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8 things General Counsel really, really want from their law firms

If law is a buyer’s market (it is), then this is a really important question. One of the most important questions in the legal industry, I’d say.

Law firms are shaped by client demand. When GC’s push for innovative solutions, technology or diversity, for example, law firms bend over backwards to show they’re up to scratch. In an increasingly competitive marketplace, buyers of legal services have incredible influence over how legal businesses operate and how law is practiced.

So law firms have built client teams, formulated relationship management programs and invested in research, attempting to answer the question, ‘what do our clients want?’

Unfortunately, the answers we’re working with are clear as mud.

What makes you happy?

For example, Thomson Reuters just released their 2021 State of the Legal Market Report, finding the key drivers of client satisfaction are:

Quality of advice, strong communication, business understanding and efficiency.

The problem with these factors is that they’re subjective.

General Counsel aren’t running comparable advices through an analysis machine to find which one is higher quality. Partners aren’t being tested on whether they read their client’s latest quarterly financial reports or memorised org charts to highlight business understanding. As for communication and efficiency, how many GC’s have spreadsheets tracking average turnaround times or the leverage ratio of their panel firms?

I’m not saying these factors aren’t important. They’re just a bit abstract, and most firms and legal teams aren’t actually measuring them, so there’s lots of room for error. We don’t really know what makes a satisfied client.

Making a list

If you’d ask me to list 8 measurable things GC’s really want (no-one has), I’d probably come up with a list something like this:

1. Advice is easy to read and understand and is business-ready (i.e. comes with an executive summary or in a Powerpoint-style format)
2. Advice is proactive, with firms sharing legal alerts, news articles and other relevant information regularly (i.e. at least once per month)
3. Partners respond to emails and phone calls within 24 hours
4. The firm provides regular (minimum fortnightly) matter status updates and reports
5. Partners sit in on investor presentations, legal team meetings, and other internal meetings to demonstrate commitment to and understanding of key issues in the business
6. Firms co-develop a client strategy with the GC and legal team, providing clear, transparent relationship goals each financial year and seeking feedback on progress towards those goals regularly
7. Firms provide reports and updates on how the use of technology and alternative resourcing are creating cost savings for the client, or how the reduced costs of remote working are being passed back to the client in fees (haha)
8. Firms provide an annual roadmap for future improvements to service delivery, including incorporating legal project management, knowledge management and client-facing digital portals to drive efficiency.

Clients want more from their firms. And honestly, most firms are trying to meet those demands.

But they’re missing each other along the way, because the targets aren’t clear. I reckon that the 8 points above would be a pretty good start towards delivering legal services that clients really, really want.