Highly Successful Law Firms Have Greater Business Development, Marketing and Technology Focus
Some law firms have been able to notably outperform their peers even though the overall large law firm market is experiencing flat to little growth. A new report from the Thomson Reuters Legal Executive Institute suggests that investments in areas such as business development, marketing and technology may be a key factor defining the higher-performing firms.
The 2017 State of the Legal Market Mid-Year Report identified a population of firms with market-leading growth in overall profits, revenue per lawyer and profit margin, using Peer Monitor data from 165 U.S.-based large law firms. The population of higher-performing firms also had above-average growth in demand and fees worked.
The highest-performing quartile of firms increased their marketing and business development expenses by an average of 4.6 percent last year, compared with only 1.8 percent for the lowest-performing quartile. Similarly, higher-performing firms grew their per-lawyer investment in technology by 3.2 percent, while the lowest-performing firms grew technology spending by only 1.2 percent.
