“Clients are ahead of us in using data,” begins Dave Walton, the chair of cyber solutions and data strategies at Cozen O’Connor in Philadelphia. Over the last decade, the forms of movement sparked by legal analytics technologies have been dizzying, with legal practitioners finding increasingly novel ways to combine court data into judicial, company, and law firm analytics. Clients, well aware of these movements, have responded by shifting their expectations. Now, whenever they enter into a meeting with a potential law firm, one question pulses beneath the surface of the interaction: How might you use your data to provide better services for me?
For many AmLaw 100 firms, client research begins with a ping. According to Christian Mammen, a partner at Hogan Lovells, most civil litigators tap into new business opportunities by registering for alerts with legal analytics platforms. Many of these alerts notify them whenever a new case has been filed against a company in their field of expertise. Other alerts have been amended in order to track emerging legal trends, with some law firms relying on pings to help them keep abreast of the latest judicial rulings on a pivotal topic.
As soon as one of these alerts pings, a deluge of calls will flood into the in-house legal teams of an affected company. The calls, which often contain short pitches and brief snippets of advice on venue and strategy, convey commitments to provide the company with the best possible defense. But what happens after the ping? How, exactly, do legal teams convince a prospective client that their law firm is the best law firm? How do attorneys show potential clients that they have the experience, expertise, and skills needed to efficiently and effectively handle their legal matters?
This hasn’t always been easy. In the past, clients learned to select legal teams based on recommendations from colleagues and associates. Things are different now. “What is changing more rapidly is how cases are being assessed and how outside counsel are being selected,” explains Oscar Romero, general counsel at Veristor Systems. “It is no longer relationship-driven, but who can most successfully handle this matter in this courthouse in front of this judge.”
There is no simple way for an attorney to quantify or qualify this experience. However, legal analytics has provided a place to start, mostly by allowing legal teams to showcase their capabilities. “[P]utting in tones of credentials doesn’t go down well with clients,” says Matthew Fuller, the director of business development at White & Case. His advice? Ditch the CVs. Demonstrate the ways in which your firm can benefit the client. Clients, for example, often want pricing predictable. They also like free legal advice. So how is this done?
Imagine, for a second, that your prospective client, a commercial tenant, is in the midst of a dispute with a landlord in New York City. You could fill your pitch deck with the credentials of your attorneys. Or, you could spend that time addressing how you would handle the case. You might, for example, warn the prospective client about the risks of a motion for summary judgment, incorporating judicial analytics to highlight the fact that the judge assigned to the case, the Hon. Arlene P. Bluth, has a history of granting summary judgment to landlord-plaintiffs, often issuing narrow interpretations of the doctrine of frustration of purpose when it is used as a defense for a tenant’s failure to pay rent. You might, then, lean into different working solutions, perhaps by demonstrating your experience creatively building evidentiary records that can survive such motions.
These days, a typical pitch deck is filled with charts and graphs, easy-to-grasp visualizations that demonstrate how a law firm compares with its competitors. And this is what prospective clients want. They want metrics, hard data. “For me, a meeting with a firm not using any [legal analytics] is kind of a disqualifier,” explains Damon Hart, senior vice president and deputy general counsel for litigation at Liberty Mutual. This is important to note, as these same clients are also using their own data analytics in order to choose which law firms to use for specific matters in specific jurisdictions. “It is not that we are eschewing traditional methods of getting information, we are using it to enhance what we hear from outside counsel and the judgment and experience of the lawyers,” concludes Hart.
According to Amy Wisinski, the director of marketing technology and operations at Winston & Strawn, a successful pitch should differentiate you from the competition by telling a story, one that blends both qualitative and quantitative insights. How many times has your law firm handled certain types of cases? How have those numbers trended over time? How many times have your attorneys appeared before a particular judge? How do those numbers compare with competing law firms? What narratives can you weave together with all of this information? How might you use these narratives to showcase your experience and propose a defense strategy?
Take, as an example, the litigation requirements of an online retailer of pet-related products. According to a litigation insights report provided by Trellis, the retailer’s primary litigation needs revolve around labor and employment disputes, specifically discrimination, workers’ compensation, and wrongful termination matters. The report identifies the law firms previously tasked with resolving these complaints, none of which have represented the retailer more than two times. Here is where I can start to see some potential. Why is the retailer distributing its caseload so thinly to these firms? Are they unsatisfied with their representation? Does my experience in a particular industry, practice area, or jurisdiction give me an edge over these attorneys? When I examine the data underlying these reports, I can see that, over the years, a majority of these cases have been filed by a single attorney in Ohio. Who is he? How has he litigated these cases? What case law does he cite? Suddenly, I am mapping out his litigation history, identifying his patterns and predicting his next move. This is a story I can present to our online retailer, one filled with actionable insights bolstered with predictive analytics.
“[T]here are opportunities to use all different types of data sources,” Walton continues, “in a way that enhances a lawyer’s ability to predict not only the outcome of the case, but what it’s going to cost and how long it’s going to take to resolve.” Still, every rose has its thorns. Although legal analytics and pitch decks are providing prospective clients with the answers they seek, successful legal teams know that asking questions is just as important as answering them. What is, after all, a successful legal outcome? How does a prospective client measure failure? Is a successful case one that ends with a not-guilty verdict? Or is it one that settles for less than $2 million? The answers to these questions color the meaning of every single presentable metric. We are reminded that the pitch deck is just an opening, a way to begin ascertaining the needs that sit behind the numbers. And, as Howard Kravitz, director of global business development and marketing at Debevoise & Plimpton, observes, a prospective client wants to know that you understand their world and their industry, that your insights align with what they have experienced. So, then, how will you enter their world?
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