Digital White Papers

13 WWW.ILTANET.ORG | ILTA WHITE PAPER MARKETING AND BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT Data-Driven Business Development Initiatives: Is Your Firm Utilizing the Complete Value of Existing Assets? Collaboration: In addressing collaboration, cultural mores within a law firm cannot be ignored. These include compensation structures, messaging from the top and historic silos. However, data can be a strong tool to break down barriers to collaboration and encourage lawyers to team up beyond cross-selling. Understanding the needs of two practices or lawyers working together and considering various aributes such as location, type of work and client size can inform discussions and help drive positive changes in behavior. Revenue is a strong incentive. Trends can be identified in the way certain lawyers work together with varying degrees of productivity and success. There is even an opportunity based on machine learning to provide recommendations to those struggling to team up and collaborate on clients. These recommendations can encourage teamwork modeling aer those practices and lawyers doing it most effectively. One can make a powerful case for business development's involvement by recording win/loss and return on investment (ROI), encouraging collaboration between business development and lawyers. These insights can help propel strategic initiatives for increased collaboration. Data-Driven These ideas are just the beginning of changes in data-driven marketing and business development strategies for modern law firms. Drawing ideas from outside of the legal profession provides a starting point; however, the culture of law firms and psychology of lawyers add caveats and twists that cannot be ignored. These nuances must be considered but should not hinder the progression of a successful data-driven approach. Rather the process becomes a means for working within the parameters of the law practice to increase the prospect of success. As seen in other industries, the movement will gain momentum as lawyers see the power data provide in driving business. The key is to start small and gather the right data using technology to facilitate the process. Also important is having the appropriate people in the right places and involving stakeholders at all levels to buy into the initiative. Once the foundational elements are in place, the doors will open for data-driven approaches, making a firm's data work for the firm rather than having the firm work for the data. The firm's ability to use their data as a strategic differentiator will enable them to capture a greater share of the market. ILTA JENNIFER ROBERTS Jennifer Roberts, Data Scientist, is responsible for the analytics and research component that supports new initiatives and thought leadership at Intapp. She focuses on law firm client development. Prior to joining Intapp, Jennifer was responsible for innovation and development of thought leadership content at Thomson Reuters. Jennifer received her Master's degree from Humphrey School of Public Policy, with an emphasis on statistical methodology and performance measures within various industries. Contact her at jennifer.roberts@intapp.com.

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