Digital White Papers

I L T A W H I T E P A P E R | K N O W L E D G E M A N A G E M E N T & M A R K E T I N G T E C H N O L O G Y 30 Even when business development teams have direct access to litigation data and analytics, the second issue they commonly run into is inefficient, manual processes. The majority of firms I have worked with use multiple application based solutions to pull litigation data and attorney experience data for RFPs and pitches. Having to go to different platforms, manually run searches, pull the data, and aggregate it with other data sources is incredibly inefficient. Technology that automates processes, such as legal data APIs, saves time and reduces human error. Another benefit of APIs is that they connect internal applications with external data to get a more holistic view of clients, attorneys, and competitors to uncover business opportunities. Stand Out From the Crowd We are way past the early adoption phase with legal analytics. The majority of firms use litigation data, albeit to differing degrees. Now, the challenge is how to differentiate yourself from other firms that are also using data and analytics. Some firms use litigation data creatively to uncover insights and demonstrate thought leadership and expertise to their clients and prospective clients. They do this by analyzing trends and patterns over time by jurisdiction, case type, or industry to find novel insights. For example, a number of firms have created trackers to better position themselves as trusted advisors, who are proactively able to help their clients mitigate risk. Savvy attorneys create web content using insights derived from data to demonstrate their expertise and provide thought leadership. The attorneys and staff who know their clients and focus on providing content that speaks to their needs and challenges are most successful at creating compelling content. They are able to challenge their clients assumptions using data and facts. They show their clients helpful, actionable information that helps them and is relevant to their business. Measure What Works and Pivot From What Does Not Salespeople have quotas to meet. We generally work backward to figure out how many deals we need to have in our pipeline at each stage in the sales cycle in order to close enough deals to meet our targets. Because all of our leads, customer interactions, activities, and deals are recorded in a CRM and tracked, we can pull various reports to see which business development strategies and activities are bringing in business, spot weaknesses in our pipeline, and make adjustments as needed. Law firms operate in a different environment. However, pipeline management is still relevant to firms. Once an annual revenue goal is in place, setting targets and developing a strategy to achieve those goals is helpful. For example, what percent of growth is expected to come from existing clients versus new business? What is the expected growth trajectory in each practice group? "The attorneys and staff who know their clients and focus on providing content that speaks to their needs and challenges are most successful at creating compelling content."

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