Official rating of human rights companies and lawyers providing legal services to legal entities. Official rating of human rights companies and lawyers providing legal services to legal entities Uniqueness of a law firm
During his latest seminar on increasing sales and attracting customers for restaurant owners, one famous marketer asked the participants one by one the same question: “What business are you in?” And one after another the participants answered: “Restaurant”, “I am the owner of a chain of cafes”, “I manage a small bistro”, etc.
To which the marketer replied: “You are all wrong! Whatever business you are in, you are all in marketing business, where the main task is to attract customers.”
Legal business is also no exception. It is important not just to be a good lawyer and do your job well, but also to be able to effectively sell, attract clients, manage income and employees...
What prevents a law firm from increasing the number of clients and profits?
My opinion is that the main difficulty in promoting a law firm lies precisely in the fact that the company very often makes mistakes, after eliminating which, the company receives a sharp increase in both the number of clients and the profit that these same clients bring.
So, let's look at 8 critical mistakes that reduce profits in the legal business.
Mistake #1: Confidence in your knowledge and skills in the field of promoting legal services
When creating your own company, it is important for a lawyer to understand that he is a professional in the legal field, and marketing is a completely different matter. professional sphere. And the criteria for success of a specialist and a company manager are also completely different.
As always, there is a way out. Every head of a law firm should learn “smart marketing.” Since the success of a small business depends 80% on how it is promoted.
It is not enough to simply “blindly” copy what competitors are doing. And even more so marketing activities large legal companies. Because it is fundamentally different from marketing in a small law firm.
Attempts to use “seen” developments ultimately lead to the company getting lost in the lists of other competing companies for one simple reason - for a potential client, all offers will seem the same and he will choose solely based on price, since there are simply no other criteria No.
Mistake No. 3: “blindly” using copied developments from competitors
In fact, the company uses a two-tier sales model. The first step is to attract a client to an office, supermarket, store, due to the very low price of a certain group of goods or one service. The second step is to sell the main service or other products at prices that bring in a good income.
Now, if you transfer this model to the legal business and, for example, reduce the price of one of the main “monetary” services, as the “big player” of the market did, you can quickly spend the entire budget and go bankrupt. Unless, of course, a two-step sales model was thought out before.
Mistake #4: Using ineffective tools for promoting legal services
There is a big difference between building a brand and increasing sales in a small business.
How often do we hear from lawyers and heads of law firms: “In order to have many clients, you need to be famous and have a name.” Indeed, this is so. The only problem is how to earn a reputation if the budget is not so big, there are not so many clients yet and in general the company is very young...
Mistake #5: skeptical attitude towards non-standard and unusual methods of promoting a law firm
And any non-standard methods that are used, for example, by Western law firms, are discarded in our country for the reason “it’s not serious” or “it won’t work for us.”
How many times have I heard the phrase from business owners “this won’t work in our business”... Yes, indeed, something may not work. But how will you know if you don't try?
Mistrust of fundamentally new programs and external experts does not allow a law firm to develop. A company can receive the same stable income from year to year and not think about any development. But only until a strong competitor comes to the market with ready-made tactics and strategies for conquering the market. Then it will be too late to think about innovations...
Mistake #6: lack of a ready-made and well-thought-out system for attracting clients
The main source of new clients is recommendations. And, of course, this is one of the best sources. At the same time, this is the most unpredictable source potential clients. If you use additional sources of attracting clients, this will increase the flow of potential clients who are converted into real ones. And real clients give real money.
Attracting clients in law firms is associated with an increase in their flow. If you increase the flow of customers, sales should increase accordingly. True, often only 1-2 ways to increase traffic are used. Moreover, the company loses 90% of potential clients after the first conversation, and only 10% of interested clients can buy, and of these, 2-3% become real buyers (clients).
What if he buys not 2-3%, but 5-6%? How will this affect the company's income? Right! It will almost double in size!
Mistake #7: Lack of uniqueness
When a potential client types “LLC registration” in Yandex or Google and follows the links, he ends up on dozens of identical sites. There is an opinion that everyone is copied from the same primary source, and in general no one is different, except for the color scheme and some other details that have no meaning for the client at all and do not affect the purchasing process.
The same situation applies to printed materials. For example, take a brochure from one of the most large companies market and all information is copied. Please, another clone is ready.
If you find your uniqueness, you will immediately differentiate yourself from your competitors. In the eyes of potential clients, your company will stand out among dozens and hundreds of other competing companies that cannot compete with you.
Your focus on working with a specific area of business or only in one direction, service, etc. can be unique.
Uniqueness cannot come from a low price.
Mistake #8: Price wars
Reducing your prices and selling your services cheaper than competitors is a path not only to reducing your income, but also a path to bankruptcy.
What if a large competing law firm cuts prices by 30-50% in order to destroy smaller firms? What then can your company offer to the market? As Western practice shows, this will happen sooner or later.
For your potential clients, the most important and only selection criterion is price! Until you show the value of your offer, the uniqueness of your company and good service.
Many company managers have the impression that for a client the decisive and most important factor when choosing his company is price for one simple reason - because clients most often ask about it.
If you increase the prices on your list by 10-20% right now, you will only lose 10% of the customers who will cost it. As a result, you will not lose anything, because those customers who choose by price are in the lower price segment and are often problematic. They call a lot, take up time, “download your license,” and the earnings from them are not that big.
It's easier to reject these clients than to spend a large number of of your time on them. It's better to have 10 customers who buy at $10 than 100 customers who buy at $1.
Without more effective techniques and technologies in their arsenal, many law firms begin to reduce prices, thereby depriving themselves of profits that could be obtained without it.
Often you even have to work at a loss just to attract a new client. True, this is a path to the abyss, because there will always be a competitor whose prices will be cheaper.
Show the value of your offer and you'll never have to compete on price again!
Kommersant and the LegalPractice.Ru project publish the results of an annual study of the legal business in Russia. Based on the results of the analysis of information provided by market participants, we present 50 leading law firms providing services in the territory Russian Federation, as well as a ranking of law firms that have achieved best performance in key areas of legal practice.
Dmitry Ivanov, Maxim Chernigovsky
Research methods
The study was conducted by in-depth questioning of law firm managers about the firm’s performance in 2015 and the current state of the firm. The research questionnaire was specially developed by the LegalPractice.Ru project.
The survey was open to all law firms, that is, any lawyers, legal entities, other legal entities or groups of companies operating under a single brand and providing professional legal advisory services, including legal representation. Information about the study was disseminated through the media, social media and by direct mail. The list of recipients for direct mailing was compiled from open sources, including Russian and international directories of law firms, publications about ratings in which Russian law firms, and search queries in the Internet.
The information obtained from the questionnaires was verified by sending a clarifying request to the respondent, as well as through open sources, in particular through the SPARK system, the respondents’ own websites, as well as data in the media. If discrepancies or errors were discovered as a result of the check, the questionnaires were corrected.
In a number of cases, respondents did not provide the information necessary to include a company in the rating. If the researchers had reasonable assumptions about the possibility of including a company in the rating, the researchers independently collected information available from open sources. This year, an exception was made for companies that did not provide information to participate in the rating, and according to data from open sources, showed negative dynamics in terms of key indicators. We understand that the financial difficulties of such law firms should not be aggravated by our publication. I hope that in the future their performance will improve and these companies will return to cooperation.
We also understand that our resources are not sufficient for a comprehensive study Russian market legal services, and we ask representatives of law firms that were not included in the rating for other reasons to understand the need to assist in the research, including providing the necessary information in a timely and complete manner.
Calculation method
To rank law firms, an integrated indicator was used from the revenue received in 2015 for services provided legal services, as well as the number of lawyers (including partners) with correction factors depending on the grade (partner, advisor, senior lawyer, junior lawyer, etc.). Given that in most cases, respondents provided data on their revenue under confidentiality conditions, these data are not published. In cases where respondents did not provide revenue data, we independently made an expert assessment of the respondent’s estimated revenue based on data on the number of lawyers in the firm, as well as the effective hourly rate of law firms of a similar level business reputation and market segment.
The size of the firm’s revenue demonstrates the demand for the firm’s services in the market, its competitiveness among other law firms, high value service results for clients. The number of persons providing professional legal services on behalf of the firm demonstrates the law firm’s ability to attract qualified personnel and financial stability a company that allows you to support the salary fund for lawyers.
Rankings for specific areas of legal practice
Industry ratings generally maintain a monetary approach to identifying leading firms in individual areas of practice: to select the best industry practices, the law firm’s revenue for this practice was assessed, as well as data on the size of cases (the “price of the issue” that the law firm solved for its client) . Researchers believe that clients will entrust the most expensive and commercially important cases only to the best and most trusted consultant. Additional criteria included the complexity and uniqueness of the case, as well as the participation of the firm or the firm’s lawyers in international rankings. We analyzed exclusively data on revenue and cases that were completed in 2015.
results
1. Due to the confidentiality of the data provided by our respondents on the amount of revenue and other indicators of the company’s activities, we will not comment on how successful the work of specific respondents was compared to that done in 2014. We present only general data. The average revenue growth of the largest firms participating in the current ranking over the past year is 18.8%, however, in the individual classification, the growth rate of individual firms is in the range from 1% to 70%. Overall, the financial year ended well for most firms, but in dollar terms, revenue fell by half.
There are also law firms whose revenues have decreased in ruble equivalent compared to the year before. The maximum drop in revenue is 36%. But compared to the performance of some firms that refused to participate in the ranking, this is not so bad.
2. The number of lawyers in a firm affects both the cost of its services and their volume, and, accordingly, the absolute amount of revenue. Revenue growth ranging from 30% to 70% occurs in firms with 30 to 35 lawyers. The researchers note that these companies did not experience a significant increase in the number of lawyers in 2015. Researchers believe that the reason for the increase in the efficiency of lawyers is the high activity of partners and associates in finding new clients and organizing work on client projects.
3. We note that the number of lawyers does not always guarantee a significant amount of revenue. There are companies on the market with an income of more than 50 million rubles. per lawyer. Of course, these are unique cases that do not form a typical situation.
5. Despite the fact that we do not give any discounts to regional law firms, a multiple increase in nominees whose headquarters are located not in Moscow or St. Petersburg, but in other regions of Russia, is obvious. Increasing competition is pushing clients to seek relatively inexpensive, but no less high-quality services from regional law firms. We hope that regional players will consolidate achieved success and will show even more outstanding results next year.
More details
Top 50 law firms by revenue from legal services in the Russian Federation
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International commercial arbitration
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Commercial disputes
Corporate disputes
Bankruptcy
Corporate law and support of mergers and acquisitions
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Real estate and construction
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Infrastructure and PPP
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Tax disputes
Tax consulting
Criminal practice
Banking and finance
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Antitrust disputes and consulting
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Client: Moscow Lawyers Association
Task: the company provides legal services; One of the main ones is protecting interests in court. This is what the client plans to promote using a landing page. The page needs a strong selling text - and I am the copywriter who will write it.
Difficulty: like most law firms, the company’s website is uninformative - the benefits that make up the USP cannot be guessed even from seven notes. Fortunately, the brief was filled out in detail, and the answers to additional questions also helped a lot.
Solution: the text is written - convincing, structured and imbued with a friendly attitude. To help him - a prototype.
Example of copywriting for a legal Landing Page
IN descriptor indicate who we are and what we are.
Next to it is a navigation menu (quickly go to the block of interest) and contacts with the ability to order a call.
IN USP reflect strengths client: employee experience, high percentage of cases won.
We will all benefit in our favor. The client is working with complex cases →« We take on cases that other lawyers have turned down».
In the next block, we clarify what cases we work with (spoiler: almost all).
Benefits block. The client asked that the text smell of kindness and sensitivity. No sooner said than done.
Pay attention to the last point of the block: it is now clear that 87% of cases won is very respectable.
In the block « our team » only important things: photo, full name, position, year of birth, education and legal experience. We indicate the number in the registry for lawyers.
Examples of won cases with blurred data (to maintain confidentiality). Instead of a thousand words.
Reviews. Sometimes they are so forced and formulaic that you want to cut them out for your Japanese grandmother. But here it’s a different matter, just read Sergei’s review from Moscow!
Prices. It is always better to indicate them, at least within the range from and to and for standard services. Hiding prices is disgusting.
If the price is below market, you can turn this into an advantage. We just need to briefly explain why it is so cheap.
Block with cooperation scheme not only talks about the work procedure, but also removes any last questions and objections.
Map with address and an explanation of the route. If the object is near the metro and is one or two minutes away, it’s possible without explanation. If you walk longer than 10 minutes and need to wind through courtyards, then it’s better with it.
