How to exploit a sector focus
A brief trawl through the internet reveals that many firms have created a snappy title to encompass their larger-volume process-end of the markets. For example Dickinson Dees have D3, and Shoosmiths have “AccessLegal”.
Most of these products have prices re-engineered down to reflect the fact that the work will be done by more junior staff working on precedent-rich matters. But what about similar products at the top-end of the market, where the law firm is traditionally quoting houry rates? Couldn’t law firms create products that meet clients’ wider issues? With the steady increase in sector-based marketing strategies you would certainly expect product-based expert-offering to be prevalent. But you’d be wrong. Why?
The reason is that law firms are poor at processes that extend beyond the boundaries of an individual department. Traditional billing and revenue recognition combine to create walled gardens which marketing directors’ sledgehammers have failed to demolish. Yet clients don’t see the world from this viewpoint. Management Consultants have long-realised that the IP created in solving one firm’s problems can be quickly re-purposed to answer similar problems for clients working in the same or aligned sectors. Law firms haven’t, or where they have they don’t market the expertise as a product, with predictable costs and outcomes. Or if they have they have quickly become mired in either client conflict issues or internal discussions on how such an offering should be marketed. And who should sell it.
Without such a sector-focused product base it is hard to see what the client-advantage is in having a law firm who knows their market. The client wants wide-advice, to mitigate risk and exploit opportunities. They “don’t know what they don’t know”, and they certainly don’t know how to move from vague problem through to implementable solution with cash-savings. The law firm is ideally placed to offer this advice. It just needs to do it.