The approaching end of the year is a good time to look back and reflect on what’s working in your practice, what isn’t, and where there’s scope to do things differently next year. With that in mind, our forthcoming report on the state of the market at small and medium law firms might offer some insight that can help you grow into 2017 and beyond.
For this research we interviewed 110 senior decision-makers from law firms with between 2 and 80 fee-earners. An early look at the findings supports many of the conclusions from our previous research: law firms are confident, with 79 per cent of respondents confirming that their firms had grown over the previous 12 months. Roughly the same figure expect to continue to grow over the next year, with private client, dispute resolution and residential and commercial property the most fertile areas.
It seems that there’s a gap between the factors against which firms want to judge success, and their willingness to act to address them.
Beneath the projection of confidence and bullish growth forecasts, the picture is less clear. Law firms recognise they need to adapt in order to continue to grow in a market that they all agree is getting tougher, but there is no consensus on where they need to focus those efforts. For example, the vast majority of firms we spoke to tended to believe they had performed better on average than their competitors. But by definition, they can’t all be – lawyers may say they’re doing better than their friends down the road, but a majority can’t be doing better than the market average.
Another contradiction was that small and medium law firm leaders report strong growth and expect it to continue; but at the same time, 82 per cent of respondents think that market conditions are tougher than 12 months ago (again, our previous research supports this – infographic). How can we reconcile these two positions?
Similarly, 88 per cent of small and medium law firms thought they were more efficient than their peers; but previous research has shown that speed and efficiency are two areas where SME clients want improvement from their legal advisors. 51 per cent of firms said ‘speed of response’ was an important factor in determining their success, but half the market also said they’d done nothing to seek improvement in this area. It seems that there’s a gap between the factors against which firms want to judge success, and their willingness to act to address them.
With that in mind, perhaps it’s time for small and medium law firms to stop talking about differentiation around client service, and actually take steps to deliver the speed and efficiency gains that clients are looking for. It could set you apart from your peers and deliver the growth you’ll need in 2017. Stay tuned to @TRLegalUKI for the full results in the coming weeks.
