For over 10 years here I’ve been pleading with firms to talk with their clients about how they’re doing. Whether the process was seeking realistic client feedback, or simply conducting a general client survey, the important thing is whether firms were doing it at all. Most were not. It is critical in this day and age that they be doing so.
Most will not. So, why don’t I give up beating that drum.
Well, I have to thank Patrick Lamb for his post of Monday. In it he posed the rhetorical question whether “law firms need to have their institutional hearing checked.” He drew his question from the “2016 Report On The State All of The Legal Market” by Georgetown Law Center and Peer Monitor. And from it he drew to strong messages:
“1. More work is going places other than law firms.
“2. Law Firms keep raising rates. Clients refuse to keep paying.”
He also pointed out using graphs that while legal services are increasing – and oh, so are billing rates – realization rates (the amount of billings collected) is falling “precipitously.”
He then asks the hard question: “what does it all mean?” Many clients are not satisfied! Law firms will make more money by improving client service than by raising rates. Lamb’s wonder about institutional deafness should resonant with more firms.
Does your firm need hearing aids?
P.S. There’s more worth reading in the Georgetown/Peer Monitor report.