Top legal decision makers have a time-honored code—they will recommend the law firms doing a much better job than anyone else. Even the most contentious competitors will share these recommendations for one simple reason—each one knows they could easily face a high-cost-of-failure circumstance—and want to know what the best options are. Their best and most reliable source of this law firm intelligence is the unprompted recommendation from a peer.

The peer-to-peer recommendation is serious business. Every recommendation is a personal statement about the type of provider—the commitment, service, quality, and demeanor—you are willing to entrust to a peer—from whom they would expect the same. We discuss this in more detail here. 

Why Recommendations Matter—Big Time

Your law firm’s recommendation rate—how often your clients recommend you to their peers in an unprompted manner—is one of the most powerful indicators of future growth potential and sustainable business development. More than half of corporate legal decision makers will hire a law firm based on a single, unprompted recommendation from a peer.

Only 15% of the law firms serving large clients earn this coveted recommendation. Please join us in congratulating the 5 law firms earning the absolute most unprompted recommendations:

• Akin Gump

• Gibson Dunn

• Jones Day

• Latham

• Skadden

In addition, please congratulate the following 10 firms who garner more unprompted recommendations than all other firms except the 5 above:

• Cadawalader

• Cooley

• Cravath

• Davis Polk

• Debevoise

• Dechert

• Dentons

• Hunton Andrews Kurth

• Sidley

• Willkie

You can learn who the remaining 79 most recommended firms are by downloading our complimentary report BTI Most Recommended Law Firms: The Law firms Legal Decision Makers Recommend 2018.

Earning recommendations is no passing honor. Recommendation rates are one of the most powerful indicators of future growth potential—clients think highly of you—a real advantage when pitching or quietly developing business with your best clients. Learn about the drivers behind recommendations and why they are so powerful in our no-cost report or here.

Good luck.

MBR

The post The 94 Law Firms Clients Recommend Most appeared first on The BTI Consulting Group.

Only 1 in 3 clients recommends their primary law firm to a peer. A level rivaling both last year and 15 years ago. The reason for the drop: clients expect more. Much more. In their minds, they are spending more money with outside counsel—mostly on complex matters. The complex matters demand more attention and increased levels of client service. Instead, here’s what clients tell us:

• Shoddy work doubles
• 51% of clients say their law firms don’t collaborate among themselves 
• Clients openly state they have less patience for outside counsel than ever
• No client teams
• Partner turnover is driving them up a wall
• No succession plans for retiring or departing partners, which clients have been asking for since 2015 

Clients have only recently started to spend more money with outside counsel—on mostly complex matters. They expect more attention and deeper understanding of their situations. And, they expect their primary law firm—as in the one who gets the most business—to deliver on every front—especially the sources of frustration listed above.

Peer-to-peer recommendations are the single most powerful source of new business for a law firm. Everything else pales in comparison. The main reason clients recommend a law firm—client service—is 61% of all reasons. This is nearly 5 times the next factor.

The law firms who manage to earn client recommendations are growing faster and booking new business at a lower cost of acquisition. This not only drives revenue—but drives profits.

GCs make these recommendations to each other in private conversations. These include one-on-one discussions, group meetings, conferences, and a host of formal and informal venues. Clients find it a hot topic—who is good. And they want names.

These are not the “will you vouch for me” recommendations. Unprompted recommendations happen when a GC offers a name, without any prompting or suggestion of who. This recommendation comes from the ongoing evaluation of all the law firms in GC’s mental roster. The firm with the best client service wins—whether they are primary or not.

Stay tuned—next week BTI is publishing the most recommended law firms—by name. See you then.

MBR

The post 93% of Clients Recommend a Law Firm—It’s Probably Not You appeared first on The BTI Consulting Group.