If you are a lawyer, how many times have you been surprised by the loss of a client that you thought was happy with what you delivered? When this happened, did you challenge the assumptions you had about how great you thought your services were?

Given the fact that you want to have high quality clients that stay with you for a very long time, you need to avoid many of the small mistakes that tend to lead to the loss of clients in the first place.

This may sound obvious, but the best way to avoid such mistakes is to make sure you fully understand what your clients’ key pain points AND aspirations are.

If you don’t know these, then how will you know whether they are happy with what you provide?

 The level of trust you develop with prospects before they sign up to your legal services, and the actions you take to maintain that trust once they become clients, will have a huge impact on how long they stay with you. Guaranteed!

So, if all you have done is win clients based on price, and not value, then you stand to lose more clients once a competitor focuses on the results of what they provide and the value to your clients.

You may have a huge list of clients already, and think that is where the money is. It is not. Your money is in the perceived value you provide that list. That perceived value can also easily disappear if you don’t have effective feedback mechanisms in place to know whether you are helping clients achieve their desired outcomes.

If you have read previous posts in his blog, you will know that I have covered the need to make sure you know the conversation going on in your prospects’ heads to start off with, and provide information that shows them how to get to where they want to be. This process does not stop when you sign them up as clients. It is continuous – you have to provide opportunities for feedback and two-way conversations before and after you get prospects to buy your services.

If you provide a great service to clients, then you should not be scared to ask for feedback. Don’t make assumptions as to why clients buy from you. Remember, there is always something you have not thought of that can be addressed. And if your clients’ needs change, you need to monitor that and make sure you match their expectations with your delivery.

How you get feedback, and what you do with it, is important too. Here are a few things to think about:

• Avoid extremely long and detailed questionnaires. You are not interrogating your clients.
• When providing free information to prospects as you move them through your sales funnel, allow them to comment on what you have provided and ask questions on how this would match their aspirations.
• Make sure the feedback gets translated into positive action. More importantly, the value of the results of any action taken because of the feedback needs to be made clear to prospects and clients.
• Use direct response marketing techniques to encourage feedback – e.g. provide a compelling offer for any feedback given.
• Think about blogs or forums that enable open discussions to take place between customers, and with you. This shows you are open and will help you gain the trust you need to win and retain clients.
• Let your employees (yes, the people in your business) provide feedback as well on the engagements they have with clients and their thoughts on what needs to be changed. A lot of professional services business owners and managers forget the value of internal feedback, yet this is a huge opportunity to make crucial changes to the way services are delivered.

There is a lot more I could write about feedback. Basically, if you are a lawyer with NO feedback mechanism whatsoever, then your ability to craft a message that communicates the value of what you provide will be hard. And this will always open the door for competitors to get in and steal your clients from you.

(Disclaimer: Original article appeared on eriaodhuba,com in April 2010)

If you follow some of the law firm-focused discussion groups on LinkedIn, you’ll inevitably read some that moan about the low priority given to marketing and business development in many law firms.

I have mentioned before that one of the reasons why marketing is poorly planned and executed in law firms is because not enough time is set aside to do it properly. This is the case in many firms that could afford to commit resources to marketing, but don’t.

There are many reasons put forward to explain this. The most common ones are:

1. The typical law firm partnership structure means too much tension is created between partners who want to drive new busines development and take the glory for winning new clients, and marketing / business development guys who want to streamline firm-wide processes, systemise communications and be more consistent for the benefit of the WHOLE firm;
2. Many law firms have to bring in outside people to fill in this function, but they then can’t fit into the culture that exists;
3. Marketing and business development is not seen as a leadership role within law firms. Partners are kings, and such roles are seen simply as ‘sales’ functions which many lawyers detest.

Whatever the reasons, marketing and business development suffers, and the reliance on networking, getting referrals from clients and joining a series of pitch contests (the equivalent of a beauty parade) means no effort is made to change things.

With the rapid regulatory changes taking place and competition for clients increasing, many law firms simply have to re-think their marketing and business development/sales strategies.

Marketing serves one key function – it draws out hot prospects that, crucially, have money to spend on legal services and are actively looking for (or very interested in finding) lawyers to help deal with a specific problem.

Business development / sales builds on marketing. This is all about relationship management with one clear goal – to move prospects identified by a law firm’s marketing efforts from simply being interested to signing on the dotted line as a client.

Each of the these requires more than planning a networking event and hoping you can sell your services to potential clients. If you are a law firm partner, can you count the number of times you have tried to close down what you thought was a good opportunity and then found out you really wasted your time? Your prospects were not ready for you or could not afford your services.

Think of the proposals you have got yourself involved in which took you away from speaking to better prospects or actually delivering great client work?

A lot of this is because there is no systemised marketing system in place to identify the best prospects in the first place, and no-one (internally or externally) with a marketing hat on at a leadership/partner level to make sure that marketing is a priority across the whole firm, is consistent, measurable and helps the whole law firm (not just specific partners).

With no effective marketing taking place in the first place, follow up business development or sales activity can seem like a tyre kicking exercise – loads of conversations, meetings, or proposals that don’t result in the desired growth managing partners desire.

The solution to this is to give marketing a higher priority in law firms. This, however, does not mean simply churning out more brochures or arranging / sponsoring more networking events which is what quite a few law firms do.

It means creating a systematic process to consitently communicate to a target niche and, more importantly, get the hot prospects you are looking for to self-select themselves and make an informed decision to contact you.

How you communicate depends on how your prospects search for information or law firms and how they use technology to help them. A combination of offline and online / social media communication strategies is needed.

One fact will stand out for successful law firms in 2013: social media marketing will stop being a totally different activity to everything else that happens in terms of attracting great clients.  When done properly, it will seamlessly fit into the normal operations of a law firm and stop being seen as a burden.

The way things are going – pushing marketing down the list of activities to do and not giving it the resources it needs to be effective will mean many law firms will struggle to attract great leads and potentially lose some fantastic clients.

One of the problems you may face as a lawyer is getting prospects to eliminate all other options available and select you to provide the legal services they are looking for.

Given this pressure, you may be tempted to try and get an immediate sale so that you then have the chance to ‘WOW’ them with your legal expertise and results that you can deliver.

The problem with this approach is that it tends to ignore buying cycles and means you are always in a ‘pitch and proposal’ mode, instead of being in the position where prospects have made their minds up already that they want you to be their lawyer.

There are 3 key factors that lawyers should be aware of when trying to get into a buyer’s mind?

1. On average, it takes 7 touch points with a prospect before a sale is made;
2. When prospects are looking for legal services, there are typical phases they go through before they make a purchase decision;
3. Prospects need different content depending on the stage of the buying cycle they are in.

What does this mean for you as you look to get more clients to your legal firm?

First of all, it means you have to consider designing different engagement models and interactions with prospects to match whatever stage they are in within the buying cycle. A simple ‘contact us’ where you immediately list off what legal services you have or try and get a proposal out means you risk losing a prospect that simply needs to be directed to useful content that educates them on how they can solve their problems. I would argue that if you are sending proposals out to prospects after meeting them the very first time, then you have placed yourself in the unfortunate position of simply being just another provider of legal services.

This is where the design of a good sales funnel comes into play. If you can map out the various interactions you will have with prospects and, more importantly, the steps you want them to make at each interaction, then you can guide prospects to the ideal position where they have been informed enough to want to select you as their lawyer.

This does not mean you don’t respond to specific requests that don’t sit nicely in your interaction map, but id does mean you start to have a measurable and manageabe process to give prospects what they want, allow them to respond, and not try and sell services before you have gained their trust.

Secondly, matching content to the different stages of the buying cycle is something many lawyers don’t do, either because of a lack of time or expertise. A very simple way of doing this is as follows:

1. Inventor looking to protect his IP but doesn’t know where to start: The first step might be to provide a free report entitled ‘The 5 Major IP Mistakes Inventors Make That Make Them Lose What They Have Developed’;
2. Inventor who now needs more information on how to solve IP protection problems: The report (and follow up communications) will have a call to action directing readers to a seminar or webinar entitled ‘The Specific Steps Inventors Should Take To Protect Their IP And Make Money’ and to further content on a blog or forum;
3. Inventor who now needs to find out how their specific IP problems can be solved: The webinar (and follow up communications) will now invite prospects to self-select themselves to a free consulation in which you can find out more about their specific IP issues and give guidance on what they can do to get the specific end result they are looking for (without breaking any regulatory laws that govern the advice you can give non-clients);
4. Inventor who now needs to make a final decision: Follow up communications directing the prospect to a further reports, videos, blog posts etc to support any specific proposals you have been asked to provide (which is much better at this stage of the relationship). If prospects follow you via any social media channels, these should be used to direct the prospects appropriately.

This, albeit simple, example is a much more powerful engagement model than simply trying to provide a proposal right at the start of a relationship with a prospect. Though it takes more time, and perhaps more effort, you need to think about the amount of time you have spent on proposals that led to nothing, simply because you did not differentiate yourself and often lost due to price.

The latter point is crucial – when prospects have nothing else to help them compare lawyers, their decision will be influenced by price. If they see what value you provide and what you have invested to gain their trust, then you will not have to keep dropping prices in order to compete.

The information that someone needs at the start of the buying cycle should not be the same they get when they are trying to make a final decision. Lawyers need to manage interactions with prospects so that latter’s experience as they get to a position when they can make informed choices is totally different and better than they would get from another lawyer.

Given the lack of trust people have of lawyers, this management of information provided to match decision-making and purchase cycles will be another driver that seperates out thoose lawyers that succeed and grow from those that stagnate or die.

Law firms that want to differentiate themselves in the minds of prospects and be seen as leaders realise the need to have a steady stream of good quality content that people are actively looking for.

Content marketing, when done right, is a powerful lead generation tool that law firms should not ignore.

However, have you ever wondered why your content marketing is not getting you in front of prospects and making a positive impact on you law firm revenues?

Many lawyers feel that any time taken to produce content stops them focusing on core legal work which, if done brilliantly, will result in instant recognition and more business.

This only works for a few lawyers or law firms. Otherwise, competition for prospects means you simply need information that gets people hooked on to you. This is really important given the way information searches had evolved and how third party recommendations via social media influences decision-making processes.

Many lawyers have simply said “let us produce content” which, though better than doing nothing, has has been more of a ‘blast it out and let us see’ approach. Even though this content has been produced with a knowledge of what people are looking for, it has been driven more by a need to have specific content plan so that lawyers know what they need to do over a given period of time.

Don’t get me wrong, this is not wrong. But in 2013, this approach will be tough to sustain if you want a measurable and positive ROI on your content marketing.

If lawyers want to build trust with prospects and stop them looking at other lawyers as leaders to follow, then they need to make sure their content marketing in 2013 starts to become personalised. All the information gathered from conversations, feedback surveys, recommendations made on forums or social media sites, and legal services purchased gives lawyers the platform from which they can identify what content or experiences they design for individual targets.

The technology to personalise marketing communications exists. Opt-in marketing, which essentially gives lawyers permission to communicate with prospects and clients, is a great opportunity to establish deeper relationships with people and move away from the one size fits all marketing that many people associate with lawyers.

For those that are really forward thinking, then real-time marketing (which requires integration of CRM, email, social and offline systems) can help lawyers use hot news items to communicate with people based on their preferences, interests and specific needs.

All this means law firm partners will need to invest time and resources to get persoanlised and contextual marketing working. It does not mean it is cripplingly expensive, but does need everyone in the practice to realise what contribution they can make to lead generation activity, and how they can collectively steer prospects through the firm’s sale funnel.

2013 has to be the year when law firms personalise their marketing BASED ON a thorough understanding of what prospects and clients are specifically looking for and their desired goals.

Many law firms have confused lead generation with increasing awareness. The second is easy to do, hence more lawyers have gone down this route.

The problem is that it does not necessarily mean you actually get more leads, increase your law firm client base or get more money. It often also takes place without any measurement whatsover regarding the likelihood of targts actually selecting law firms for specific services.

Most marketing that takes place to simply increase awareness in the hope that people will suddenly walk through the door asking for help fails. And when it fails, lawyers then take marketing less seriously because they don’t think it works for them.

This should not have to happen. Marketing that focuses on lead generation, which does involve activities to increase awareness, and which helps move prospects through a well-designed sales funnel, is what lawyers should be thinking of.

Here, every marketing activity is measurable, flexible enough to adapt to success or failure via various channels or strategies, and should help prospects self-select themselves as potential clients based on gaining their trust.

In a nut-shell, law firm marketing should drive demand and revenue!

Now, how many partners believes this happens in their law firms? Not many would say “yes”.

If you happen to be one of the many that says “no”, then two of the things that you simply have to think about are metrics and in-bound marketing activities.

Getting marketing metrics embedded in law firms is difficult. If lawyers appear to be busy all the time, then there is a reluctance to change what they might be doing even if they don’t exactly know what activity made a prospect become a client.

If lawyers aren’t doing well, then inertia sets in regarding marketing. Cycnicsm stops many from thinking about defining what their sales funnels are and what specific steps they want their prospects to take as they go through each step of the funnel. The lack of confidence in marketing means testing various options is a no-go, and any talk about metrics gets lost as lawyers feel that networking, referrals and success in court are all that is needed to get more clients.

However, marketing technology and systems, and social media platforms, can and should be used by lawyers to generate leads and drive revenue. Marketing should not be an afterthought, but it should be the platform from which lawyers and their support teams build trust and positive experiences so that they stand out as leaders.

Leaders who build trust with prospects and gain followers using carefully thought out engagements are more likely to retain those prospects as clients.

2013, with all the competitive presssure that lawyers will face, is the time that marketing has to become accountable for revenue growth. It is not simply a cost centre!

In previous posts, I have mentioned the need to automate marketing and communications as part of a law firm’s lead generation strategy, primarily because it is a better option than doing nothing or marketing in a very sporadic manner.

For law firms that have done this, it at least provides regular contact with prospects and clients. If integrated into an effective lead generation and client nurturing strategy, with a clear view of what a law firm’s sales funnel is, then it can be a very powerful tool.

However, it can lead to problems.

As a lawyer that has automated communications and marketing tactics in place, have you wondered why you are not really effective in getting people to pick the phone up and call you?

Well, part of the problem could be that many of your targets feel they are getting spammed all the time, and are not really being given content that makes them want to move closer to actually calling you in.

In bound marketing (think of permission-based marketing, where you effectively get granted permission to move prospects through your sales funnel because you have content that addresses all their pain points) has to work hand-in-hand with your automated communications, but the latter is pretty useless if the former is not set up right.

So, simply sending emails, letters, cards etc automatically has to be done with the end result and call-to-action in mind – what specific step do you want your target to do once they interact with you?

This also means that inbound marketing becomes more central to to the roles played by everyone in your law firm. It can’t be left to one partner, marketing executive or sales director. Every one in the firm has to know what the overall growth goals are, how they can contribute to lead generation, sales conversions and cross-service upsells, and how they can work together with others in the firm.

The simple automation of marketing communications does not replace all the above, but should be done to complement it.

Inbound marketing in 2013 will differentiate law firms that grow to those that stagnate or fail.

marketing [mahr-ki-ting]

noun

1. the one thing many lawyers hate doing as they want to focus on delivering legal services.
2. something to be pushed aside, postponed or given to someone else to focus on.
3. a subject not taught at law school…so it can’t be that relevant

Hands up if you are a lawyer who has defined marketing in similar terms to the above.

If you have not, then brilliant…this article will not change anything you do.

If you have looked at marketing like this though, like many other lawyers grappling with a fast-changing legal and competitive landscape, then perhaps you might want take specific action to change things.

Getting noticed is one of the biggest challenges lawyers face, and many of the old strategies used to win new clients are becoming less effective. The way clients make purchase decisions, including expensive legal services, is changing because of the impact technology and social media have in the research and evaluation stages.

A key issue that lawyers then have to resolve is how to transform themselves into effective marketing machines while continuing to deliver great services to clients. If they look at marketing as an additional activity that needs specific resources, it becomes easy to ignore it or is done poorly.

If, however, lawyers think of everything they do as marketing and structure their law firm to support this view, then it becomes easier to simply get on with it and eventually become more effective.

There is, of course, a bad way of doing marketing – and that includes setting up a website that simply lists the services you provide.

If lawyers provide content they know people are looking for (subject to regulatory approval of course), build a sales funnel that aims to build relationships with prospects over time, automate communications and have an effective way of providing opportunities for feedback or two-way conversations, then most of the problems they might have getting noticed will be sorted.

Everyone in the firm has to get on board – from the receptionists who greet visitors or answer phones, to client services managers who nurture relationships, right through to the lawyers who deliver the actual services. A new mindset is needed which appreciates the fact that every single activity has an impact on the experience prospects and clients have which, when done well, is the best marketing that law firms could ever do.

Short post – one key message. You are a marketer – everything you do has an impact on the perceptions people have of you both online and offline!

A recent article in the Law Society Gazette highlights a key problem many lawyers face when trying to market their services and identify hot prospects – how to package their legal services and promises.

I have mentioned the need to package legal services properly amongts other crucial steps, but when this is done poorly, it will not help lawyers positions themselves as leaders within their target niches and have people calling them up for services.

The examples given by the Law Society Gazette article are a good example of service levels that will, without doubt, be expected from all leading lawyers. The fact that some lawyers are only starting to promise them says a lot about the marketing journey many are only just starting on.

When packing legal services or service levels, lawyers need to be aware of the following hurdles that need to be overcome:

1. Legal services are intangible, with benefits realised days or perhaps months after they sekect you to represent them;
2. This intangibility means it is harder to position oneself as the leading authority within a specific niche, and to convince prospects of the value they would get from selecting you. When value can’t be ascertained, choice becomes influenced by price;
3. Once you win business based on low prices, and not value, then you become a commodity player and never rise above this level of influence.

That is the danger many lawyers face when they simply provide a list of service levels for new prospects – you might get one or two good clients, but you will not suddenly get an endless stream of fee-paying clients.

When packaging legal services, lawyers have to think clearly about highlighting what prospects and customers would get from a ‘value’ perspective so that you eliminate any barriers that come up to buying your services. By doing so early on in the relationship with prospects, you will stand out amongst your competitors as very few do it at all (or properly).

The key things to think of before packaging your legal services include the following:

1. What is the Unique Perceived Benefit (UPB) for each service you provide?
2. What services can you build around each UPB?
3. Create a roadmap for the services you provide, which outlines each activity you will do for your customers;
4. Present the services to prospects either as a workflow/process or a list of steps you will take to deliver your legal services.

The last point is crucial. Using diagrams or steps is an excellent way of breaking down your service and highlighting the value prospects get if they work with you. It takes you beyond the ‘how much will it cost’ discussons to more in-depth evaluations of the prospects’ needs and ideal end-result they are looking for.

By having a name for each service, assigning a UPB for each and details of the steps you will go through (or commitments you can reasonably promise), lawyers can package their legal services more effectively and differentiate themselves from the competition.

This, ultimately, means saying more than “caller will receive a response from a trained lawyer within three rings” which, though good, is not a competition killer.

If you are a lawyer who wonders why all the web marketing efforts you have made did not get you the clients you wanted, I want you to think back and reflect on the mistakes you may have made and what you can do to rectify them.

Many lawyers are extremely enthusiastic and passionate about delivering great legal services, but marketing is something else as they do not know how to do it effectively. Part of this problem comes from viewing marketing, and web marketing in particular, as a specific activity that has to be added on to the core legal services work, or squeezed in when time allows. This is far away from the ideal scenario in which lawyers would view themselves as marketers of legal services first, and then as legal specialists who deal with specific  issues for clients.

Given this, there are 7 key mistakes many lawyers make that seriously undermine any web marketing campaigns undertaken. How many of these have you made?

1. No marketing metrics set in place BEFORE doing any marketing campaigns.
   • You can not measure the effectiveness of any marketing you do it you don’t have any marketing key performance indicators or benchmarks in place to start off with. How else can you measure success?
   • Please see previous post here on the need for marketing metrics.
2. Inadequate customer and competitor research
   • Making assumptions about the value you provide customers is a key mistake many lawyers make. You need a proper feedback system in place to continually improve your services and address any niggling issues that may arise.
   • Competitor research is just as important, and not simply to copy what everybody else is doing. Remember, the lawyer that communicates the most value relevant to a target market will attract more prospects. You need a system and templates in place to compare leaders in the field with what you do, and make sure you then deploy marketing assets (please see 6 below) that get your prospects’ attention despite your competition.
   • There are various online tools and strategies available to find out the major search terms legal services prospects and clients are using to get information. Make sure you learn these as there is nothing worse than trying to create a message on a topic that nobody is interested in.
3. Target market/niche not properly defined
   • You need to be realistic about how far your marketing spend will reach. Identify your target market / niche. Make sure it is one that has lots of potential clients that not only have the money to pay for your legal services, but also has people that are actively looking for information and resources to help them solve problems.
4. Legal services not packaged properly
   • Unlike products that people can touch and feel, legal services are intangible. This make them harder to value and means lawyers have to convince prospects about the value they actually provide.
   • Simply saying you provide legal services and naming a price does not work. I suggest packaging your legal services so that clients are clear about what they will get in specific terms, what it will cost, and the benefits they realise. You should think about how you explain the uniqueness of the service you provide (see UPB in 6 below), build your service around the UPB and present that as a step-by-step roadmap that clients can then take with them.
5. Lack of awareness regarding customer lifecycles and how this affects purchasing patterns
   • Customer lifecycle refers to the experience prospects have with you from the time they first found out about you to the purchase of your high-priced legal services over many years (read more here). Within that, there are many steps that customers may take. You need to map these out so that you can proactively manage each step and know how far down the line prospects are in the lifecycle.
   • A very basic map for prospects would be to create a blog to generate interest, have free reports that are valuable which people will want to download, organise a seminar which prospects will pay to attend, and finally provide upsell opportunities to a range of legal services or information products (e.g. reports, books, webinars) which can be purchased repeatedly. It is all about building stronger relationships with prospects before they buy from you.
6. No or poor deployment of marketing assets in media pieces, sales letters, etc.
   • Marketing assets are the various elements that make up the message you send out in all your collateral and advertising. These can only be developed effectively if steps 2 and 3 have been done well. Marketing assets include:
     • Unique Perceived Benefit – this is a statement that differentiates your legal services practice from your competition, and will make a huge difference to your success.
     • Benefits – nobody ever purchased your legal service for what it does, but because of the benefits that result from the service on offer.
     • Irresistable offers – what will prospects get if they respond to your media piece, and what do they have to do to get it. Your prospects and clients are VERY busy, and the irresistable offers you provide should differentiate your media pieces from your competitors, and stop the readers in their tracks so that they can learn more about what you have offered.
     • Headlines – These are vital if you want to seperate your adverts and sales collateral from most of your competitors. Simply listing your (firm) name at the top is not enough – you have to give readers a compelling reason to read what you have sent them, and the headline is key for success.
     • Guarantees/Risk reversal – This lowers the risk that would-be customers have if they buy your services. If you are really good at what you do, you should provide a guarantee for the service on offer and state the penalty YOU are willing to pay if your services do not match up to expectations. If you have educated your clients on the various steps you will take and what their obligations are right at the start, then you will have less to worry about in terms of unnecessary client complaints. You will actually attract more clients because your prospects will value your business a lot more, especially as there are very few IP legal lawyers out there willing to provide service guarantees.
     • Testimonials and case studies – you need these to make it easier for prospects to buy your services, and these will make them feel more comfortable about your ability to solve their legal services problems.
     • Call to action – you want every media piece you send out to have an immediate, hopefully positive, response. Limiting the time readers have to respond to take advantage of certain offers stops procrastination and compels the reader to respond quicker to your media pieces.
7. Poor selection of the media to use to reach out to your target market.
   • You need to make sure you select the media your prospects and clients use to get information and make decisions, and the channels via which they get the information. While the Internet is increasingly becoming key for this, don’t forget offline channels ones such as direct mail which are very effective.

While the list above may seem quite daunting for some lawyers, it certainly is not unreasonable and should act as a basic preparation template BEFORE any web marketing is planned. Given the fiercely competitive landscape many of you are in, you owe it to yourselves to prepare yourself adequately and then position yourself as the lawyer of choice within your target niche.

Disclaimer: This article first appeared on http://eriaodhuba.com.

Is technology leading to a dumbing down of the legal profession?

Not, but it will act as an enabler and help technology-savvy firms differentiate themselves from the laggards. This is because technology, if properly used, can help lawyers become more efficient at running their businesses and provide better customer experiences.

A key challenge some lawyers have is getting rid of the view that technology will replace the personal experience they develop with clients. Commoditisation of legal services, which some see as inevitable given recent regulatory changes (e.g. The Legal Services Act in the UK), scares many lawyers who want to maintain their status as providers of high-value services.

What these lawyers don’t realise is that you can use technology to actually maintain high-value services and help develop better client relationships or trust with prospects.

The systemisation and automation of activity as a result of technological advancement means many forward-thinking law firms have started to see how they can minimise the time spent by fee earners on various (mainly, non-billable) activities. It makes more sense for a lawyer to engage in service delivery and spend less time on some process or task that stop them doing so.

Marketing is one clear example of this – the collection of feedback, sharing of content, systemisation of communications and personalisation of experience can all be improved using technology. When leads come in, lawyers can do something as simple as have a multi-step automated communication strategy in place that helps them engage with prospects while some of the more specific details related to their case are considered.

Some of the tasks (e.g. discovery) don’t need armies of lawyers any more. Granted, some people will panic but this will only be the case if law firms don’t find a way of re-deploying their time to other valuable activities that bring in leads.

And when it comes to engaging with prospects and clients, lawyers need to think how IT is used by consumers to find information, search for lawyers or engage in various social media channels. This helps develop better customer experiences, but does require a huge change in mindset in order to be done properly.

The value that lawyers provide once technology has automated certain tasks and made it easier to communicate with people is immense. Technology now helps lawyers focus on their strengths and contribute to lead generation efforts through online and offline marketing.

Sometimes, it helps to stop thinking about the old technology in place and its limitations, but to focus on what customers want and how technology can be used to deliver what they are looking for.