ACC Value Challenge (Part 3): What your competitors are doing

Last week, I wrote about what one law firm is doing to offer more value to their clients in the current economy.  This week I’ll talk about what three other firms are doing, as explained in the ACC Value Challenge Toolkit.

The best way to start lowering costs for your clients is to lower your own costs.  And that begins by systematically managing legal matters.

Eversheds has developed two different project management systems:  one for litigators and the other for transactional matters.  Every associate is required to complete training in how to use the system that applies to their specialty.

RAPID divides litigation cases into five segments:  Review, Analyze, Plan, Implement, and Deliver.  Each segment is budgeted separately, and the results of each step help predict the cost of the next one.  Eversheds reports that RAPID has substantially reduced litigation costs, and that 90% of cases are now settled out of court.

Similarly, DealTrack breaks down each transactional legal matter into four steps for budgeting and managing – Scope, Plan, Execute, and Close.  A single step may be further broken down into sub-steps, and include tasks for both in-house counsel and Eversheds attorneys.

Clients want law firms to be able not only to control costs, but also to avoid surprises and budget overruns.  To help predict the future, Eversheds looks to the past, using another system called ELITE, a database of historical cost information.  Adding all of these systems together allows Eversheds to provide “very reliable cost estimates for any type of legal work.”  (The firm does note, however, that even the best-laid plans do not always work out since “some aspects of litigation matters... are obviously subject to unexpected developments.”)

McKenna Long has taken a different approach to controlling costs.  They’ve established an “Efficiency Task Force” to identify and implement tactics that can save money for clients and for the firm.  Among many other things, the Efficiency Task Force promotes the “use of talented part-time contract attorneys... [to provide services] at an attractive hourly rate,” and “the growing use of non-lawyer professionals to complete non-legal work... at a lesser cost.”

Another important element in providing value is the quality of communication between a firm and its clients.  Ballard Spahr has developed a number of systems to “monitor the relationship to ensure [the] client is receiving value and [the] arrangement is working.”  The first item on their list is “No gatekeepers within the firm – clients can contact any Ballard Spahr lawyer without having to go through the lead relationship partner.”  The relationship partner plays a vital role in managing the overall process by monitoring billing, and tracking progress with all the lawyers who work for a particular client. 

Ballard Spahr also puts its money where its mouth is.  Compensation is based in part on interviews with each partner about who has helped them.  Lawyers earn more if they collaborate effectively, so “the focus is on value to the client rather than on personal billings for the lawyer on point.”

These are just a few of the value initiatives that have been implemented at Eversheds, McKenna Long, and Ballard Spahr.  For more details on these and other firms, see the ACC Value Challenge Toolkit.  And then ask yourself:  if this is what my competitors are doing to increase the value they provide to clients, what should I be doing?