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The Mad Clientist

GCs Single Out Law Firm Power Players in 18 Industries

By July 19, 2017April 16th, 2020No Comments

Some firms deliver 3.1 practices to their clients on a regular basis while ringing up $32,000 more in profits per attorney than competitors. They also are getting vastly larger shares of client spending. These firms are in Clientopia®—the strongest relationship you can ever have.

Testing Your Relationships for Clientopia

You look to 2 undeniable milestones when measuring Clientopia. First, attaining status as the lead primary provider—a position reserved for the single firm capturing the bulk of a client’s work. You are also the most important firm to your client on a continuing basis.

Second, the honor of being first recommended to a peer. Not just a plain, old recommendation—as in “will you recommend me?”—but the highly prized, elusive unprompted recommendation clients share with each other in confidence. The firm who gets the unprompted peer-to-peer recommendation is the one with the emotionally invested client. Emotionally invested clients give you more pricing flexibility, work without competitive bid, share their deepest concerns, give you feedback, and actively work to make you successful. (The only way to win this envied investment is to deliver superior client service.)

The rare combination of being lead primary provider and earning unprompted peer recommendations places you in Clientopia—the strongest type of client relationship. Firms in Clientopia enjoy preferred access to the best work, more intellectual challenge, higher rates, and a generally more fulfilling experience.

Law Firms with More of the Best Relationships

We conducted in-depth interviews with more than 950 top legal decision makers—all of whom answered the question about their primary firms and exactly who they recommend to their peers—with no suggestions of names or firms. Our goal: to identify the law firms with the strongest relationships.

Only 143 law firms are in Clientopia relationships spread across 18 industries. We found 24 law firms capture more Clientopia relationships, along with delivering a greater number of practices, reaping higher profits per attorney and a larger share of spending than all other firms—these are the BTI Clientopia 24. Please join us in congratulating these firms on earning the largest number of Clientopia relationships of all law firms serving large clients:

  1. Jones Day
  2. Skadden
  3. Dentons
  4. Latham & Watkins
  5. McGuireWoods
  6. Cooley
  7. DLA Piper
  8. Sidley
  9. Kirkland & Ellis
  10. Polsinelli
  11. Hogan Lovells
  12. WilmerHale
  13. Orrick
  14. Reed Smith
  15. Ogletree Deakins
  16. Wachtell Lipton
  17. BakerHostetler
  18. Gibson Dunn
  19. Norton Rose Fulbright
  20. Bryan Cave
  21. Cleary Gottlieb
  22. Paul, Weiss
  23. Crowell & Moring
  24. Alston & Bird

You can see exactly where your firm stands by industry—and overall—and learn how to capture more of these coveted relationships in our newest report BTI Industry Power Rankings 2017.

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