Verbatim: What Clients Say
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Blunt The Pin That Could Burst Your Firm's Bubble
"The big-firm bubble is about to burst," says Anthony Kearns, the lead risk manager for the Legal Practitioners Liability Committee, in the April 20 issue of the online Am Law Daily. In "The Future Comes to Bloomington" Kearns cited "angry clients" and "the increased competition for business between and among law firms" as two of several "pins."
"The Future Comes to Bloomington" is Aric Press' story about FutureFirm, a case study of a hypothetical Am Law 200 firm in trouble, created by Indiana University law professor Bill Henderson and Kearns. Together they organized "a clever role-playing game."
Teams of law firm partners, clients, law students and consultants tried to devise a strategy that would allow the tottering Marbury & Madison LLP to survive for another decade." Press wrote a brief report about FutureFirm; Henderson will publish a complete discussion and analysis.
Economic crisis threatens client relationships
Listening to clients was the thrust of many of the various strategies the FutureFirm team came up with.
According to Press, what seems to be different now is that complaints are being voiced amid an economic calamity that has been called into question whether clients will continue to operate on a business- as-usual basis.
"To add urgency to this climate," Press says, Kearns offered "a sharply focused description of the American big-firm landscape." Along with the big-firm bubble about to burst, bigger and stronger in-house departments, the global financial crisis that has broken old relationships, is the "utter failure of firms to differentiate themselves to clients."
Firms that listen differentiate themselves
It's a classic line in a Strategic Client Interview. Just as an example, listen to what the president of a state division of a worldwide communications corporation said in a Strategic Client Interview: "I've never had another firm we work with do this. We do this all the time ourselves internally. I'm greatly pleased that the firm is taking on this initiative. It shows a lot of self awareness."
Verbatim is published electronically by JKS & Company LLC/Strategic Client Interviews. For more information on Strategic Client Interviews, contact Joyce K. Smiley at 561-775-9755, or jsmiley@jkscompany.com. On the web at jkscompany.com.
Copyright 2009 JKS & Company LLC. All rights reserved.
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email: jsmiley@jkscompany.com
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