In recent years, there has been significant
growth in the number of dedicated “Chief Client Officer” or “Chief
Client Service Officer” (CCSO)-related positions within leading law firms. To
date, approximately 35 of the top 500 law firms have a full-time, in-house,
dedicated CCSO professional.* Titles of these professionals within the world’s
largest law firms vary, as do their responsibilities, but related titles
include Chief Client Officer, Chief Client Relations Officer, Chief Client
Experience Officer, Chief Client Value Officer, Chief Client Ambassador, and,
as referenced above, Chief Client Service Officer. Some firms have a Director
and/or Manager employed in similar roles.
Why this growth in law firm CCSOs?
- No matter the size of a law firm, the #1 determining factor in building and maintaining its success is the actual experience clients have with the firm. Without a portfolio of satisfied clients, lawyers and law firms need to spend significant amounts of time and effort to continually get new clients.
- A large volume of legal industry research concludes that superior client service is the #1 differentiator for lawyers and law firms and directly correlates to law firm success, longevity, and profitability.
- An increasing number of the world’s largest law firms are conducting business at such a scale that having a dedicated, full-time client service or experience officer adds significant value to the firms and their clients.
“At the end of the day, our clients’ experience is what matters
most,” says Angela
Quinn, who serves as Chief Client Officer at Husch Blackwell. “The
role of my team is to identify, evaluate, coordinate, and make appropriate
upgrades for client service touchpoints. Each activity we undertake — even
those far removed from client-facing work — traces back to one question: How
does this impact the client?”
Angela
Quinn, Chief Client Officer, Husch Blackwell
Traditionally, the primary focus of lawyers and law firms has been
on the results attained for the client; e.g., whether the case was completed to
the client’s benefit, whether a deal or transaction was successfully closed, whether
the counsel and advice provided to the client was effective. While getting
great results for clients is critical,
of equal importance to clients when they evaluate their experience with law
firms is the timeliness, efficiency, and effectiveness of the communications
and service delivered throughout the lawyer/law firm–client relationship.
At Husch Blackwell, the CCSO position is working, generating
significant results for both the firm and its clients. In both 2017 and 2018,
the firm won a Value Champion award from the Association of Corporate Counsel for the
work Angela and her team coordinated with and for firm clients Monsanto and Express
Scripts. According to Greg Smith, Chairman
of Husch Blackwell, “Angela’s role has been a great benefit for our firm, our lawyers,
and our valued clients. As a firm, we are much more focused on our clients’
entire experience.”
Law firm clients agree. According to Cammie Teems, Risk Manager
for Bestway USA, “We
recently sent an RFP to various law firms. Only one firm offered a dedicated
client service professional as part of its proposal, a position that I had
never heard of before. She added considerable value to our interview,
selection, and eventual onboarding processes, and continues to be of tremendous
assistance.”
Joshua
Sherbin, General Counsel and Chief Compliance Officer, TriMas
Corporation says, “While we typically rely on a key relationship lawyer at
each law firm we work with to manage quality and cost and navigate our
relationship with the firm, I see the value in having a professional dedicated
to this role – whose mission is to focus on client satisfaction.”
However, some law firm clients caution lawyers to avoid thinking
that a dedicated client service professional takes the responsibility off them
as practicing lawyers and that they can simply delegate all client service.
Jill Jacobson, Vice President and General Counsel, Americas, Husqvarna,
cautions, “The
lawyers who are actually going to do our work should not fully delegate
relationship-building and proactive client service to anyone. After all, those
are the folks with whom I need to have a relationship built on trust and
confidence.”
This is part of the challenge law firms face as they try to be
responsive to their clients’ needs and expectations. “It’s like a game of wack-a-mole,” says Amanda
Brady, Partner and Global Practice Leader of Major, Lindsey & Africa’s Law
Firm Management practice. “The law firm professionals in these evolving roles
are often chasing a moving target as they try to help their lawyers and firms
up the game on client service, understand exactly what ‘client service’ means
to each client, and who should be the involved in the relationship. But the
good news is that firms are now taking this seriously and are investing in
talented people to lead these initiatives, giving them resources, and making
this a cultural imperative at their firms.”
At Linklaters,
“The client experience is not just about our overall service delivery at every
touch point, but also about our emotional connection with our clients – before,
during and in-between transactions”, says Sarah Wiggins, Global Head of Clients &
Sectors and Executive Board Member for the firm. She continues, “A key part of the Linklaters’ client experience
is that our clients feel we have their back and enjoy the interaction with our
people on a personal level. Everyone in our firm has an integral role to play
in the client experience: partners; associates; trainees; secretaries and
members of our business teams. By embedding a culture and practice of client
service excellence from cradle to grave across all facets of our business, we
demonstrate to clients that they are at the heart of everything we do.”
CCSOs’ roles, areas of focus and responsibility vary. Some are
tasked with overseeing, coordinating, and enhancing (as appropriate) some or all
of the firm’s key, client-facing support functions, such as marketing, business
and client development, communications, lateral integration, new client intake,
invoicing/billing, and/or other support functions within the firm. For example,
Angela Quinn is responsible for managing the in-house marketing and business
development (MBD) department, as well as the client-service program, pricing
staff, and new business intake. Other firms created a separate, leanly staffed,
but well-funded client-service function designed to increase and enhance
internal collaboration between support departments and lawyers and, ultimately,
client satisfaction.
So, what do CCSOs do on a day-to-day basis? Most CCSOs split their
time and efforts between coordinating internally with firm lawyers and staff
and reaching out to clients and prospects. CCSOs often work directly with firm
clients, prospective clients, new laterals, and/or referral sources, and — importantly
— collaborate internally, to:
- Meet with and interview existing and prospective new clients
- Conduct or participate in post-matter/case client interviews
- Participate in RFPs, beauty contests, and other new business proposal meetings
- Initiate, communicate, and manage new-client onboarding steps and deliverables
- Suggest available firm value-added services and options to clients and prospects
- Assist the firm’s lawyers in scoping, pricing, and budgeting for new cases and matters
- Scope and assist in the development of secure, custom client extranets
- Create, maintain, and follow up on prospect and client service pipelines
- Participate in, coordinate, and assist with legal process management
- Determine and coordinate delivery of desired work product, invoices, periodic reporting, and service
- Serve as another dedicated point of contact for any service-related issues or questions
- Help identify where other areas of service may be needed or useful
- Match and introduce appropriate firm lawyers to optimal clients and contacts
- Identify, coordinate internally, and introduce possible customers for clients
- Follow up with clients periodically during and after cases (as appropriate) to help ensure client satisfaction
- Identify clients’ pro bono and charitable activities and how the firm’s lawyers can get involved
- Ensure the lawyers and firm continue to develop relationships and add value over time
- Support new lateral acquisition and integration over time
- Coordinate, implement, and manage client “listening” programs and efforts
Colleen
Moorehead has served as Chief Client Officer for the Canadian law firm Osler for over six years, after a
successful career founding and leading the financial technologies company
ETRADE Canada. She says, “Most law firms have a written strategic plan, but it needs
to be actionable. Executing is what gets results and is the differentiator. My
team and I focus intensely on this every day. We ensure our lawyers are able to
execute strategic initiatives by coordinating and streamlining the delivery of
our services and communications to our clients. We deploy smart technology,
enhanced work processes, and people. For example, we have built a robust client
listening program supported by key technologies and tools, including client
reporting dashboards, post-experience interviews, internal client plans, and
advanced CRM [customer relationship management] support.”
Many CCSOs are lawyers or experienced professionals with
former law practice or in-house counsel experience, as well as significant
business experience. This background helps shift the law firm culture from one with
an internal focus to one that is more client facing and market driven. Cole Silver, who serves
as Chief Client Officer at Blank Rome,
says, “Because I have served as a law firm owner and former general counsel for
over 25 years, my main contribution is bringing client centricity and the
‘voice of the client’ to firm pitches, marketing, strategy, business
development, and the overall client experience. Our firm’s primary objective is
to provide clients with a level of service second to none, and my role helps
get that done.”
Cole Silver,
Chief Client Officer, Blank Rome
With billable time demands being a reality for most outside
lawyers, helping lawyers see and work past their own agendas is often an
integral part of a CCSO’s job. The compensation and origination systems used by
many law firms can be hurdles to the success of a dedicated CCSO. Law firms
that operate in a truly collaborative, collegial culture and allow for
shared-origination credit tend to have greater success with CCSOs. Firms with
“one-touch” or “grandfathered” origination credit schemes can encourage client hoarding
and inhibit collaboration on many levels. According to Cole Silver, “The ‘ownership’
of a client by an individual lawyer can be the ‘fruit of the poisonous tree’ that
can stonewall collaboration, shared compensation, and organizational alignment.”
Another hurdle comes in the form of the ever-evolving
technology platforms and options available to law firms. All the technologies
used by law firms ultimately support getting clients the results and service
they desire. But identifying and integrating technologies is a continual
challenge for most firms. CCSOs play a role here too, helping identify and vet
the best options available in a manner that saves the firm time and money.
The struggle to productively innovate remains a challenge
for many law firms. The pace of innovation remains slow in law firms because of
several factors, including the following:
- It’s much easier to do things the way they have always been done for firms and for individual lawyers,
- Most lawyers are naturally risk-averse and skeptical,
- Many fall victim to the Dunning-Kruger effect, where think they know more than they do, and
- With steady growth and profitability, many think: “why rock the boat
Many (but not all) law firms only pay lip service to
innovation. But Allen
& Overy, Eversheds,
Linklaters,
and Seyfarth Shaw, among
other firms, are innovation leaders within the legal industry (in fact, law
firms are increasingly naming and hiring chief innovation officers). Osler went
a step further and created a leadership role and
structure centered around innovation and funded it, along with a research and
development function.
In summary, CCSOs are playing an increasingly important role
in the evolution and growth of law firms and law firm clients.
*Most major law firms have had full-time,
in-house marketing and business development (MBD) department staff in place for
years. Part of their responsibilities may be client service, but MBD staff
usually have many other demands on their time and are not 100% dedicated to the
client service/experience role. For
example, the main focus of many traditional law firm Chief Client Development
Officers and Chief Marketing & Business Development Officers (CMBDOs) is to
manage all marketing efforts, identify and coordinate leads, assist with (and
sometimes directly participate in) RFPs, work with lawyers to help develop
proposal strategies and development plans, and monitor and manage new client
development (to ensure that multiple lawyers are not going after the same
client in a disjointed way). While some CMBDOs and MBD staff members
participate in client-service-centric projects and tasks, client
service is most often not their sole focus. Plus,
MBD positions and roles most often end once the client comes into the firm and
may not include much (if any) direct client communication. In many major law
firms, there is still no single, dedicated client service professional focused
on existing and new client relationships from the cradle to the grave.
About the Author: Julie Savarino
holds an MBA, a JD, and is a licensed attorney. Over her 30+ year career, she
has built a reputation as a thought leader, influencer, and award-winning
business and client development and service strategist and coach for lawyers,
law firms, and other professional services providers and firms. She has successfully served in-house in
client and business development positions for the law firms of Dickinson Wright
and Butzel Long and for the accounting firm Grant Thornton. Connect with
Julie on LinkedIn or contact her at +1 (734) 668-7008, Julie@BusDevInc.com,
@JulieSavarino.
