Top legal decision makers are reluctant to give work in new areas to inconsistent law firms because they do not know what they will get. Approximately 60 per cent of top companies say inconsistency is one of the biggest issues they see in their law firms. In its blog, The Mad Clientist, BTI Consulting revealed that firms with the most consistent service across offices and practices define certain firmwide client-facing behaviours and actions which set the minimum client service standard at a high—and uniform level. These include assigning a single partner to be accountable for client service delivery at each major, strategic and/or important client; Holding client team meetings regularly to discuss client service performance and developing a client preference file for all lawyers to study and learn about client-specific performance requirements.

Accountable

In a blog, BTI Consulting says that the most aggressive firms hold their partners accountable for making sure these things all happen on a routine basis. Other traits of consistent firms include conducting scheduled and frequent internal client team meetings to update all lawyers and staff on key issues and developments. They also assign a partner specifically responsible for onboarding new attorneys joining the case midstream. Furthermore they define standardised response times for different types of communication—with input from clients.