Key Values of the Client Partnership Model: People
One of the current shifts in the law firm – client dynamic is that clients who were once interested only in knowing the lawyers who staffed their matters now want access to other professional staff who are able to provide services beyond core legal.
It is still the case that clients are frequently drawn to a firm because of personal relationships that exist with a particular rainmaker partner. However, that one key relationship is no longer enough reason for the same client to remain with a firm. Last year, an ILTACON panelist from a top tier firm quoted a client who said to him: “I’m sick of meeting Santa Clause; I want to meet your elves”. Clients care about the breadth and depth of a firm’s talent pool. A matter is not conducted by partners alone. These days, it will involve associates but also administrative staff, alternative timekeepers, pricing experts, knowledge engineers and technology staff using key platforms and content delivery systems to streamline the legal work, project managers ensuring the timely completion of key deliverables, innovation professionals making sure the processes involved are optimized for efficiency, diversity professionals guaranteeing the matter is properly staffed, even potentially data scientists pulling analytics and business analysts providing graphical representations of that data. Like any other business, the quality of people matters across the board – and this means not just the lawyers, but also other administrative and professional staff. Increasingly, clients want to meet these people and see them.
How to adjust for it: Instead of focusing recruitment efforts on lawyers alone, firms should be investing in the highest quality professional services hires they can afford. As clients demand strategic partnerships with law firms who deeply understand their business and can offer collaboration with their internal legal and legal ops teams, people on the business side of the firm rise in significance. Strong diversity, innovation, talent, IT, business development and knowledge leads can change the way a firm is perceived in the market and allow for new kinds of client service offerings.
Over 200 GCs signed up last year to an open letter demanding that law firms increase diversity in the way matters are staffed or risk losing clients. Clients are requiring that firms commit publicly to diversity by becoming Mansfield certified and bringing diverse teams to pitches. As a result, law firm diversity leads are now essential client-facing staff, meeting with GCs to articulate the way programs put in place at a firm are improving the diversity of the legal teams staffing that client’s matters. With the rise in importance of legal ops, consulting services related to legal technology tools that streamline legal process are in demand, and corporates are turning to their law firms for this type of assistance. Law firm innovation staff at some firms have started offering advice to client teams on the tools they should be using internally to improve efficiency and organization. A number of firms have developed cross-functional professional task forces or client listening programs that involve allied professionals meeting with clients and offering educational seminars and workshops on topics ranging from legal AI tools to project management and design thinking. Some large clients now ask their panel firms to regularly participate in cooperative inter-firm discussions and events on topics of interest to the client.
There is no longer a reason to restrict client interactions to lawyers. In fact, doing so may soon be enough to take firms out of the running in panel decisions. It is a much more powerful service offering to be able to provide quality business services alongside legal advice. Firms should be prepared to put forward diverse teams of professional staff who can service clients holistically. In order to do so, firms need to invest in the right talent, build the right internal culture, and set aside the lawyer - non-lawyer divide. That traditional hierarchy no longer serves clients effectively, nor does it attract top talent on the services side. The clear trend in the industry is clients seeking broader service and representation, which will increasingly mean requests for access to non-legal staff. It’s not enough for firms to put all of their big recruitment budgets towards the top ivy league graduates and lateral partner hires. The firms who will succeed into the future are those who have put as much thought into building out their professional services talent as they have into their legal talent pool.
show me your elves