Communications breakdown

The question of what clients want from their external legal advisers and how law firms meet this demand may well be nothing new, but two recent examples suggest that this is an area where there is still a significant lack of communication.

It's an issue that has prompted heated debate on Legal Week's LinkedIn group for in-house lawyers, while also dividing opinion among private practice lawyers in the latest Big Question survey.

While in-house lawyers are split over whether they would rather have value-added 'extras' or simply a more basic service at a reduced price, most partners are convinced that clients do not have a realistic idea about the time and cost of providing such services.

Top of the list of complaints from in-housers is that law firms are not properly analysing whether these extras they are providing are either delivering value to the client or providing return on investment for the law firm.

That clients will always want better, more tailored services and preferably at a cheaper price is, of course, a given. But that many still feel they are not receiving the service they want - even despite the additional man-hours firms have thrown at value-added services during the recession in a bid to win more work - shows the extent of this disconnect.

And despite the efforts of law firms, the gap between both parties seems to be widening. More than 90% of partners responding to the Big Question survey said they believe their clients hold value-added services in a high regard. Yet conversely in-house lawyers argue that a) the offerings are frequently not tailored enough to be useful and b) good commercial legal advice will always be far more important than either price or value-adds.

So while law firms are busy devoting extra resource to client relationships in the form of secondments, training and corporate hospitality, and clients are, on the face of it, lapping up the offers without complaint, firms may be seeing little benefit in return for their efforts.

Even if clients do have an unrealistic view of the demands of providing these extras, ultimately all they really care about is getting good advice for a reasonable price - any expense to the adviser is not even a consideration.

Of course, in some instances firms will not have a choice. Growing numbers of large corporates and financial institutions are insisting on value-added services as part of the panel tendering process, so, like it or not, firms have no option but to comply to be in with even a shot at winning work.

But where this is not the case, law firms may be better off spending a bit more time asking their clients what they actually want, rather than falling over themselves to offer these extras and then feeling bitter at the lack of love they get in return.

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