The post 18 Key Takeaways from BTI’s Annual Market Outlook & Client Service Review appeared first on The BTI Consulting Group.

Complexity and risk continue to dominate client thinking. Clients continue to eat into their internal budgets to fund outside counsel work. The need for outside counsel who can meet their new expectations remains relentless. Use these 11 trends to your immediate and lasting advantage:

Clients Are Way More Fickle, and Changing Their Budgets Big Time 

Clients are more specific and demanding—and just about ½ are different individuals than those you have dealt with before, as we will discuss in our upcoming, almost fully booked webinar: BTI Market Outlook and Client Service Review 2020. Use these trends to show you not only know what clients need today, but what they need tomorrow:

1. Corporate counsel are cutting internal spending to fund outside counsel spending

2. Outside counsel spending is up for the 4th year in a row

3. Increases in outside counsel spending are outpacing overall growth in total legal spending—the first sign growing cost pressure will rear its ugly head—and making AFAs much more valuable

4. Expect more RFPs from clients than last year as they look for law firms with the right stuff

5. Clients want more aggressive representation in litigation

6. M&A decision makers are the most optimistic they have been in 14 months

7. Litigation matters are larger and consume more outside counsel spending per matter than in recent history

8. Top legal decision makers are settling more litigation matters as they are more comfortable with the higher-risk matters absorbing most of the new spending

9. Midsize firms are gaining more business with larger clients as the biggest law firms focus on the biggest matters and largest clients

10. The largest legal spending industries are increasing their outside counsel spend—making pharma, high tech, telecom, and financial services ever more important

11. The energy industry is increasing spending with little noticed fanfare, and even skepticism, by law firms

How do these trends stack up against your practice development plan and business plans? Use them as both a guidepost and tailwind to help you get to the best opportunities faster.

Please join over 1,000 law firm leaders for our annual webinar: BTI Market Outlook and Client Service Review 2020 on January 15, 2020, at 12:00 pm ET to discuss these trends and much more. You can also learn about these and more detailed trends and opportunities in: BTI Practice Outlook 2020, available immediately.

Best in the market ahead and a happy, healthy new year!

MBR

The post Top 11 Trends Shaping the Legal Market for 2020 appeared first on The BTI Consulting Group.

So many lessons, so many questions; but so little time. Here is a recap of our 10th annual BTI Market Outlook and Client Service Review. We would like to thank the 1,682 individuals who joined us and appreciate all the feedback—especially considering how much client feedback we develop for our clients. Here are the highlights:

Uncertainty is the biggest driver in the market today. It is the reason clients are:

• Increasing spending in outside counsel

• Cutting corporate counsel’s internal spending

• Demanding more engagement from their law firm

• Ramping up RFPs

• Paying higher rates for complex work while applying unrelenting rate pressure on their standard work

Where the Growth Is by Industry and Practice

• High Tech boasts 9 practices with premium needs and growth—more than all others

• Health Care, Pharma, and Insurance (non-defense) show 7 premium practice opportunities each

• Energy and Financial service see premium needs in 6 practices

• Telecom, Transportation, and Professional Services have the fewest premium needs

• Demand for Cybersecurity, M&A, and Private Equity leads the growth charge with IP Litigation, Class Actions, and Regulatory close behind

The BTI Client Service 30 are using these new strategies across their client base:

• Tapping into their largest clients’ needs through client feedback and customization

• Pinpointing clients’ risk before they do

• Developing tools for clients to better manage and identify risk

• Helping clients manage uncertainty

• Becoming more aggressive in business development

The Most Innovative Law Firms

• Hail mostly from The BTI Client Service 30—suggesting client service gives you a better on-ramp to the most compelling client innovation and technology needs

• Tackle the most basic needs—such as historical document access and performance indicators—with scale across the client base

• Customize technology solutions for their largest clients

• Ask clients about their specific needs and then build out solutions to meet these needs

Changes in Client Service Expectations

• Your ability to deal with complexity is now a part of client service—the 17 activities clients use to evaluate law performance and hireability

• You can’t fully understand risk without understanding your client’s business

Again, this is a brief recap, watch the full recording here to gain vital insights for your firm.

The law firms delivering on all these demands across the client base are outperforming all others. This shows consistency, ability to scale, and your commitment to help—the most influential aspect of client service.

You can use these insights to improve your performance tomorrow. No law firm on the planet can tackle all these demands and changes at once, but you can prioritize, reallocate resources, and focus on the ones which make the biggest difference. You are best served by picking a small number of high-impact tactics for your firm—and scaling across clients. Rogue acts of greatness can’t compete with systematic excellence.

MBR

The post The 21 Biggest Takeaways from BTI’s Annual Market Outlook and Client Service Review appeared first on The BTI Consulting Group.

Client service is anything but static. Sometimes client needs evolve over time and sometimes they change on a dime—with no notice. The BTI Client Service 30 follow the lead of world-class firms like PwC, McKinsey, and Accenture to use changing client expectations to their advantage.

Best-in-class law firms stay ahead of clients by tracking shifts in client thinking, problems, and priorities—and offer solutions before clients ever ask. They change their actions and interactions with top clients to solve problems before they happen. Most importantly, they scale their actions across the firm by providing tools and knowledge to relationship partners. The combination of scale and tools is vital. And, while every firm has rogue partners delivering superior client service—it’s not enough to match the growth or new business associated with a large-scale shift.

Here’s what top legal decision makers are telling BTI is helping most—and hard to find:

Managing Increased Complexity

The world is more uncertain than any client planned or thought about a year ago. Clients are worried about tariffs, geopolitics, #metoo, and the impact of the US government on the economy and their business. This is in addition to their day jobs.

The best-in-class law firms dive in head first to define and manage the uncertainty. These firms provide clients with checklists, assessment guides, and strategic counsel before clients ask.

Scalable Teams in Case Things Get Ugly Quickly

Today’s legal matters can turn from hard to complex in a heartbeat. Savvy firms are watching this trend and addressing it by placing attorneys on client standby. The team leader ensures these standby attorneys are actively kept abreast of client issues and can spring into action the moment the matter’s risk ratchets up.

New and Deeper Industry Understanding

Today’s increased complexity is industry specific. High tech is worried about IP litigation, supply chain, industrial espionage, and export controls. Oil & Gas companies are worried about geopolitical issues, pricing, and supply contracts. Retailers are worried about Amazon. Top performers do deep dive research into their clients’ industries to offer industry-specific counsel—and bring better insights.

Even Earlier Assessment

Clients are embracing early case assessment faster than ever. The bigger the risk, the earlier the assessment. The best-in-class law firms are developing protocols to evaluate risk early and often. And make sure clients benefit from this structured approach by making it accessible and part of every relationship manager’s tool kit.

Secondments—Despite the Risk of Losing a Great Associate

Capacity constrained corporate counsel love a good secondment. The top client service performers realize the client benefits outweigh the risk of loss. These law firms figure the associates who leave were likely to leave anyway—and it’s better to have friends in important places. These firms offer up secondments and are quick to say yes when a major client asks.

Custom Innovation

Clients recognize more than 70% of the BTI Client Service 30 as top innovators. They use dedicated individuals and 3rd parties to ask clients what they want and what would be helpful. Corporate counsel may not know exactly what innovation they need, but are quick to identify their pain points when asked. The top client service firms use this insight to drive solutions for these clients and as the basis for their innovation investments.

You can learn the new client service strategies and tactics in use now by The BTI Client Service 30 here, and during our annual webinar today at Noon Eastern.

MBR

The post 6 Things the BTI Client Service 30 Do and Others Don’t appeared first on The BTI Consulting Group.

With luck your client’s budget is approved. After all, your client submitted their first draft last summer. The budget got worked, changed, adjusted, and reconfigured. Now it’s real. So, what is your client focusing on as the New Year starts? Those who know the answer are in the minority—but clearly have an edge.

Time to hightail it to your top clients to find out—even if you think you know. You now have a rare second chance to confirm where clients are headed and why—and these second chances don’t come often.

Call or go visit your clients while the year is still fresh. Be the first to understand how your client is thinking about:

• Changes to cybersecurity since the Marriott incident

• How tariffs are impacting sales

• What tariffs are doing to supply chain agreements

• New goals and priorities

• Surprise initiatives introduced by management

• Changes in their litigation settlement rates—they are plunging overall

• New matters coming up this year

• What kind of complexity your clients face

• Most pressing needs and priorities

• Resources they have and need for the year

• What informal things you can do to help

You will learn the direct route to getting new business and position yourself as the one who cares more than anybody else—the most influential factor in getting hired. The second chance doesn’t last long—because someone else just might get there first.

We will be discussing these issues and much more during our annual webinar BTI Market Outlook and Client Service Review 2019 on January 17, 2019 at noon Eastern Time. Register now as space is filling up fast.

MBR

The post Hurry, While You Still Have A Rare Second Chance appeared first on The BTI Consulting Group.

Buckle up. It’s going to be an exciting ride. Clients are spending more money on outside counsel than ever. Top legal decision makers are redefining their approach to hiring and managing their law firms. This translates into direct opportunity.

But you will find the biggest wins by targeting your client’s new needs and hiring plans, focusing on the industries where you can win, and getting there before other law firms. Please use these top trends to your immediate and lasting advantage—and join us for the BTI Market Outlook and Client Service Review 2019 where we will discuss these and much more:

1. Cybersecurity leads all outside counsel spending increases at 9%

2. M&A spending closely follows Cybersecurity in planned outside counsel spending increases

3. The number of clients reporting high-stakes matters more than doubled in the last 18 months

4. Complexity and uncertainty dominate client thinking

5. Clients are settling less than half as many cases as 2 years ago—increasing risk and outside counsel spending

6. Clients are cutting internal budgets to fund increasing use of outside counsel for the 3rd straight year

7. Top legal decision makers are hiring more new law firms than ever to find the firms who can meet their needs

8. High tech clients plan to increase spending in 9 major areas

9. Health care clients plan to increase spending in 7 major practice areas

10. Pharma plans the 3rd largest outside counsel spending increases of all industries

11. Clients now look for law firms who can scale into teams quickly to manage cases, which could become large or attract other matters—these teams can come from small, medium, and large firms

12. Clients are most impressed by law firms using technology to provide core information (i.e., updates, budgets, access to current and historical documents)

Match these trends up against your business plans. These opportunities are here now and finally big enough to drive strategic growth in law firms. We have all been waiting for the market to return to the good old days—this is the closest we have seen in a long time.

Please join us for our annual webinar BTI Market Outlook and Client Service Review 2019 on January 17, 2019 at 12:00 pm ET to discuss these trends and much more. You can also learn about these and more detailed trends and opportunities in BTI’s report BTI Practice Outlook 2019, available immediately.

Best in the market ahead and a happy, healthy new year!

MBR

The post 12 Top Trends Defining the 2019 Legal Market appeared first on The BTI Consulting Group.

The legal market finally is getting exciting again with new and complex work flowing into the market. The hunt for the new opportunities is on. You can find opportunities in practices, industries, and changes in outside counsel management strategies—firms who learn how to find the new work will outperform all others. BTI’s Market Outlook and Client Service Review will help you find—and grab—them before anyone else.

We’ll delve into powerful findings from more than 320 brand new, in-depth interviews with General Counsel—and 16 years of research and experience—to offer a new perspective on what’s in store for 2017. You’ll learn: 

• The legal spending outlook for 16 industries and 17 practice areas
• BTI’s exclusive analysis of law firms’ market share gains and losses—expanded for 2017
• With over 50% turnover this year see who makes the brand new BTI Client Service 30—and why
• The new business for the taking—even as corporate counsel shift spending in-house
• The law firms reinventing how legal services are delivered—by name
• What it will take to gain new clients and grow the major clients you have
• And much more… 

View the webinar here: https://youtu.be/GLFliIZhGtk

The post BTI’s Market Outlook and Client Service Review 2017 appeared first on The BTI Consulting Group.

8 trends stand out among the firms making dramatic jumps or keeping themselves at the top:

1.  Planning to Stay Ahead of Client Expectations as a Way of Life

Clients always expect more. Always.

The better your performance the more clients expect from you. You wouldn’t want it any other way. Clients won’t have it any other way. The law firms climbing the client service ranks are both managing client expectations (using strategically designed client feedback to learn client expectations) and delivering more. This is an ongoing effort, not a one-time event.

2.  Measuring Themselves 6 Ways to Sunday

Metrics can move mountains and propel law firms to move up the client service rankings. These law firms set goals for the number of key actions and behaviors in which a partner will engage. And track partner activity to make sure it happens on a timely basis.

3.  Training and Tools

A cousin to measuring—the top performers provide tools and training to help their partners meet their goals. The training focuses on client service skills and the tools include templates, checklists, and questions to use to ensure each partner knows what superior client service looks like. The very best training programs run mock client discussions and sessions to help prepare for real-life conditions.

4.  Always Moving Ahead

Top client service performers don’t rest or stop to admire their shots. While they may relish their top-tier ranking, the immediate question becomes: “What do we do to get better?” The top performers find answers to this question and adopt the answers throughout the firm.

5.  Accountability Rules

Partners are accountable for client service actions. As discussed above, partners are fully expected to meet their client service objectives throughout the year. Leadership partners are swift and precise in letting partners know they may have missed a planned commitment and offer help in delivering on this commitment—quickly. Partners are reminded of the importance their commitment has to the firm.

6.  Client Feedback Tells Them How They Are Doing so They Can Be the Best

Few tools are more powerful than client feedback. Asked properly, clients will tell you exactly what they want and expect from you. Clients will also tell you about your weaknesses and points of frustration. This feedback is your road map to superior client service. Without feedback you are guessing. The top performers boast some of the most well designed and robust client feedback programs. These firms know the way you ask the question is just as important as asking itself—because it is so easy to get irrelevant answers which don’t help client service and leave attorneys skeptical of client feedback.

7.  It’s a Priority

The BTI Client Service 30 give client service top billing. Client service is a discussion point in almost every part of the firm: at partner meetings, at practice meetings, and partners discuss their client service objectives in their annual goals.

8.  It Starts with the Partners

The top performers start with the partners. Everyone in a law firm knows the partners influence the rest of the firm in their behaviors—and are on the front line of client service. These firms only introduce client service training and activities to staff and associates after the partners are fully trained and metrics developed. This partner-first system is designed to support partner behavior instead of operating independent of their behavior.

You can view our annual BTI Market Outlook and Client Service Review Webinar, which covered this topic and much more here. 

MBR

The post 8 Factors Driving Superior Client Service: How Law Firms Climb the BTI Client Service A-Team appeared first on The BTI Consulting Group.

Look hard and you will see a faint light at the end of the tunnel. We don’t think it’s a freight train.

Clients are making big time shifts to their spending. Large pockets of dollars are moving to areas where spending increases haven’t been seen in years. And these moves are creating new—and lucrative—opportunities for the law firms able to spot these shifts.

The typical large company was spending $19.6 million on outside counsel in 2015. While the total 2016 outside counsel spending will not change—how it is spent will—creating more opportunity than the market has offered in the last 5 years. Large companies are facing more high-risk work and exposure since the great recession. Somewhere between 18% and 30% of the total budget is moving to this new work. The larger the company, the larger the shift. This translates into between $3 million and $6 million in new business up for grabs—per client.

Many of these new dollars are in highly profitable work: complex and bet-the-company litigation, global M&A, middle market M&A, class actions, and mass torts to name a few. The best targets for law firms are companies in the highest-spending industry segments: Financial Services, Big Pharma, Telecom, and Healthcare. The biggest legal spenders are spending bigger in 2016.

The good news: these dollars aren’t earmarked for specific firms—yet. Clients are shaking up their roster of primary firms, especially as they experience law firm client service dropping like a rock.

Corporate counsel report client service from their law firms is down substantially. There is a 2/3 chance the law firms currently performing the work do not have a lock on the new business. This is your chance to move in.

You can view our annual BTI Market Outlook and Client Service Review Webinar, which covered this topic and much more here. 

MBR

The post High-Margin, Complex Work Returns in 2016: How to Get Your Share appeared first on The BTI Consulting Group.

Most law firms want to know the trends, few want to face them head on. We can pinpoint 6 reasons:

• Trends require explanation and proof to convince partners, and often leadership, of their impact
• Leveraging anything but a growth trend is a relatively new phenomena which may demand new and untested tactics
• There are so many trends it is difficult to separate the driving trends from the inconsequential ones
• Trends connected with low growth or flat markets push law firms out of their comfort zone—and into dealing with the unknown
• The metrics used to drive success will be new and different and need to be developed
• We often don’t like the trends—slow growth, less work, rate pressure or increasing client expectations 

Trends are agnostic and have no feelings. Virtually every trend has an upside. Unless the practice of law disappears from society entirely you can find an approach to take advantage of any trend. Your approach will be viewed by other law firms as bold, wrong, counterintuitive and with puzzlement. But, meeting trends head on means you will be positioning yourself for leadership.

In 1994, the Defense industry was facing budget cuts and program cutbacks. Defense contractors Lockheed and Martin Marietta agreed to merge to create scale and efficiency in the coming down market. Lockheed Martin is now the largest US Government contractor and is almost twice the size of the number 2 firm—in a growing and redefined market. Law firms would not be confused with government contractors but Lockheed’s counterintuitive move redefined the company and the industry.

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People think they pay attention to market trends. But, the reality is—they almost totally ignore them.

Knowing the trends means next to nothing. Even understanding the trends means little. Taking specific action based on the trends means everything. Take action: craft strategies and tactics specifically to take advantage of the current trends or use the trends to guide your plans.

What’s your next move?

** 

We discussed market trends and more in our annual BTI Market Outlook and Client Service Review. You can view the full webinar here: http://youtu.be/wRPnpEUi65s.

MBR

The post Ignore Market Trends: Strategic Planning’s Third Deadly Sin appeared first on The BTI Consulting Group.