During the LMA’s opening session on Wednesday, we were treated to a great client panel on achieving greater collaboration – what you need to know to get a win-win relationship with your clients.  On the panel were Stephen Kaplan, the Senior Vice President & General Counsel for Connextions, Inc., Jeff Novak, the General Counsel for AOL Paid Services, and John Lewis Jr., the Senior Managing Counsel-Litigation for The Coca-Cola Company,

They gave us a lot of incredibly valuable feedback, which I’d like to share with you.  To qualify – at the end of the session, they did say that this wasn’t to be taken as the "rules" for dealing with all general counsel.  The idea is for this to open a dialogue with your clients and get you thinking about how you can better service them.

Main Points from the GC’s

• Don’t treat all clients the same – that’s like being a therapist and treating all of your patients the same.
• The GCs were amazed by how infrequently firms will come to them and ask how they are measured internally and what success looks like for them – doing this can differentiate you.
• It’s your job as lawyers to make your clients look good.
• Find un-met needs for your clients – this is a different value proposition than that offered by your competitors
• Realization rates can go up when you can help the in-house counsel meet their legal spending budget.
• Client service should be very personal, tailored to the individual just as much as the institution.
• Firms that know the secret to cost containment in their own firms should be able to help General Counsel apply those principles in their department.
• When a client comes to your firm and you can divine that they’re in need, that’s an opportunity for the firm to embed a partnership.
• Meeting their needs transcends the vendor relationship and makes you a partner.
• Learn how to self-select – you can’t be all things to all people.  It’s difficult to discern any self-selection from the pitches that they get.  One of them recently got a pitch from a company that was obviously conflicted and should have self-selected.
• There is lots of buzz around AFA’s – but not everyone is positioned to do this. A value relationship is one where you have value to deliver.

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