From Data to Advantage: How Law Firms Are Closing the Gap

hbspt.content.create({ region: "eu1", portalId: "329016", embedId: "428674845915", elementId: "hs-embed-428674845915-vkubl3" }); .hs-form-59a68002-eaea-4738-808a-8dec53121d1c_e2d488f2-22e9-490f-a64d-fe4515c4e32d .hs-field-desc { width: 100%; font-weight: 300; padding: 0.5em 0; } #hs_cos_wrapper_widget_1782749955940-428674845915 > div > div > div > div > div > div.hsv-form > div > div > a { background-color: #4B4897; color: white; padding: 1em; } .hsv-overlay-close { display: none !important; } .hsv-form-wrapper { display: flex; justify-content: center; align-items: center; height: 100%; } .hsv-form { width: 50%; justify-content: center; } The role of data in business development “Embedding data means moving past the ad hoc, unstructured use of data — Companies House, Google lookups — into structured data that lets you refine, measure and improve commercial processes.” Sam Jennings, Commercial Intelligence Lead at Beauhurst That shift only works if the underlying data can be trusted. A structured process built on patchy or out-of-date information runs into the same problems as no process at all: decisions made on data that looked complete, but wasn’t. Data in isolation is not inherently useful, and it does not automatically translate to revenue. Businesses experience this most when they rely on unstructured data and manual research. And far too often, the collection and structuring of data is mistaken for being the endpoint: figures go in, the dashboards populate, and the work appears to be done. Leor Franks, Chief Commercial Officer at Kingsley Napley, sees this exact pattern across the firms he knows: “Putting those data sets together is often a source of triumphalism. People say, ‘Yes, I’ve done it, I’ve got the data together.’ The gap I see is: “so what?” What’s the intelligence coming out of that data? How do we provide it in a fashion that’s actionable?” Leor Franks, Chief Commercial Officer at Kingsley Napley

An example of this working well might be where a firm spots a shift before it becomes public. A client closing a funding round rarely stops at the financing: it usually means expansion, new hires, and a run of legal needs over the months that follow. Caught early, that single event becomes a reason to open a conversation while there is still time to shape the work, before the company begins looking for advisers.That question, ‘so what?’ is the one that separates law firms that acquire data, and those that use it to drive commercial strategy, outreach, and decision-making.

The four-step maturity model “There’s massive variation across the board. Even in those larger firms, where you have all the systems and all the people, that doesn’t necessarily mean they have it figured out — or that they use data in a perfectly smooth process.” Ann-Charlotte Binnberg, Business Development and Marketing Director at Reddie & Grose If the gap is the problem, the next question is who has crossed it. The answer from the panel is very few. And most firms place themselves further along than they actually are.Sam Jennings talks to companies across the full range every week, and the progression he describes falls into four rough stages: Breaking ground, Finding the trend line, Centralising, and Automating the process.Breaking ground means getting some structured data into the process for the first time. In practice, this could be building a firm’s first targeted list or finding a repeatable way to identify routes of introduction. “Once you get some structured data into your commercial processes, it creates a snowball effect. You start to ask questions: how do I define this client or prospect? And how big does a list need to be to convert? Whether that’s attending an event, or becoming a customer.” Sam Jennings, Commercial Intelligence Lead at Beauhurst

Once you have that baseline experience of introducing data into your commercial workflow, the process  evolves to the second step, finding the trend line. This turns scattered data points into a clearer, more cohesive picture of what a good client looks like, and which emerging markets to position around. This helps reach your audience via a series of co-ordinated marketing campaigns.Achieving the data maturity that comes with the second step enables the third; centralising the client view. In practice, this means using your CRM effectively in a way that your client’s needs are understood across the entire firm. This way, the right team can step in with the right service at the right moment and turn a single-service relationship into a full service client. With a comprehensive data-driven system in place, the fourth and final step is automating the process. This is where data flows in automatically through connected pipelines. Here, the work shifts from collecting it to interpreting it well and repeating the process whenever you introduce a new data point that could be commercially viable.

How signals shift knowledge to action BD has two parts: knowing who to approach, and knowing when. Using data to signal when to act is what helps a firm progress. Sam addresses the distinction between the two: “Location, sector, size: that’s not a signal, that’s a qualification criteria at most. It gives you guard rails for who you should and shouldn’t speak to. The next step is the timing trigger: the justification to start a conversation, a marker of near-future activity you can assist with.” Sam Jennings, Commercial Intelligence Lead at Beauhurst The signal is the marker that turns a potential prospect into a conversation worth having now. Take a corporate example: a company that fits your profile is knowledge; the same company growing its headcount fast, and hiring a CFO who has taken businesses to an exit before, is a signal. It’s a clear indicator that the company could be building toward a transaction.IP works in a similar way. An early-stage university spinout in your desired sector is knowledge. The same spinout starting to file patents internationally is a signal: it’s a concerted move to protect innovation, and a clear indicator for your firm to reach out before other advisers.Claus Andersen, Partner at Freeths, addresses this, adding that trigger points are data-driven calls to action for firms to act. “It’s about why you should contact a client, and why now. It could be a new piece of legislation that will affect the business. You identify the trigger points where you can get in front of a client and talk about what they should be concerned about.” Claus Andersen, Partner at Freeths In practice, look at the work you win most frequently, then work backwards to what usually precedes the deal. For example, a corporate team that might be a funding round, and for IP, a first international patent filing. These are your triggers. Adoption as the biggest threat to data-driven BD Ask a corporate partner what makes a CRM work and the answer is unlikely to be about the data. Edward Chapman, Partner at Acuity Law, judges it on use: “The best CRM is the one people actually use, day to day. I’ve seen initiatives where there’s great adoption for the first week or two, then it tails off. The fewer clicks and the fewer diversions from the day job, the better.” Edward Chapman, Partner at Acuity Law The failure he describes is familiar to anyone who has rolled one out: strong adoption for a fortnight, then people slip back to how they worked before.For Claus Andersen, avoiding that means deciding what the firm actually needs before building anything, and keeping it easy enough to reach and read that a time-poor lawyer will bother. He applies the same discipline to what goes in, advising people to enter the point and little else: “Why do you make the entry? What message do you want to convey? That’s it, nothing more. Very few people in an organisation have time to go through heaps of information.” Claus Andersen, Partner at Freeths The firms that get this right tend to spend less on technology and more on routine. Ann-Charlotte Binnberg built the data into a meeting her teams were already having: “We have CRM data as a standing item in our monthly sector groups. We look at our targets, our clients, what’s going on in the sector, and we agree then and there who’s doing what. It stops being a question of if, and becomes how and when.” Ann-Charlotte Binnberg, Business Development and Marketing Director at Reddie & Grose

The value there is less the dashboard than the decision it forces, made while the people who would act on it are in the room.

Who should own it? There is less agreement on who should be handling the data in the first place. Thomas Wells, Director of Commercial Growth at Frazier & Deeter UK, takes the line that it shouldn’t necessarily be the fee earners: “If you’re paying someone to deliver exceptional work, asking them to step away and do something with data they may not enjoy or be equipped for is very challenging.” Thomas Wells, Director of Commercial Growth at Frazier & Deeter UK Leor Franks disagrees, at least as a general rule: “In many firms you need everyone to be commercial, everyone thinking about clients. If they’re not, profitability falls and people feel disconnected from the client. The job is to give them access to data in a way that helps them do their job better.” Leor Franks, Chief Commercial Officer at Kingsley Napley Ann-Charlotte Binnberg lands somewhere between the two: in a firm her size, BD sits in the middle, turning the data into something the lawyers can act on. On the question of who formally owns it, she is unfussed, as long as someone does: “Who owns it is, in a way, less important, as long as you have an owner who knows it’s their responsibility.” Ann-Charlotte Binnberg, Business Development and Marketing Director at Reddie & Grose. The key across all three positions is the same: the right owner will vary by firm, but the absence of an owner is where a data-led approach can fail. Whether it sits with BD, a dedicated data team, or a commercial lead matters far less than ensuring someone remains accountable for turning that data into action. How data strengthens the relationship For all the talk of signals and systems, the panel kept returning to the same point: the relationship comes first, and the data serves it rather than replacing. Thomas Wells put it most plainly, arguing that the relationship should lead and the data confirm, rather than the firm finding out what a client is doing by reading about it: “We shouldn’t be saying, ‘we’ve just seen you set up a US subsidiary, how can we help?’ We should have known that three to six months ago. The data tells us it’s been done, and then we can have the conversation about what’s next.” Thomas Wells, Director of Commercial Growth at Frazier & Deeter UK The risk he describes is treating data as a substitute for knowing your client, rather than as a confirmation of what a good relationship already tells you. Ed drew the line in similar terms: “Data might tell you who to call, or what to say. But it’s the relationship that turns a conversation into instructions.” Edward Chapman, Partner at Acuity Law Claus Andersen was more specific about what the data is and isn’t: “It’s a tool, nothing more. It’s not a magic wand, it won’t get you instructed. But used correctly it will help you improve the relationship and get more out of it.” Claus Andersen, Partner at Freeths Sam Jennings made the same case from the other side. In an industry built on credibility and reputation, he argued, taking the human out would be undesirable: “It becomes a relationship enhancer. A helping hand to make sure people are spending their time in the right places, and that they know what to do once they’re there. But ultimately it’s their expertise.” Sam Jennings, Commercial Intelligence Lead at Beauhurst The agreement across the panel is unusual for a discussion about data, and it points to something specific about professional services. Data can tell a firm where to point that judgement and when, but it cannot stand in for it.Firms that understand this can use data to serve their clients better than before. For example, when a material change happens — a raise, new senior hire, acquisition, expansion — that’s a prompt for the firm to get in touch.Over time, the firms that are able to build a workflow that actively assists with partners’ client work, are able to maintain strong relationships throughout their contract. Where to get started with data-driven BD If there is a single thread running through all of this, it’s that the firms pulling ahead are not the ones with the most data. They are the ones asking a sharper question of what they already hold. Leor Franks would put it more simply than that: “For me it’s about the ‘so what’. The actionable insight. What are we going to do next?” Leor Franks, Chief Commercial Officer at Kingsley Napley It is a low bar to clear and a useful place to begin. Most firms already have more than enough data to act on. What they lack is the habit of interrogating it: looking at a dashboard and asking what it actually means for a client this quarter, and what the firm should do about it. From here, you can build triggers based on specific client events and market insights, which fold into your existing BD processes.The other shift worth making is from one-off identification to consistent tracking. Sam Jennings made the point that the value is not in spotting a target once, but in following a client closely enough to catch the moment they need you: “It’s not just that first identification. It’s the consistent tracking of a client over time, so you can intercept them when a specific need emerges. Where you’re not doing that, the risk is that another firm is.” Sam Jennings, Commercial Intelligence Lead at Beauhurst That last point is the commercial edge of the whole conversation. A signal you do not act on is one a competitor might. The data is increasingly available to everyone; the advantage lies in being the firm that turns it into a conversation first. What does good look like?

The practical starting point is to ask the right questions about the data you already have before building new frameworks and systems.That means establishing a few habits: review the signals in meetings your firm already holds, as Ann-Charlotte Binnberg’s sector groups do, and leave with an agreed action and a named owner.Keep discipline on what goes into your CRM. As Claus Andersen puts it, enter the specific point and nothing more, so the system stays something people will actually use.And track existing clients as closely as new targets, so you’re already there when a need emerges. Once these basics are in place, firms can move with more confidence into the sophisticated triggers and workflows that come later.For firms further along the maturity model, good looks like firm-wide use of one CRM, with company data automatically updated by a reliable data source. Good looks like bespoke client and prospect signals, so fee earners are notified when something happens to a client they’d want to know about. Good looks like a whole firm confidently using the same reliable data to act on.This article draws on our webinar with The Lawyer, Beyond the Hype: How Law Firms Are Embedding Data into Growth, Client Relationship Management and Due Diligence. Watch the full session to hear the panel’s discussion in their own words.