Reporter’s Notebook: Growing Revenue in a No-Growth Market

By Gina Passarella
Of the Legal Staff

In today’s second installment of a series looking at revenue trends and how to grow revenue in a stagnant market, we looked at what firms could do to increase revenue and even found that maybe firms have to forget about the idea altogether.

Below are a few more tactics for increasing revenue if you are one of those firms that is aiming to do just that.

Aside from getting client feedback and cross-selling, Ward Bower of Altman Weil had a number of other tips on how firms could connect with their clients – new or prospective.

• Actively involve clients in in-house CLE programs or offer clients the opportunity for reverse seminars for lawyers in the firm in an effort to educate the outside counsel on the client’s business and legal objectives.
• Offer the client the chance to help staff a major matter with one of its own in-house attorneys. While the client may be too short-staffed to take you up on it, making the effort will pay off.
• Secondments. Send a firm lawyer to a client working on a big compliance issue, for example. Bower said to charge on a cost-plus basis rather than by the hour. The attorney could stay with the client for a year or just through a specific matter. While it might reduce the profit margin, it will seal the relationship, he said.
• If an existing client is growing, be sure to grow with it. “Longstanding relationships can erode” if a firm doesn’t grow to keep up with clients’ needs in terms of depth, breadth and geographic scope, Bower said.
• To get new clients, focus within industry and practice groups and identify companies that are reviewing their law-firm panels with the eye toward reconsolidation. Look to position yourself to get considered. You should look to have relationships with businesses that are not your clients so that if the primary law firm does screw up, you have an opportunity to get the work.
• Structure your firm so that it can replace multiple firms when clients consolidate outside counsel. Bower said that almost always involves having multiple geographic locations.

Gina Passarella is the senior reporter for The Legal. She can be contacted by e-mail at gpassarella@alm.com or phone at 215-557-2494. Follow her on Twitter at @GPassarellaTLI.