Make More Rain : marketing, benchmarking

Could Your Law Firm Do Better?

Admin — Wed, 25 Jul 2007 17:47:00 GMT

How do you know if your law firm could be doing better? Christian Stadler, writing in the July–August 2007 Harvard Business Review answered that question this way:

“Benchmarking is the obvious answer, but not by comparing poor companies with good ones. The way to get at this problem is to compare good companies with even better ones.”

Stadler’s comment is a reminder of the important role benchmarking plays in driving law firm performance and is insightful commentary on how benchmarks should be used. If you depend on surveys for benchmarks, don’t overlook emerging continuous benchmarking service alternatives. The new tools from the likes of Juris and Redwood Analytics promise to replace stale survey information with a continuous flow of automatically collected “current” operating metrics.

Morepartnerincome.com is sponsored by Juris®. For information about Juris products and services for increasing law firm performance and partner income contact Juris National Sales Center:

877/377-3740, e-mail info@juris.com or go to www.Juris.com.

More Reasons to Participate in Law Firm Economic Survey

Admin — Thu, 21 Jun 2007 17:09:44 GMT

June 30, 2007 is the cutoff date for the Juris Law Firm Economic Survey. You don’t want to miss the opportunity to participate in this annual survey. The survey report and analysis you will receive for free as a participant will shed light on just why partners in the top performing 25 percent of law firms earned twice as much as the next best performing group. The accompanying analysis and recommendations will provide you with specific steps you can take as a firm to improve financial performance.

As if that were not enough, consider that Juris, Inc. has also increased the purse for the winning participating firm by $5,000 in a drawing to be held on June 30. In addition, to encourage last minute procrastinators, Juris, Inc. has agreed to give law firms using Juris software who submit a completed survey between now and June 30 a one-time $50.00 credit against their monthly software maintenance and support plan. And since you receive a free copy of the Survey report, you save the $495 publication cost.

The Juris Economic Survey, one of the largest in the legal community, is unique in that it targets midrange-sized law firms, particularly those with 10 to 150 attorneys. What you will learn from the survey will, in all likelihood, help you increase partner income. To increase your income per partner, ask your administrator or accounting staff to start on the Survey today. Participating is easy—even easier for Juris law firms since Juris, Inc. will provide you with a downloadable report to collect requested survey information.

Morepartnerincome.com is sponsored by Juris, Inc. For information about Juris® products and services for increasing law firm performance and partner income contact Juris National Sales Center: 877/377-3740, e-mail info@juris.com or go to www.Juris.com.

Law Firms Benefit From Competitive Intelligence

Admin — Fri, 15 Jun 2007 17:00:00 GMT

Janet Ellen Raasch asks and answers the question “What do the top firms have in common?” Her answer is competitive intelligence or CI.

Her article in Law Practice Today highlights some of the ways competitive intelligence is being used by “big law” to make better decisions. She notes the movement made by large firms to dedicate resources to the collection and analysis of competitive information.

Midrange law firms don’t have the luxury of a dedicated CI staff. They have had to rely on personal awareness of their marketplace and on 18- to 24-month old survey data. Those surveys are important sources of information, which is why Juris, Inc. conducts an Annual Law Firm Economic Survey specifically targeted at the midrange level—firms ranging in size from 10 to 150 attorneys. The survey, covering law firm performance for 2006 and the outlook for 2007, is currently underway. By participating in the Juris Law Firm Economic Survey, you can receive a free copy of the completed survey and its accompanying analysis and recommendations.

While surveys are important, Juris, Inc. has taken one giant step forward with its recent introduction of an online benchmarking service. The service is called Juris Insight and participation is currently limited to law firms that use Juris software for their financial system. Information is extracted automatically, eliminating the need to fill out survey forms. Participating firms will be able to compare their own financial metrics, prices, and other operational information with that of their peer group. Since information is present in a comparative format, it is immediately useful and insightful. The big payoff is that information is timely—current versus stale survey data.

Many of the examples in Raasch’s article might be better described as business and market intelligence. But one thing is for sure. Law firm leaders today have to look outside of the firm for information to guide their decisions and that includes understanding what the competition is doing. Until recently, surveys have been the only tool for systematically collecting that intelligence information. New online benchmarking services are changing that, providing easy access to timely information about what is happening in their marketplace. Redwood Analytics and Thomson West are addressing this area for large firms and through its Juris Insight service, Juris, Inc. , now does so for midrange law firms.

CitiGroup Private Bank Benchmarking Involvement

Admin — Mon, 02 Oct 2006 17:12:00 GMT

Competitive intelligence and specifically peer group benchmarking has been growing in importance as law firms increasing adopt traditional business practices. This post is one of several summarizing information garnered from the September 2006 Benchmarking Symposium held in Nashville Tennessee.

One might be surprised that a bank is one of the leading players in benchmarking services to law firms. CitiGroup Private Bank has 200 professionals who serve law firms. The bank has relationships with 650 firms. Its venture into benchmarking was initially to assist the bank in risk management. Benchmarking separated high-risk situations from those law firms that represented quality relationships for the bank. That evolved into using benchmark information to help bank customers improve financial performance and eventually became a highly sought after service by larger law firms.

CitiGroups answer the question, “Why should you consider benchmarking?” this way: “It lets the members of the law firm know where they are and if they are making progress toward their goals.”

As the City Group representative pointed out during his presentation at the recent Nashville Benchmarking Symposium the legal industry is consolidating and becoming more competitive. Law firms are run more like a business than ever before. Given these conditions a good fact base gained from benchmarking can help gain consensus about important decisions.

Thomson West has partnered with CitiGroup as the content provided for its new PeerMonitor™ service. The service is targeted toward large law firms. Thomson’s news release explained the new services: “Law firm leaders, often frustrated by the lack of real-time competitive information available to them, now have an answer that will help them to make more informed management decisions.” According to Thomson West, PeerMonitor provides law firms with competitive facts as current as the most recent monthly financial statements. PeerMonitor enables law firm executives to benchmark their business performance to a named group of peer law firms across a range of pricing, profit and expense categories.

Other benchmarking providers speaking at the symposium included, Juris, Inc., PriceWaterhouseCoopers, and CitiGroup Private Bank. Juris Insight service is targeted at midsized U. S. law firms. Redwood, PWC and CitiGroup are primarily targeted at the largest 250-attorney to 300-attorney law firms.

Morepartnerincome.com is sponsored by Juris, Inc. For information about Juris® products and services for increasing law firm performance and partner income, go to www.Juris.com.

Benchmarking Services by Redwood Analytics

Admin — Fri, 29 Sep 2006 18:39:25 GMT

Competitive intelligence and specifically peer group benchmarking has been growing in importance as law firms increasingly adopt traditional business practices. This post is one of several summarizing information garnered from the September 2006 Benchmarking Symposium held in Nashville, Tennessee.

Redwood has secured a lead position in business and competitive intelligence among BigLaw since it arrived on the scene in 2003. The company originated automatic benchmarking services. Focusing on AmLaw 200 firms, Redwood has 125 participating firms and provides both macro-level comparisons as well as custom peer and segment groups. Redwood is somewhat unique in that it approaches the comparisons from the view of what it refers to as Client Investment. Under this approach, Redwood tracks what happens to fee revenue—what portion goes toward categories of write-offs, expenses, and income. Tracked metrics include realization, growth, lawyers statistics, pricing, business development and profitability among other items.

During Redwood’s presentation at the recent Benchmarking symposium in Nashville, Norm Mullock, chief development officer, gave the following reasons as support for benchmarking:

Source of comparative and trend information for the legal industry
Support for business strategies and initiatives
Offers a facet of the catalyst required for change
Unbiased, quantitative assessment of internal operations
Analytic insight into area of risk or opportunity not normally reported by the firm
Speaks to a larger audience and from a different viewpoint than internal firm reporting
Supports BI/CPM infrastructure

The role of benchmarking in a firm’s efforts to improve financial performance is illustrated in Redwood’s Performance Cycle graphic:

For more about Redwood’s services visit their web site. Other benchmarking providers speaking at the symposium included Juris, Inc., PriceWaterhouseCoopers and CitiGroup Private Bank. Juris Insight service is targeted at midsized U.S. law firms. Redwood, PWC, and CitiGroup are primarily targeted at the largest 250-attorney to 300-attorney law firms.

Morepartnerincome.com is sponsored by Juris, Inc. For information about Juris® products and services for increasing law firm performance and partner income, go to www.Juris.com.

The Importance & Power of Legal Surveys

Admin — Wed, 27 Sep 2006 17:34:00 GMT

Understanding the Importance & Power of Legal Surveys was the title of PricewaterhouseCoopers’ presentation at the September 2006 Benchmarking Symposium. While their presentation slides are not generally available, Laurie J. Lieb, PWC’s Director of Law Firm Surveys, indicated that she would make them available to attendees. I have noted below some of the key points made during their presentation. For more information about PWC’s benchmarking programs or to request a copy of their presentation, contact Ms. Lieb. You can reach her at 623.561.8481 or laurie.j.lieb@us.pwc.com.

Why are surveys important? PWC noted the following key reasons:

It gives the law firm a sense of its place in the market compared to peers.
It provides the firm with insights for making strategic decisions such as expanding into new areas or practice areas.
It points to opportunities to improve performance by disclosing weaknesses compared to similar firms.

One of the helpful tips was the speaker's point that not everyone in your firm needs the same benchmarking information nor do you have to settle for a one-size-fits-all survey report. As I understood the speech, PWC can custom design survey reports to fit a law firm’s needs. With that in mind, the speaker suggested that you find out the needs of the functional and practice management members of your firm: 1. where you are currently blindsided; 2. what do you need to know? PWC also pointed out that you can control the focus of information needed:

Firm-wide by geographic area
Office level by location
Practice group comparisons
Your custom peer group

The point is benchmarking is detective work; it is market intelligence.

Participating in surveys can be costly because of the drain on law firm resources. With that in mind, the firm should determine carefully which surveys it will participate in. Certainly you should follow PWC’s advice and consider the reputation of the survey vendor—and today you have the option of going with a vendor that extracts survey information automatically, substantially eliminating the labor and billable hour drain of participation on the law firm. PWC will introduce its data extraction option in 2007.

PWC has two off-the-shelf flavors of survey offerings. Their Law Firm Statistical Survey (LFSS) is the more mature one. The LFSS program was started in 1957 and has a consistent base of participants. The total number of firms participating in 2006 was 180. PWC’s standard surveys are aimed at large firms, those generally characterized as BigLaw. The statistical survey is unique for its focus on expenses including staffing ratios and functional area cost.

Their Billing Rate & Associate Salary Survey program was initiated in 2000 and for 2006 had three hundred participating law firms. Three fourths of the participants are in the AmLaw 200. Its focus has traditionally been on billing rates and associate compensation but in 2005 PWC added other revenue drivers. They have the ability to provide office level and practice group benchmarks. The introduction in 2007 of a new data extraction tool will give firms the option of eliminating the labor intensive participation of the traditional survey format.

As noted by the PricewaterhouseCoopers representative, there is always a small group of firms (perhaps 5%) that are unusually concerned about confidentiality, security and antitrust considerations. The well established vendors have procedures in place for confidentiality and security that all but that small minority of firms consider adequate. As for antitrust, there are safe harbors. For example, the following safe harbors currently apply for shared fee-based information:

Conducted by a third-party
Data that is three months old
Minimum of 5 firms in a peer group

PWC follows the safe harbor guide and adds others as well. It is worth noting that the safe harbors represent a conservative approach. One you would expect from PWC’s Big Four position among CPA firms. Technology lets us capture and return more current information. That does not automatically mean an antitrust problem exists. Likewise a group of three versus five may be perfectly okay with regard to some data.

There is significant value from benchmarking to participating law firms and in the end it is the law firm that has to sign off on the acceptability of the vendor’s confidentially and security measures. Likewise, the firm has to decide that it may participate in the benchmarking process without violating antitrust laws.

Other benchmarking providers speaking at the symposium included Juris, Inc., Redwood Analytics and CitiGroup Private Bank. Juris Insight service is targeted at midsized U.S. law firms. Redwood, PWC, and CitiGroup are primarily targeted at the largest, 250-attorney to 300-attorney law firms.

Morepartnerincome.com is sponsored by Juris, Inc. For information about Juris® products and services for increasing law firm performance and partner income, go to www.Juris.com.