In every law firm, business development professionals focus on one question: what differentiates our offering from the rest so that a client or potential client will choose us ahead of the competition? Of course, there is no simple answer but the effort put into creating an effective pitch document can play a big part.

Richard Grove, Allen & Overy's (A&O's) director of marketing and business development, summarises the challenge: "You've got to understand the client's problems and issues and sympathise with those problems and issues: share the pain, demonstrate understanding, and then use that understanding and sharing to validate the solution that you've come up with, and effectively lead the client to confirm their approval of your solutions."

''There is a lot more thought that goes into the document and the planning behind it than there was before," adds Kirsten Sutcliffe, senior business development manager at Macfarlanes.

This is reflected in the pitch document aspirations of business development teams. When giving legal advice, firms often claim to deliver a service that resembles a bespoke Rolls-Royce.

But in reality, the practical constraints of time and mass production mean the pitch document process is often more like a Ford assembly line in terms of the level of output required: the progressive assembly of interchangeable parts as the semi-completed pitch moves from workstation to workstation, where parts are added in sequence until the final document is produced.

The disparity between reality and what firms hope to offer is highlighted by a new report from Enable Business Solutions, which surveyed 46 of the 100 largest law firms in the UK and found that while almost every firm wants to make their client pitch documents unique, the overwhelming majority fail to do so.

Its research found that while 98% of those taking part in the survey believe it is very important (70%) or somewhat important (28%) to make each pitch document unique, a full 71% admitted that their own pitch documents are not significantly customised.

Given the number of documents these firms are creating, this is perhaps unsurprising. In total, the firms surveyed create more than 60,000 pitch documents a year.

Business development teams in leading firms range from five to nearly 100 staff. Taking a large firm like A&O that creates 9,000 pitch documents a year, this can equate to BD teams creating a new pitch document every 15 minutes on average, whereas firms in the lower half of the top 100 firms create roughly one a day.

"We should be able to pull a document together in an hour," says Andy Towler, associate director of business development at Kirkland & Ellis. "If it's a big, wide-ranging request for proposal (RFP), that can take a week or more of back and forth."

Another BD director identifies wider parameters: "Pitches range from four-month long panel pitches to one-page fee quotes."

Client expectations of what they should receive from firms have changed. "The days of solely drafting long, text-heavy pitch documents have gone," explains Towler. "In the past, the thinking was often: if we put 100 pages in front of them, they're not going to read it, but it looks like we've done a lot of stuff."

Economy is his current watchword. "The approach now is often to try and display in as short, and succinct a way as possible – four or five bullet points – why we are the very best firm in this space."

As Grove suggests, there is considerably more to the process than the simple production of a compelling document.

Scoping, research, evaluation, planning, team building, pricing, timetabling, reviewing and presenting – all play their part. But writing, proofing and submitting the pitch document are also key elements.

As Matthew Fuller, director of business development and marketing (EMEA) at White & Case, explains: "The pitch or proposal is a moment in time in a relationship with a client. It's not a one-off, or shouldn't be."

Making the most of this opportunity means turning down some requests at the outset. The time and effort put into a pitch document in the combined hours spent by marketing teams and partners – costed using their charge-out rates – can range from £3,000 to £100,000, sometimes more. Careful discrimination means that up to a third of all RFPs are declined, which in turn can lead to higher win rates.

Firms are notoriously coy in discussing these on the record, and a wide disparity exists. From research published last year by Totum, just over 40% of large UK firms have a win rate of less than 50%, with 36% winning 51%-70% of their new client proposals, while 23% have a win rate above 70%.

"We don't track opportunities that we don't pursue," says Stephen Rowe, senior business development manager at Mishcon de Reya. "But probably a quarter of opportunities that come in we decide just aren't for us." He explains that "there may be particular types of work that we would prefer not to do, so right at the start there should be consideration as to whether the rewards outweigh any detriments".

Fuller adds: "There are certain sectors where we don't have the expertise and we haven't bothered to pursue particular clients because of that – there are better things that we can do with our time."

Getting lawyers involved in the process divides opinion: 43% of firms train their lawyers in content and production, 57% do not, according to Enable.

At CMS, Geraint Evans, head of new business, explains: "From the moment our lawyers become trainees, newly qualified, to associate, senior associate and then the senior associate programme that goes into the partnership track, pitch training covers many different elements. Within that is winning the work, pitches and tenders, and pitching to clients."

He adds that this includes "the project management element, the development of a proposition, or benefits and understanding what benefits to the client mean".

Similarly, White & Case believes that lawyers need to know about the pitch process. "We put a lot of effort into training our lawyers and increasingly our associates," says Fuller. "We believe very strongly that they should have a very significant part to play in the production of pitches. So we've made a real push in engaging our associates and getting them more involved in pitch production. It's good for their careers: if they want to become partners, they have to have their own business and need to understand the levers and mechanisms around how you win and sustain business."

However, Kirkland does not always get its lawyers involved in drafting pitch document content. "We have a significant sit-down session with attorneys at the beginning of the pitch process and plan out how this pitch is going to look," says Towler. "That hopefully minimises the chances of sending back a draft and it not being totally on point."

On one theme, there is significant common ground: understanding what the client wants is imperative.

Sutcliffe says: "It is critical to ensure that we're up to date on the client – if things are changing in their world, we need to have read the news and thought about the sector they are in and what's affecting them."

Rowe adds: "We engage our business insights team to research the particular company and sector or market and do an analysis, solely so that we can target the document and make it more focused on what the client is after."

A review of pitch strategy is undertaken at least once a year by three quarters of firms. How much senior management choose to involve themselves in the pitch process is surprisingly high: 28% are very involved, 61% somewhat involved, and only 11% are not involved at all.

Among those firms where they are very involved is Mishcon. Inevitably, the firm's senior management are most hands on "in larger tenders, for example at the initial stage where we consider whether or not the opportunity is for us", says Rowe. "Then there's a period during which the technical elements of the pitch are pulled together by relevant partners and the business development team. The document will then be circulated more widely before it is sent to a prospective client, to ensure everyone is happy. That's a second opportunity for senior management to provide input."

BD professionals face many challenges, from meeting high demand for their work with only limited resources, to working out the most winnable opportunities at the outside to deliver a better return on investment.

But perhaps the biggest challenge is being able to present a unique offering to clients when time and resources are scarce. As one respondent at a major law firm concludes: "We are not able to devote sufficient time to the process generally, which leads to a lack of proper scoping on receipt of invitation; there is insufficient team brainstorming to come up with relevant key messages and examples of ways our skills can translate into tangible benefits for clients."