Traditionally, the biggest companies and corporations have looked for the largest law firms, accounting firms and consulting firms to represent their interests.
It’s been a safe choice, like looking in the mirror and seeing a comfortable reflection.
This mindset has been sustained by a calming notion: “Only someone whose size and status in its given field could possibly have the personnel, resources and experience to truly understand us.”
For mid-size and even fairly large professional service organizations (think firms with 100, 200 or even 300 accountants, lawyers, etc.), it’s almost like the game has been rigged when it comes to earning business from America’s most prominent companies.
For one line of professional service organizations – legal practices – the odds appear poised to even out.
The opportunity for mid-sized national and regional law firms to land much larger clients might be at hand. If these organizations are smart, it’s time to get their story straight as to why they’re a better bargain than the giants, because Paul M. Barrett’s recent article in Bloomberg Businessweek indicates Fortune 500 companies are ready to listen.
Firms with more than 500 lawyers saw their billable hours decline by more than 5 percent from 2007-09. Companies increasingly are demanding better deals on rates, says Adam Epstein, a San Francisco-based consultant who advises companies to be cautious of firms charging $1,000 for routine transactions.
“The law firm brands don’t matter as much anymore,” Epstein points out to Barrett in the article. “I tell clients that they need to go out and find the attorney who knows how to do their kind of financing, regardless of where that attorney practices.”
Attorney Patrick Lamb specifies additional benefits of not choosing the largest firms in a cover story for the American Bar Association’s Law Practice Magazine titled “Is small the new big?” 
Among the benefits:
- Fewer client conflicts and less time to clear those conflicts
- Superior flexibility on fee structures
- Higher overhead often provides value only for the large law firm, not for its clients
- Clients often pay the difference to keep offices afloat in dozens of cities across the country and world that aren’t profitable
- Smaller firm lawyers are more business savvy, whereas few large law firm lawyers ever get near an income statement, let alone have profit and loss responsibility
Lamb acknowledges that bigger law firms used to be critical to clients all the way through the 1980s.
“They had libraries and body count, both of which were critical to handling large cases,” he writes. “Today, technology ensures that every firm has access to the same information, and lean, focused teams provide a more efficient and generally more effective approach to most day-to-day legal work—and at a much lower price.”
The field, therefore, has never been more level for a firm that wants to play in the big leagues. But more opportunity means more competition from a multitude of other competitors.
Therefore, how can a legal practice set itself apart?
Our experience working with professional services organizations tells us that the goal of any comprehensive, multifaceted business development plan should be to bring in new clients by increasing awareness and then enhancing the reputation of the firm as a legal resource with a significant amount of “thought leadership” across its multiple practice areas.
Marketing and advertising certainly increase awareness, but only targeted, strategic media relations efforts enhance a firm’s reputation through third-party validation.
Thought leadership results from positioning your attorneys in newspapers, magazines, trade publications and on television as contributors, authors, expert sources and speakers. The size of the practice matters far less than the expertise of those working within it.
If our analysis of the marketplace for professional services organizations is accurate, then clients, more than ever, want to know the “who” and not just the “what” behind legal services.
That’s where WordWrite and its relationships with the media are best positioned to help a professional service organization grow its business.
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Jeremy Church is an account supervisor for WordWrite Communications. He can be reached at jeremy.church@wordwritepr.com and on Twitter @churchjeremy.
