Marketing experts have long pressed lawyers to genuflect at the altar of existing client relationships, arguing that law firms grow faster and more efficiently by expanding their business with the clients they already have.

It's a lesson that hasn't been lost on the marketing team at DLA Piper, which has begun rolling out an ambitious program aimed at helping its lawyers grow their business. The initiative, which the firm first introduced in pilot form last year, uses internal data to address revenue loss from existing clients and reverse those trends.

So far only a fraction of the firm's 3,600 lawyers are participating. But for those that do, the rewards can be great, according to Barbara Taylor, the firm's U.S. chief marketing officer.

To implement the program, DLA Piper's marketing team gathered and analyzed data about its clients, the work that the firm has done for them, the revenues generated as a result, staffing details, and other variables. The firm used that analysis to identify what led to shrinkage or growth in client relationships, and built a predictive model that spells out what actions lawyers can take with specific clients.

Taylor's team identified four actions as the most effective with the most clients: reducing the legal team serving the client to five lawyers or less; introducing a new lawyer to the team; adding a lawyer who is an expert in the client's industry; and setting up marketing events specifically tailored for the client, such as inviting in-house lawyers to a CLE event sponsored by the firm or sending tailored newsletters.

When they follow through, the firm's lawyers have seen impressive results—such as transforming a 48 percent annual decline in revenues from one existing client into a 14 percent growth spurt, according to Taylor.

The program is not mandatory, and the firm's marketing team has relied on volunteers, Taylor said.

“We are looking for partners interested in working with us,” Taylor said. So far about 100 partners have asked to participate, including from the life sciences, financial services, and Boston-based real estate practices, she said.

“All of this was a change for us, and it did require talking about it and bringing people along. It also required us to be mindful of the fact that we were asking lawyers to do something different,” Taylor said.

“At the beginning, I was like, 'Oh God, another gimmick,'” said partner Ann Ford, a member of the firm's executive committee and U.S. chair of its trademark, copyright and media practice, who was part of the predictive analytics model pilot last year.

Now, she said, “I'm a big believer.”

After she applied the pilot's concepts to her relationships with five of her most significant clients, she had her best year ever, Ford said. No wonder she now has a sign reminding her to follow the program's four actions within sight of her desk.

“It helped me understand the clients better,” she said of the effort. “And you are talking to someone who is—as most lawyers are—cynical.”

The program rewards clients as well, because their costs shrink with the downsizing of the legal teams, even though their legal spend with DLA Piper may increase because they are using the firm for more matters, Ford said.

“They are getting more experienced lawyers,” Ford said. Because the client's relationship with the firm expands, the clients can exert more downward rate pressure without reducing DLA Piper's overall revenues.

“They like that,” Ford said. “It makes it much more of client-law firm partnership.”