Client rankings and client insights top the most popular Mad Clientist posts of 2022. Use these to add new strategies and tactics — and frame your approach for the year ahead.

Each post still offers new insights and strategies. Here are the top posts of 2022 — in 2 groupings:

In the rankings category:

Just In: Clients Single Out 30 Law Firms Delivering the Best Client Service

Clients and law firms are eager to learn the firms best at client service — by name — and why. A sister post to 59 Law Firms Improve Client Service More Than All Others, this post draws from the BTI Client Service A-Team 2022: Survey of Law Firm Client Service Performance.

Clients Single Out 565 Attorneys Absolutely Best at Client Service

Clients are especially eager to learn who their peers believe delivers the absolute best client service — The BTI Client Service All-Stars. They are not just interested in who they are — but their client service philosophies.

The 46 Most Feared Firms in Litigation

Clients and the entire legal community from all over the world want to know which law firms are recognized by clients as the most fearsome litigators. A core part of The BTI Litigation Outlook 2023 report.

Associates Name 147 Law Firms Best at Cultivating Job Satisfaction — And Why

As the value and turnover rate for Associates soared clients, law firms, and legal service providers want to learn about the firms serving as home to the associates with the highest job satisfaction. They also wanted to discover why. All this — and more — is part of The BTI Associate A-Listers report.

59 Law Firms Improve Client Service More Than All Others

A key feature of BTI Client Service A-Team 2022: Survey of Law Firm Client Service Performance, clients and law firms alike want to know which firms upped their game the most — by name — and why.

In the client insights categories:

Your 15-Minute Business Development Hack

Enjoy more business and new matters with this 15-minute exercise proven to engage clients — even for the most reticent partners. Posted in December, it quickly became one of the most popular posts of the year.

10 Hottest Industries for New Business This Year

Your knowledge of industry nuance and practices is valued above almost all else. Law firms use this guide to hone their business development strategies for both existing and new clients. This research is from The BTI Practice Outlook report.

5 Client Facing Facts I Want to Shout from the Rooftops

Clients are seeing big changes in law firms — which isn’t always a good thing. Their relationship partner left the firm and suddenly there is a void, they saw new people appear in substantive roles on their work without introduction, and clients new to their role never met their relationship partner. These things happen quietly and are easily missed.

Clients Tell Us They Use Top Legal Directories in 11 Important Situations — Find Out How and Why

Clients use directories, they have a place and a role. This is a hot topic in every law firm.

5 Things Your Clients Want from You Now

We continually track client thinking and expectations. Use the 5 core expectations to generate business, build stronger client bonds, and earn new business.

Look for innovative business development approaches to have even more impact. And stay tuned for new rankings based on the latest behaviors clients are looking for in their law firms.

As is The Mad Clientist’s annual tradition,
I asked local students to create drawings for our holiday card contest.
All the entries were outstanding — but this one won top honors.

∗  ∗  ∗

Wishing you a wonderful holiday season
and a happy, healthy, and prosperous new year.

From everyone at 

The discussion immediately turned to creating leads. And how hard it was to develop business with existing clients. What to say, what to do? How to get clients interested, and more importantly — how to get them to want to talk about new topics.

I was leading a training/coaching session for 13 partners of a midsize law firm.

I suggested thought leadership — and they quickly detailed how the firm doesn’t have the budget and they don’t have the time.

I recommended one of my favorite and most effective thought leadership hacks. It goes like this:

• • Put together a group of partners, at least 8, or hijack time from a practice or office meeting
  • Ask each partner to write up the top 3 risks their largest clients face with these constraints:
    • In bullet point form only — no big explanations, no justifications
    • 11 words or less — a perfect length for an email, LinkedIn, or the web (no one says webpage anymore)
    • No more than 15 minutes allowed for writing
  • Volunteer your CMO as the recipient of these bullet points
  • Marketing and Business Development collects, collates, and combines duplicate risks
  • Your CMO publishes the list back to the partners (expect a few more back)
  • Your Current Risk Environment Assessment tool is now complete; a simply designed document detailing current risks clients face
  • Each partner sends the tool to their top clients with a cover email initially crafted by the CMO. The email invites clients to add to the list — and share thoughts and questions.

Their results were compelling:

• • 4 requests for meetings to discuss further
  • 5 clients offering up additional risks
  • 11 of 13 partners engaged with clients
  • 6 unexpected assignments within 90 days

This midsize firm now goes through this exercise quarterly. Clients look and ask for it — and they share it with their peers. More firm partners want to be part of the process. This has been going on since the early days of the pandemic.

These partners enjoy more business on new issues as their dialogue earns them a prime spot in the hiring order. Exactly where you want to be in the world of uncertainty.

And, it’s just as compelling when the world is a little more certain.

New research shows clients think law firms can’t keep up with all the new regulations — leaving them with a dearth of answers or inconclusive answers they can’t use.

Soaring litigation and pressure on legal departments to stay ahead of the curve creates immediate need for definite and relevant response. So, clients are going shopping.

As The Mad Clientist discussed last week clients face a bevy of new regulations — especially in labor, data privacy, and industry-specific rules. They also face new types of litigation. Clients need early opinions on what all this means, and they need them quickly and decisively — they have their CEO to answer to.

How to Send Your Client Window Shopping

Any of the following will send your clients looking for another opinion:

• One hedged opinion
• An equivocal answer
• A clinical answer with no reference to your client’s company or industry
• Delayed response

And then your clients immediately:

• Reach out to one of the dozens of law firms with whom they work — and ask questions
• Jump on google and get a read on the issue — relying on law firms’ thought leadership and press quotes to guide them
• Check in with peers
• Talk to their single most trusted outside attorney about the issues

Unless everything comes back supporting the original opinion — your relationship just took a big hit. You can expect most clients to window shop in the following key practices:

• Labor — clients want to know what industry peers are doing or how to apply the regulations
• Data Privacy – where and how are they impacted by all the new regulations
• Litigation — early assessment — and how pervasive is this type of litigation in their industry
• ESG – what do they have to disclose and what language to use
• Clients’ use of social media — how to manage the risk of consumers misinterpreting or claiming the published statements are discriminatory or untrue
• M&A — what are the regulatory headwinds most likely to derail this deal
• Trade — what do newly implemented trade restrictions mean — and what’s next

A Clear Message to Law Firms

The message is clear. Clients want your opinions, interpretations, and very early assessments. They know the facts aren’t in. The regulations are brand new, and the world is uncertain. But clients need to make decisions now.

And the answers have to feel right — top legal decision makers bring broad experience and sense when a recommendation or interpretation is off track.

The most responsive law firms set up task forces to follow key issues and share their informal findings frequently — within their practice and throughout the firm. Because you just can’t predict which client will ask your firm next — be it the first or second opinion.

How to Answer Clients’ Pressing Questions Before they Ask

Winning law firms are brainstorming with clients to get ahead of the issues, so clients don’t have to ask the questions. They are honing their message for each practice and sticking their necks out to offer an interpretation of the problem.

Deep Insights Into Clients’ Questions

You can learn what clients want — and their deepest concerns — in each practice in the just-released BTI Practice Outlook 2023: Target the New Work and Business Development Strategies for an Uncertain Economy.

Find the Hottest Spots by Practice — BTI’s Practice/Industry Opportunity Matrix 2023

Our most popular and powerful tool to drive business development. We take our analysis one step further and break down legal spending by 18 industries and 15 practices.

Quickly spot spending surges and get the inside scoop on why and how to capture the work. Only in the BTI Practice Outlook 2023: Target the New Work and Business Development Strategies for an Uncertain Economy.

About the BTI Practice Outlook 2023

Designed for uncertainty the BTI Practice Outlook 2023 is your guide and the gold standard for laying out the next phase of legal markets — as our research has been for 31 years. In use by more than 200 law firms, this is the source to map out your business development with precision.

You can also learn exactly where clients are spending their money and see the law firms best positioned to help them — by name — in 8 key segments of litigation in BTI’s just-released BTI Litigation Outlook 2023: Litigation Spending in the Uncertain Economy and Beyond.

You can discover the new business development tactics working in the uncertain economy and how clients are spending their litigation dollars in 2023 for 8 segments and 18 industries.

Join the rapidly growing list of law firms getting a jump on the new business development trends.

Previously unseen matters are pouring in along with the old — soaking up a good portion of new legal spending.

And clients are seeing more reasons to relook at M&A — not to mention the record backlog. Combine this with in-house attrition and retention issues and it all adds up to big spending for outside counsel.

5 Practices Hogging Most of the Growth

The legal spending fire hose is still open. But it is more targeted than the last 2 years. This is driving growth twice as fast as the overall market in 5 practices, and another 3 practices are right behind them.

5 Fastest Growing Practices

• • Investigations
  • Data Privacy
  • Private Equity
  • Regulatory
  • Labor and Employment

3 Practiced Slated for Impressive Growth

• • Class Actions
  • Litigation
  • M&A

Icing on The Cake

The icing on the cake may be the flow of new types of matters into client portfolios. They are meaty and interesting — the kind attorneys tell us they love. This includes:

• New and unexpected fraud and discrimination claims from company use of social media
• Broad pursuit of forever chemicals
• State level data privacy (all of which are different and far reaching)
• A bevy of labor related issues
• ESG
• A swirl of new regulations
• M&A in a world of uncertainty

The Inside Scoop on Winning the Work

Winning law firms are honing their message for each practice — and the biggest winners have industry-specific messages. They are bringing new strategies and brainstorming with clients. But these are tuned to the clients who want to know your strategy — and those who want your interpretation of the problem.

You can learn what clients want in each practice in the just-released BTI Practice Outlook 2023: Target the New Work and Business Development Strategies for an Uncertain Economy.

Find the Hottest Spots by Practice — BTI’s Practice/Industry Opportunity Matrix 2023

Our most popular and powerful tool to drive business development. We take our analysis one step further and break down legal spending by 18 industries and 15 practices.

Quickly spot spending surges and get the inside scoop on why and how to capture the work. Only in the BTI Practice Outlook 2023: Target the New Work and Business Development Strategies for an Uncertain Economy.

About the BTI Practice Outlook 2023

Designed for uncertainty the BTI Practice Outlook 2023 is your guide and the gold standard for laying out the next phase of legal markets — as our research has been for 31 years. In use by more than 200 law firms, this is the source to map out your business development with precision.

Buckle your seat belts.

High-end legal work for law firms is set to soar. The one-two punch of a surge in new matters — including a more active DOJ and the backlog of matters is triggering the biggest increases in over a decade. Top legal decision makers report a continuing stream of new complex matters — and they want to deal with them head-on.

After building their in-house staffs at the start of the pandemic they shifted gears and started looking to outside counsel — and this shows no signs of abating.

Here are the 9 top trends for 2022: Plan accordingly:

• Legal spending to surpass all previous records

• Outside counsel spending growing at peak rates

• M&A to surpass all records

• Investigations to soar

• 5 industries face an especially wide spectrum of complex needs

• 6 practices are growing faster than all others

• 5 practices will command especially high rates

• Client spending for each individual matter jumped — and heading higher

• Clients are choosier than ever in picking law firms as they trim their panels

You can learn exactly where the growth and highest rates are in our just-released BTI Practice Outlook 2022.

BTI delineates all this and more in our brand new BTI Practice Outlook 2022: The Surge in Legal Spending Arrives. This research is based on more than 240 in-depth independent interviews with top legal decision makers. You get the most detailed, authoritative look at outside counsel spending for 2022 — for 15 practices and 18 industries.

Find the Hot Spots by Industry Fast — BTI’s Industry Opportunity Matrix 2021

Map out client outside counsel spending plans for 15 practices and 18 industries — all in one place. Your in-depth look at how companies are changing the way they allocate their legal budgets in 2021 shows the impact the pandemic has had on the opportunities available to law firms. Learn the distinct set of characteristics for each practice and use them to your advantage to develop premium work with the most effective strategies. This is one of the most in-demand tools used by law firms.

We provide tactical insight on exactly how to win the work in each practice.

Easily spot spending surges — and get the inside story on why and how to capture the new work. Only in the just-released BTI Practice Outlook 2022: The Surge in Legal Spending Arrives. Order today!