochures." (That’s not true, by the way). 

True legal marketing, in my book, is identifying how you translate the skills and experience of attorneys to clients, potential clients, and others who will trumpet this information, in a way that those people care about (as well as working with attorneys on how to do this themselves, how to engage and build relationships with all of these individuals, and how to keep their current relationships vibrant and healthy, etc and so on. But I digress). 

Continue Reading Two for Tuesdays: Successful Content Marketing Strategies

Welcome to ILN-terviews, a series of profiles of ILN member firm attorneys, designed to give a unique insight into the lawyers who make up our Network. For our latest interview, we’re doing a little something different! If you follow us on Instagram, you may have seen that we’ve been answering some ILN-terviews questions via video! 

Each of the videos below answers the questions that precede it – Pál Jalsovszky of Jalsovszky Law Firm in Budapest was kind enough to do our first set of videos! 

In one sentence, how would you describe your practice?

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What would you like clients and potential clients to know about you?

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What has been your proudest moment as a lawyer?

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What would surprise people most about you?
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What career would you have chosen if you weren’t a lawyer?

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How would you like to be remembered?

The first breakout session that I attended at P3 was "Value-Based Pricing, Legal Project Management and the New Value Proposition."  The session was presented by Doug Woods (Strategic Pricing Manager Ogletree, @dougwoodsCPA), Jim McGrew (Chief Marketing Officer, Ogletree), Ashley Tenney (Business Development Manager – Corporate Department, McKenna Long, @latenney), and Crissy Wolfe (Attorney, McKenna Long). 

LMA gave us the key takeaways right in the program, so I’ll list those upfront before we get into the full recap! 

  1. What are the common "value drivers" of clients, and how can legal marketers help attorneys have a deeper conversation about what is valued by the client?
  2. Which pricing arrangements are most (and least) appropriate for various client value drivers?
  3. How do legal marketers market, and assist in developing, pricing arrangements and project management?
  4. How do pricing and LPM complement each other and what role should legal marketers play?

Continue Reading Value-Based Pricing, Legal Project Management and the New Value Proposition

Weather seemed to factor into almost everyone’s travel into Chicago last week for the P3 conference, and unfortunately, it resulted in the cancellation of our keynote speaker for the morning. Instead, we were treated to an open and interactive discussion – as one of the speakers joked "We wouldn’t be business leaders if we didn’t know how to adapt." 

And adapt they did – had we not known the schedule in advance, you never would have guessed that the session wasn’t well-thought out and planned. 

Challenges for the People of the Three P’s

The main challenge to pricing is the obvious one: overcoming culture and history to make these changes within our firms. Setting a price and managing costs are two different things, but both of them have this same challenge of getting lawyers on board.  Lawyers want to press an "easy button," but it’s more complex than that. 

Wrapped up in this challenge is another one – that of being able to empower our attorneys to say "no." Firms don’t have to agree to pitch everything that comes in the door (and shouldn’t). But there must be sound business reasoning behind these decisions. 

Continue Reading P3: Project Management, Pricing & Process Improvement – An Open Discussion

Last week, I had the pleasure of attending the LMA’s P3 conference, which brings together "pricing, project management and practice innovation experts to discuss the use of various tactics to explore solutions to real issues face by law firms today." 

I’ll be publishing some recaps for the conference in the coming days, since there was a LOT of high-level meaty topics and conversation happening in and around the event. But today, I wanted to bring you my two takeaways from the conference. As always, there are more than just two to discuss, but we’re focusing on these today! Feel free to add any other takeaways in the comments below, or just add your comments to the discussion! 

Takeaway One: Pricing & Process Improvement Can’t Happen in Silos

Just before the conference, ALM Legal Intelligence released a special report on Pricing Professionals: Essential to Law Firms, an Ally to Clients (report available for purchase). I’ll be talking a bit more about this in the coming days as well, but I read through it in preparation for the conference, and the main thing that struck me is that we’re only now seeing an increase in integrating process management with pricing. 

Tim Corcoran (@tcorcoran) (who was on a unique panel at P3 with Catherine MacDonagh, John Byrne and Amy Hrehovcik) put it perfectly in a post-conference interview he conducted with LexBlog: 

We spend all this time coming up with the right budget, and then we go deliver the work the same old way and we don’t adhere to the budget. And either the client says ‘I don’t want to pay anymore’ or we end up taking a hit to our profits because we can’t bill more but we spent more time working than we needed to."

 

Continue Reading Two for Tuesdays: Takeaways from P3

We’re thrilled to announce this month’s firm of the month, our longstanding member, Miller Samuel LLP of Glasgow, Scotland! 

   

 

 Member of the International Lawyers Network

The ILN is proud to announce our latest "Firm of the Month" – Miller Samuel LLP of Glasgow, Scotland!

The firm was established in 1973 with the aim of providing high quality, fast and comprehensive legal service to commercial clients at competitive rates and in a straightforward practical manner. The firm is departmentalized: the Commercial Department acts mainly in property related matters and has notable expertise in property development, investment and leasing; the Litigation Department acts in all commercial matters including insurance, personal injury, environmental, landlord and tenant litigation and employment law. It also handles debt recovery and family law matters. Private client services include advice on the administration of estates, tax planning, charities and wills and the purchase and sale of residential property.

The firm acts for a wide range of companies and organizations within its principal areas of work, including nationally and internationally known public companies, listed property companies, retailers, insurance companies and various private companies and individuals.

Full descriptions of Miller Samuel’s  services, expertise, and lawyer profiles are available on their ILN profile.

Lindsay Griffiths
Director of Global Relationship Management
International Lawyers Network

Lindsay Griffiths

 

Learn More

 

Main Contacts: 

Michael Samuel

Michael Samuel

Email: pms@millersamuel.co.uk
Telephone: +44 (141) 227 6018

Practice Groups:
Private client, Residential property

Marie Macdonald

Marie Macdonald

Email: mem@millersamuel.co.uk
Telephone: +44 (141) 227 6032

Practice Groups:
Employment

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Alan Griffiths

“Miller Samuel is one of the firms that truly embodies the ILN’s motto ‘Where Lawyers Become Friends.’”

Alan Griffiths
Executive Director
International Lawyers Network

+001.201.594.9985

www.ilntoday.com

 

Happy Tuesday all! I’m gearing up to head out to Chicago again for the Legal Marketing Association’s Practice Innovation Conference – also known as P3: Project Management, Pricing, Process Improvement. I’ll be blogging and live tweeting from the sessions on Thursday and Friday, so keep an eye out for some great content! 

But first, we’re switching things up again on this Two for Tuesdays with two must-read blog posts for this week.

  • Could law firm content become a joke? from Kevin O’Keefe (@kevinokeefe) at LexBlog: This post got me very fired up, as did a discussion that followed with some fellow legal marketers. I’m hoping to get a Wondering Wednesdays up tomorrow about it, where I’ll discuss my thoughts in full, but for today, I encourage you to head over there, read through Kevin’s thoughts and add your own in the comments there or here. 
     
  • Words of Client Service Wisdom from Mad Men’s Don Draper from Patrick Lamb (@valoremlamb) of Valorem Law Group: I’ll admit it, I’ve never watched Mad Men, though it’s on my list. But I’ve seen a number of lessons taken from the show and applied to legal, and I’m never disappointed. That’s the case in this post I read from Patrick Lamb this morning, which has some EXCELLENT lessons we can all learn for client service, thanks to quotes from Mad Men’s leading man. 

Check out those two posts today and feel free to add other must-reads in the comments below, as well as your thoughts about the above pieces! 

 

For our latest installment of the General Counsel Corner, we talked to Mark Ginalski, the General Counsel at SunLink Corporation. SunLink manufactures integrated PV balance of system solutions for the photovoltaic industry that reduce the cost of installation, ease permitting, and enhance system design flexibility. SunLink’s industry-leading solar roof and ground mount racking systems, HomeRun™ combiner boxes, and wire management tools have been proven on more than 500 MW of commercial and utility-scale PV projects at 2,000+ sites across North America.

My question for Mr. Ginalski was: 

What is the most important factor you consider when hiring a law firm?"

In his response, he said that he can "imagine [that] any GC could opine for pages on this topic. For me the key factor is relatively straight-forward – Will outside counsel work in an collaborative and efficient manner to achieve the best result for the company, based upon an agreed upon strategy."

That is a hugely telling response – what it says to me is that what Mr. Ginalski (and other GCs) really care about is a firm’s ability to understand that each client, and each matter, is different. As we’ve heard before, that means there’s no "one size fits all" answer, only "one size fits one." 

And what’s more, in-house counsel want to work collaboratively – it’s the partnership mentality that we hear about so often. Clients want you to be a partner in their business, and in their success. 

Your food for thought today is then: 

  • Are you focused enough on your clients to discern what their individual goals and needs are in each matter, with the understanding that despite your industry expertise, each client is unique?
  • Are you working collaboratively with each client to achieve their goals? 

Thanks so much to Mr. Ginalski for his participation in our General Counsel Corner!