How to Take Client Service and Business Growth to the Next Level

by Rebecca Edwards and Beth Cuzzone

• Open matter velocity (3–5 years recommended)

• Diversity and Inclusion stats (3–5 years recommended)

• Rates (standard, contingent, discounted, flat, other AFAs)

• Realization

• Profitability (different than realization)

Note: The most effective way to take client engagement to the next level is by conducting client feedback interviews. The insights gleaned shine a light on the good and the bad, providing real opportunities for growth in the relationship.

This article is geared towards those firms who are not yet able to conduct these interviews but wish to make incremental advancements to their client relationships.

The following types of Investment Time fall into three categories: Tactical, Moderate and Strategic.

Tactical

Social Media Interaction

By following, congratulating, and highlighting your client’s good work, you help them spread the word about their products and services. Keep track of the activity and provide your client with an unprompted annual update on your social media engagement.

On-site Visits

We strongly suggest this low-cost activity. Offer to visit your client’s office, plant, facility, or headquarters. Fill your day by meeting with people you don’t normally interact with and ask lots of questions. You and the partner will inevitably walk away from the day with actionable insights.

Email Marketing Communications

This might be marketing 101, but it bears repeating. Ensuring that the key contacts at priority clients receive your firm’s thought leadership is an important pillar of client communications. The beginning of the year is the perfect time to conduct an audit of relationships to make sure those individuals have opted into and are receiving relevant firm communications. Bonus points go to firms where attorneys are responsible for forwarding those alerts with a personalized note, highlighting why the information is important for their business.

Offering Office Space to Client

Post pandemic, more and more executives work from home. At least two times a year, proactively offer your clients conference room space for executive committee/board meetings or if they are visiting cities in which your law firm has offices, offer them visiting attorney offices.

Moderate

Attend Board/Investor/Civic Meetings

Depending on your current partnership level, it may prove relevant and even beneficial to invest time in attending your client’s business meetings—or those meetings that may impact your client’s business (i.e. city council, zoning boards, etc.). By doing so, attorneys will be better positioned to advise their clients on a variety of business issues now that they understand the full picture.

Introductions to Other Clients/Service Providers

Is your key client in the manufacturing industry? Do you have another client that specializes in widgets for manufacturers and your client has just mentioned this is a pain point for them? Keep your ears open for those kinds of opportunities and offer to make introductions.

Training (CLE)

Year over year, in-house counsel rank complementary trainings— especially Continuing Legal Education—as their #1 value add.

With that in mind, poll your client’s general counsel to see if there is something their teams are running into that they may benefit from training on. For clients with no in-house counsel, ask their CEO what legal issues they are worried about— employment and privacy are typically top of mind—and offer to do a training for their business teams.

Annual Off the Clock

This is the best time of the year to suggest an off-the-clock meeting with your key clients. The purpose of this meeting is to uncover your client’s goals and priorities for the year. Simply starting with those questions will provide amazing insights into how you could help them to achieve those goals in 2023. Your marketing department can help you prep for the meeting by compiling a research memo and providing other thoughtprovoking questions to pepper into the conversation.

Strategic

End of Matter Debriefs

An official debrief allows the client to be heard and your firm to uncover ways to improve client service. When a matter is concluded, reach out with a request to receive feedback. When a client shares what went well, what could be improved and what they want in the future—you are solidifying your services and future with the client.

Executive Briefings

There are trends, new regulations, and legal precedents being set every year. Offer up your subject matter expert to meet with the C-team, Board, or Executives to brief them on new and trending issues. It shows that you are interested in their business and industry.

Financial Reporting

Clients receive bills on a regularly scheduled basis, but when was the last time the client saw a 3- to 5-year overview of their legal spend from their lawyers? Creating such transparency opens dialog about where the client can save money, spend more, or where a firm can be more efficient.

Eighty percent of a firm’s revenue typically comes from 20% of its clients. The goal with the above initiatives is to grow your clients’ legal spend with you. As we head into an uncertain year, cementing relationships with good clients is paramount.

We hope these suggestions create opportunities to further develop and grow these relationships. Let us know what you implemented by connecting with us on LinkedIn. n

Agood lawyer biography provides an overview of your strengths and accomplishments, tells an engaging story, and describes the benefits you bring to clients (as it draws in your reader), piquing their interest so they want to learn more. It does not recount your entire career, list every case you won, and document every deal you closed since you graduated from law school.

Five do’s and don’ts to make your biography stand out, whether on LinkedIn, your firm profile, or in the program notes for your next speaking gig:

 Lead Off with How You Help People (Not Just Your Title) You need to tell people what you do and how you can help them. “Jennifer Jones is a Partner in the Litigation Group” does neither. Instead, make the opening sentence a value proposition that clearly states how you help clients, like: “Jennifer protects biotech startups against product liability theft and losses.” If that’s all that visitors to your website read, they’ll know what you do—what you’re good at—and what you can do for them.

If your practice covers multiple disciplines, include that in your introductory paragraph as well. “In addition, she helps IP rights holders monetize their intellectual property and has particular strengths managing pharmaceutical and biotechnology patent portfolios across the globe.”

 Tell Stories Client stories are engaging testimonies of your skills and commitment to clients. Always include one or two representative examples of your work in the text of your bio to demonstrate your experience and show readers how you solve the business and legal problems they face.

...demonstrate your experience

Ideally, you’ll be able to tie practice strengths into the case studies you provide. “Biotech clients count on Jennifer’s understanding of sophisticated technology—she has a Ph.D. in biochemistry from Yale—to guide them as they pursue licensing and sales opportunities for their products. In one such instance, she helped a small biotech startup license their genetic engineering process to a global pharmaceutical company for an eight-figure sum.”

 Don’t Talk Too Much When it comes to bios, less is often more. That doesn’t mean that you should exclude significant capabilities and practice strengths, but rather that you should always maintain a critical eye on the length of your bio when deciding what to discuss. Ask yourself if this skill or that experience is relevant to the audience you’re trying to reach. If