Implications of Law Firm Rankings

By Joe Howie

• Understands objectives/expectations
• Legal Expertise
• Efficiency/process management
• Responsiveness/communication
• Predictable cost/budgeting skills
• Results delivered/execution

Then there is the ultimate question, “Good Value, would you use this firm again?” The only choices on this question are Yes or No.

Evaluations are then shared with or made available to other ACC members. Non-ACC members, i.e. law firms, don’t get to see the rankings.

Implications of Law Firm Ranking. Everyone in a law firm needs to be aware that corporate clients are not just “talking” about wanting better value for their litigation dollars, they’re grading law firms that represent them and sharing that data with other corporations. Litigation support can have a dramatic impact on at least two of the six questions in the satisfaction survey — efficiency/process management, and predictable cost/budgeting skills — as well as the ultimate question, “would you use this firm again?”

Two examples:

1. A law firm that is still printing all of its electronic files to paper for review will probably rank lower in the efficiency/process management category than a firm that is de-NIST’ing its electronic files early in the process and then deduping across the entire project prior to reviewing them electronically using email threading and concept clustering to leverage review time.
2. A firm that is still paying Year 2005 per GB and per page fees for processing will probably rank lower in overall costs and predictable budgeting than a firm that is using more updated pricing information or newer fixed-fee pricing models to get the most value for its clients processing dollar.

If you’ve argued unsuccessfully in the past in favor of implementing more efficient processing technologies, you can use the information on the ACC Value Index to renew your arguments and make the case that the time to upgrade is now.

If you’re already using modern processing technologies and are purchasing them based on well-negotiated fee structures, you should make sure that the ultimate client knows this. A typical law firm invoice as submitted to the client may not have enough detail or granularity to enable the client to see the good job you’re doing (see the related article, “More Than You May Care to Know about Billing Codes and Invoicing”).

For example, without metrics about the volume being handled, document/data management fees, document production fees and litigation support expenses are difficult to compare case-to-case. It may be that in one particular case your firm has achieved remarkable efficiencies and processed, reviewed and produced an exceptional volume of data with terrific metrics in a number of important areas (e.g. collection costs per custodian or the volume reduction achieved by duplicate consolidation, e-mail threading, and e-mail analytics) yet have the highest costs because of the sheer volume or complexity of the data. All that is reported on invoices is typically the dollar cost figures.

Make use of client meetings, status reports, invoice transmittal e-mails or letters, and any other communication opportunity you have to provide clients with specific metrics on the job you’re doing. Just the fact that you’re measuring results and working in the right direction may set your firm apart from others.

References/Further Reading:
Association of Corporate Counsel Web site
Screen shots of the ACC Value Index survey form  
ABA Journal article

This article appeared originally in the December 2009 ALSP Update, the monthly publication of the Association of Litigation Support Professionals and is reprinted with permission. Read more about this nonprofit membership organization at www.alsponline.org.