Relationship Building
Law firms providing managed services are given a unique opportunity to be part of a client's “business as usual” in addition to their big-ticket deals. This day-to-day contact (otherwise achieved only through often costly and precious secondments) leads to much tighter, more focused client relationships (and with it, to a competitive advantage of winning big-ticket deals).
Such relationships are also formed through multiple touchpoints between a law firm and its client (at all levels: senior and junior, business and legal) which affords much more stability than the traditional over-reliance on a single point of contact. Clients also appear to welcome a team-based offering. The Legal Week Intelligence survey (above) also revealed that partner-level contact is a decreasing priority for many clients, with only 63 % of survey respondents selecting it as important.Law firms learn a great deal from these sorts of managed services arrangements. That learning might concern the client's policies and positions, or something more specific about how individual in-house attorneys like to work, and their views on particular issues. As an added benefit, the law firms also learn something about their own processes and how to cut waste and increase value as perceived by the client. Developing greater skill in listening to the voice of the client and designing solutions in close collaboration with clients to deliver greater value helps law firm lawyers become better lawyers. Naturally, there is a presumption that the client in-house teams are interested in these new arrangements.
4.3