Improving law firm client service: the key to competing in the 21st century

20
Oct
2014

Nicole Black

In recent years, technology has changed tremendously, affecting every aspect of our day-to-day lives, from how we communicate and interact with others, to how we shop, cook, travel and conduct business. Even so, many law firms continue to conduct much of their business just as was done in 1995, refusing to change their attitudes about client service to comport with 21st century expectations.

Now, this isn’t necessarily surprising, given that the legal field is oftentimes so traditional. After all, lawyers are trained to study past legal holdings and apply them to today’s legal problems.

Ours is a precedent-based profession and predicting the future based on what happened in the past has historically proven to be a very successful way of doing business.

No doubt that’s why, according to a recent study conducted by Altman Weil, Inc., many larger firms are refusing to change the way that they do business despite finally acknowledging that the the legal profession is undergoing an industry-wide paradigm shift in proportions never before seen. In fact according to the survey, more than 90% of firm leaders agreeing that there exists a permanent market shift that requires greater efficiency in the delivery of legal services. 

Even so, when it comes to efficient legal service delivery, the primary way law firms report addressing this issue is by replacing high paid employees with less permanent low paid alternatives. So 46% percent of firms report shifting work to contract or temporary lawyers and 41% of firms report shifting work from lawyers to paraprofessionals. And, not surprisingly, only 30% of firms reported actually taking steps to change the methods of delivering legal services to incorporate more efficient processes.

These survey results serve to highlight the extreme level of disconnect in the legal profession. Law firm leaders fully understand that rapid technological changes are affecting client expectations and needs and yet remain shortsightedly focused on reducing delivery costs in the  short term rather then improving long term results by implementing new processes to improve the delivery of client services and ultimately reduce costs due to increased gains in efficiency.

In other words, as described in the Altman Weil report, the ultimate goal should be to find ways to embrace “clients like never before” by locking “clients in to closer relationships” by showing “a thorough and ongoing understanding of the client’s legal and business needs.” The best way to do that according to the report? Establish key client programs that are “more than simply a guise to sell additional services.”

It’s not just Altman Weil, who’s saying that better client service is the key to success in the new legal landscape. The ABA Journal reported earlier this year that Citi Private Bank and Hildebrandt Consulting agreed with this concept based on a survey that they jointly conducted. The recommendation based upon the survey results? That in order to compete, law firms must maximize the ways that they are able to connect with clients:

“Understanding that it’s very much a buyers market, what have firms been doing to get closer to their clients?” said law firm group director and senior client adviser Gretta Rusanow. “Have you tapped into all the existing opportunities?”

How exactly should law firms seek to achieve this goal? Certainly there’s no one-size-fits-all solution. But one example of a way to “get closer to clients” is to improve client communication and provide better client service—via client portals. These portals are already commonplace in many industries, including banking and mortgage financing and for that reason, consumers will soon expect instant access to information via web-based portals in legal matters as well.

These online portals improve client service by empowering clients with information. Portals provide 24/7 instantaneous access to information about a client’s case, allowing them to quickly and easily find answers to many of their most common questions or simply follow their case as it progresses. They’ll no longer need to contact the firm as frequently to obtain case-related information or to view or access documents.  Instead, client portals improve client service by giving clients 24/7 access to information.

If client portals aren’t a surefire way to increase efficiency and improve the delivery of legal services by meeting your client’s needs, I’m not sure what is. Certainly there are other ways to accomplish this goal as well, but the bottom line is that in order to be competitive in today’s cutthroat legal landscape, your law firm leaders need to be thinking about ways to improve client service. 

Whether it’s client portals, alternative fee structures, or implementing legal project management, it’s imperative that your law firm take steps to meet client expectations. If your firm doesn’t, rest assured, another one will.

Nicole Black is a Director at MyCase, a cloud-based law practice management platform. She is an attorney in Rochester, New York, and is a GigaOM Pro analyst. She is the author of the ABA book Cloud Computing for Lawyers, co-authors the ABA book Social Media for Lawyers: the Next Frontier, and co-authors Criminal Law in New York, a West-Thomson treatise. She speaks regularly at conferences regarding the intersection of law and technology and can be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .