Connie Cook Laug developed a quality improvement program that used the Baldrige National Quality Program criteria to focus on all aspects of the customer experience from firm management to operations. Michael Rynowcer dealt with the same service and value issues 20 years ago in the accounting profession that law firms grapple with today. BTI helps firms benchmark their progress in this survive or perish realm.
Terri Gavulic opened with the following wisdom:
- Always strive for 100% satisfaction
- If 99% was “good enough” then:
- 12 newborns will be given to the wrong parents daily
- 18,322 pieces of mail will be mishandled hourly
- Two planes landing at O’Hare will be unsafe daily
- 315 entries in Webster’s dictionary will be misspelled
- 20,000 incorrect prescription drugs will be written annually
- 5.5 million cases of soft drinks produced will be flat
Why should your clients expect less? It is indisputable that competitiveness in today’s legal marketplace is fundamentally affected by client service. Managing client relationships – by delivering excellent service – is one of the most critical of the key elements of competitiveness identified by Hildebrandt. Excellent service has an impact on and is a driver of many other dimensions. Let’s face it; service is how many clients tell one firm from another.
Winning clients with litigation management, evaluation, and methodology
Outside counsel need to adopt specific methodologies to help inside counsel better predict litigation outcomes. “Litigation management” should not be an oxymoron. Craig from Chevron maintains that in-house counsel are tired of hearing from outside counsel that “we can’t predict what the other side will do” or “the judge is unpredictable.”
A lawsuit is a project – a temporary endeavor with a beginning and an end. If an outside lawyer can sell on a project basis, he or she will get the business.
The key value an outside team can bring is based on the strategic use of systems processes, and partnering to help to tame the information disadvantage intrinsic in litigation. The role of outside counsel is that they must understand that an in-side counsel’s job is not to supplant the outside team. In-side counsel’s job is to manage those resources to try to obtain the result that is in the best interest of the their company.
- Effective outside counsel will understand that the best way to reduce litigation costs is to settle the losers, try the winners and know the difference deploying three critical project management tools:
- Early case assessment
- Litigation budgeting
- Litigation risk analysis
Any law firm that can proactively and systematically use these three approaches to litigation management to help the inside counsel do his or her job of managing the internal legal department will get the business.
Understanding clients’ business to drive service value
Connie Laug, Chief Quality Officer, Graydon Head & Ritchey LLP offers that a thorough scrub of your financial data allows you to determine who is buying and what, to create a Key Client/Key Account Initiative with the thrust being “quality improvement”. Use specific data elements - revenue, geography, legal needs, value, purchasing trends with firm, client and industry research, internal communication and knowledge management – to identify the core clients that meet the criteria for whom the Key Account Teams will be deployed. Clients are very interested in the demonstrable “value-adds” to their business, such as one-on-one meeting to introduce concept/benefits, annual strategic discussions, quarterly in-person meetings and participation in board and/or advisory meetings. These actions let the voice of the client be heard.
Muzette Hill of Ford was very direct about Ford’s value drivers. Ford faces brutal competition, their survival is based on response to market pressures and cost effectiveness and quality are paramount. Ford is operating in a quality raising culture driven by Six Sigma:
Six Sigma Culture
- Eliminate variation and defects
- Increase quality
- Achieve cost savings
- Engage entire organization, top to bottom
- From manufacturing to staff functions
Ford looks for outside counsel “that looks like we do.” Given that Ford is mid-way through its revitalization plan project, Muzette recognizes that the entire organization is “relying on you to improve revenue.” With respect to legal fees and costs, they budget very conservatively and are moving as much as possible in house.
If a law firm wants Ford as a client, they must accept flat fee arrangements where bills are submitted against a retainer and subject to an annual review and audit. “Traditional” arrangements only occur for one-off cases and unique issues. Providing exceptional service to Ford means that “you demonstrate that your firm understands the bottom line.”
How do clients define superior service?
In a survey of 600 corporate counsel, 69.7% state that they have hired a new credible, major law firm in the past year and in 2003, only 26.5% said that their firm is the “best.” When asked to describe what client focus means to them, the responses highlight the service gap (Ranked in order of importance):
- Understand My Company Needs 20.6%
- Understand My Business 20.6%
- Responsive 19.1%
- Communications 9.2%
- Anticipate Needs 8.4%
- Availability 6.1%
- Value Motivated 4.6%
- Best for Client 3.1%
In closing, Michael Rynowcer from BTI, concludes that there continues to be a big client expectation gap that could be narrowed with steps as simple as asking clients about their business, providing one point of business value and offer it proactively, filling the clients’ unmet and undefined needs, helping clients work toward their own goals, integrating client focus into everyday practice and by all means, getting client feedback.
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By Lucy M. Jones, Senior Regional Account Manager, Platinum Accounts, Martindale-Hubbell. With more than 20 years of sales experience in the legal profession, she has managed major accounts in 
Having both been private practice lawyers, Craig Glidden and Muzette Hill shared a certain empathy with today’s practitioners. Empathy aside, they did not shy away from insisting that law firms need to face brutal facts about value.
