Legal Commentary

Clients schmients. Do Firms Really Care About Their Clients?

By Patrick J. Lamb

Suzanne Lowe of Expertise Marketplace reports here on the results of work by Patrick McKenna.  Here are three findings regarding law firms and their use of client teams:

• 63% of all firms (of all sizes) reported having NO budget specifically allocated to support their client teams

• Only 4% of firms (none over 500 attorneys) identified a budgetary item for satisfaction surveys, while only 6% spent any money on client research

• For the vast majority of respondents, the main reason to form client teams was to increase their own firm's revenues

McKenna and his co-author Michael Anderson exhibit laudable restraint in their closing comments: " . . . as our latest research here does not seem to give us comfort that enough firms have yet to understand how to make their client teams work effectively." 

Better get cracking with those next baby steps, I'd say. 

I had to chuckle at the "laudable restraint" comment.  But in my mind, it begs the question, what would happen if lawyers had to run real businesses?  Can you imagine any real business that sells goods or services not budgeting for their client teams?  Not measuring the ROI?  I can only imagine what the Jack Welches of the world think about our profession.

All that aside, though, the finding that really got me was the "we don't give a damn about our clients, we just want to make more money" finding.  Success is a byproduct of great client service and genuine concern about the clients' well-being, not the other way around. 

Full post as published by In Search of Perfect Client Service on July 29, 2008 (boomark / email).