Ask 10 corporate counsel for a definition of 'added value' and you will get 10 different answers. But if a client asks "What else can you bring to the party?" and all you can think of is a bottle of Australian white and a packet of fancy snacks, then your days working for that company will be numbered.
So what exactly does added value mean? "To be fair I am not absolutely sure," admits the head of legal at one Ftse-100 company.
What everyone does agree on is that it is no longer good enough for law firms just to be technically good at their job.
Corporate counsel now look closely at the ability of external lawyers to understand what is driving their business and what its short- and long-term objectives are.
BP Amoco's head of legal, Peter Bevan, emphasises the importance he attaches to external lawyers "knowing our culture and objectives".
"Outside lawyers need to get a feel for the company and knowledge of what other things may impact on it," Bevan says.
Ask lawyers to distinguish between rival law firms – their culture, reputation and their way of operating – and they will be quick to respond. Ask them to tell the difference between companies in the same industry and most will have few answers.
But hard-pressed lawyers have little time to carry out in-depth research of their clients' business and industry sector.
Ideally all external lawyers would spend a period working in-house. However, that is generally impractical – although more and more lawyers are moving backwards and forwards across the divide.
Sending lawyers on secondments helps – but only if the right person is chosen.
Corporate counsel agree that sending the wrong person on a secondment can do more harm than good to the client/law firm relationship.
They also question the wisdom of sending trainees, particularly when the trainee in question subsequently qualifies in an area of practice that the client has little need for.
For Bevan, one key to adding value through industry understanding is the longevity of the client/law firm relationship – so long as complacency does not set in. He wants external lawyers to have the confidence to offer creative solutions to his company's problems.
"In major corporate matters, I am not looking for a mechanical implementation exercise. Nor am I looking for a passive or reactive approach."
He adds that external lawyers should "identify options and alternatives and give a reasonable perception of the risk and reward".
Corporate counsel share a unanimous dislike of letters from law firms that contain caveat after caveat. Nor do they like letters that recommend only the safest option.
Corporate counsel, says Charles Lawton, head of legal at Rio Tinto, are looking for solutions. "Nobody wants lawyers to put the signals on red. They want them to point to a branch line to get past the problem."
For Lawton, the ability to think of new ways of tackling old problems – to be truly innovative – is significant.
He is full of praise for the way lawyers from Linklaters and Slaughter and May and two Australian law firms helped his company and Australia's CRA undergo a 'synthetic merger'.
For tax and other reasons the two companies agreed to share the returns of their businesses by means of a contract rather than through a formal merger.
On a more practical level, firms can add value in a number of ways.
They can make use of technology to allow clients to access their databases and they can provide updates on new legal developments by means of seminars and newsletters.
Martin Hayman, group secretary at Standard Chartered, says that technology is one way of keeping the "umbilical cord" between a firm and a client in place.
Law firms are still struggling with technology and what it means, he says, adding that assessing a firm's grip on technology will be an important way of discriminating between external providers of legal advice.
Another corporate counsel points out that by providing access to databases and knowledge management systems, firms can make themselves indispensable.
One of the traditional ways firms try to add value to their service is by keeping clients abreast of new developments in legislation. This is widely appreciated by corporate counsel, but there are pitfalls.
Newsletters must be relevant and readable and not simply an attempt to drum up business. They should also be brief.
If they are accompanied by an impersonal, standardised letter they are unlikely to catch the eye of a busy in-house lawyer who is inundated with paper.
The same applies to seminars, which for many in-house lawyers are pitched too low. This is particularly the case where law firms invite non-lawyers to attend.
"If seminars are focused on me and what I need, then of course they can be useful. But firms have to be careful about what they are trying to do," Hayman says.
"The bottom line is that outside lawyers do not add value unless they get close to the company."
A more effective way that law firms can add value to their service to clients is by inviting them to attend their training programmes.
One corporate counsel welcomes this initiative, not least because it helped him collect the "wretched" common professional development hours.
Rufus Ogilvie Smals, head of legal at GKN, finds custom-built briefings particularly effective. Firms on GKN's panel (set up two years ago) go to its offices in Redditch in Warwickshire to provide briefings to Ogilvie Smals' team.
"They select a few points to talk about, which we agree with and it gives us the chance to ask them questions," Ogilvie Smals says.
Such initiatives, though admittedly time-consuming, could prove to be the difference between a client sticking with a firm they know and putting their work out to tender.
For all the talk of rainmaking partners bringing in new business to a law firm, the unsung heroes are often the partners who keep a firm's long-established clients happy.
As management consultant John de Forte of John de Forte Associates said in a recent Legal Week management column (Legal Week 4 February), the link between client retention levels and profitability is well established.
According to Hayman, "the greatest sin of a law firm is to lose a client".