Sheer persistence

Last month, a survey revealed that 90 percent of Am Law 200 law firms feel legal analytics adds value to their practice. For 29 percent, it's “invaluable.” Among the benefits these firms cited are demonstrating expertise and competitive advantage to clients, determining legal strategies for particular courts and judges, predicting likely outcomes of legal strategies or arguments, and performing case assessments.

Perhaps even more interesting is the fact that these firms said clients are the primary driver of their practice's use of legal analytics technology.

So what are some real-world examples of law firms using analytics to drive business development, market position and successful client outcomes?

  • DLA Piper earns $37.6 million in additional revenue through client retention. After realizing that 18 out of 20 of its “key partner” clients had flat or decreased revenue between 2016 and 2017, the team at DLA Piper looked to analytics to identify metrics influencing retention rates and improve lagging numbers. The firm dug into the differences between growing clients and shrinking clients, running 7 million records – 4 years' worth – through their program. In the end, the firm was able to prevent 85 percent of fee loss on a year-over year basis.
  • Littler Mendelson tackles pay equity among corporate clients. The firm's Pay Equity Assessment Tool analyzes client data on employee compensation and demographics and looks for potential litigation risk given federal and state laws. The firm is then able to counsel clients on measures for compensation compliance – and champion for more equity – helping clients avoid costly matters.
  • Hogan Lovells generates an extra $34 million in revenue with pricing intel. The firm's global director of strategic pricing, Terry Williams, has championed an effort to bring client-specific data to fee negotiations, which resulted in “real increases in realized rates per hour and fair profits,” according to Hogan Lovells' global chief operating and financial officer, Scott Green. The practice, along with other data-independent strategies, helped generate $34 million in revenues by negotiating flat-fee arrangements that retained and grew several key clients. That equaled a revenue increase per lawyer in domestic litigation of 5.2 percent.
  • Drinker Biddle stops misconduct in its tracks. Last year, the national law firm used analytics to disprove a terminated executive's claims that the company was falsifying financial records. By being proactive and using relativity analytics on an internal investigation of the company, the firm was able to help its client save more than $270,000 in legal fees – and a potentially devastating court case.

From recruitment and retention to game-changing approaches that save clients time and money and keep reputations intact, law firms are implementing legal analytics in a variety of ways. Getting started is as simple as asking the question: What do we need to learn – and what problem do we need to fix?