Let’s start by thinking about a partner at a law firm.
A long-time, valued client calls and says, “We have a big new intellectual property matter in LA. Does your firm have anyone who can help?”
What’s the correct response? Perhaps the partner, being a team player, gives what the firm perceives as the preferred response: “You’re in luck! We have one of the world’s finest IP partners in LA! Let me get back to you in a half hour with his name.” The partner hangs up the phone and then sends out an email to “all partners”: “Do we have anyone in LA who does IP work?”
Protégé™ In CourtLink® Explains The Whole Case Faster
Designed to reduce manual docket work by prioritizing what litigators need most: on-demand full docket summarization that explains the whole case to date, followed by on-demand document summaries for filing triage, and AI-powered natural language searching for faster search and retrieval.
Or perhaps the partner isn’t that much of a team player. Suppose the partner is more — what’s the word? Self-preserving? Client-focused? Honest? This partner tells her valued client: “I’ve worked with our IP partners in LA, and I can’t honestly recommend any of them to you. Let me poke around and find you a decent referral outside our firm.”
This raises a few questions.
First, which of these two answers is best for the law firm? I can almost hear my hypothetical managing partner bellowing, “Cross-sell! Cross-sell! It’s virtually impossible to bring new clients into the firm, and the road to riches requires cross-selling!”
But what if the honest partner is right? The IP characters in LA are a bunch of bumbling fools. Cross-selling to those clowns would ultimately frustrate a long-time client and threaten the existing client relationship. Isn’t the honest partner doing not just herself, but also the firm, a favor by giving the client helpful advice and avoiding a future client-relations nightmare? Maybe cross-selling isn’t always the road to riches.
Legal Is Changing. And NeoSummit Is Where The Future Is Being Built.
Legal and operational leaders are gathering May 6–7 in Fort Lauderdale to confront the questions the industry hasn't answered—with a keynote from Amanda Knox setting the tone.
Change your focus from a single law firm to one of those consortiums of smaller law firms that have grouped together to be able to provide services across the globe through “member firms.” Do the partners at one of those firms really know anything about the partners at the others — other than that they’re duty-bound to cross-sell to each other? (That question is actually less rhetorical than it sounds. Perhaps those consortiums actually do a fair amount of due diligence about their members and are not cross-selling beyond the limits of their knowledge. I have no idea.)
Change your focus again, to any professional services firm. Should a partner at an accounting firm cross-sell services that would be provided by someone with suspect abilities? An investment bank? A firm of investigators with offices around the world, some strong and others weak?
The folks who runs those types of places may fervently believe that aggressive cross-selling is in the firms’ best interest, and that may be absolutely wrong.
Finally, think about assigning lawyers to handle matters in-house. All in-house lawyers are not created equal. If you want business people to trust the law department, you must assign lawyers to tasks carefully. And remember that there’s no need to cross-sell in the in-house environment: If you’re launching an IP initiative and don’t have an in-house lawyer who’s up to the task, don’t fake it. Hire outside counsel; explain to finance and the business that there’s an unmet need that requires hiring a new in-house lawyer; pick up a consultant on a part-time basis.
One of the glories of in-house work is that you’re no longer explicitly selling (or cross-selling) your services any more. (I used the word “explicitly” for a reason. In any business environment, you’re always selling yourself implicitly, in the sense that you’re the best advertisement for yourself. If you’re no good, you’ll have no repeat customers, and that’s not great for advancing your career.)
Folks at professional services firms must wrestle with their consciences as they decide whether to cross-sell. In-house lawyers on the receiving end of a cross-sale pitch must be sensitive to the seller’s conflicting interests. And in-house lawyers who are supporting corporate clients are largely relieved of these pressures entirely.
Mark Herrmann spent 17 years as a partner at a leading international law firm and is now deputy general counsel at a large international company. He is the author of The Curmudgeon’s Guide to Practicing Law and Inside Straight: Advice About Lawyering, In-House And Out, That Only The Internet Could Provide (affiliate links). You can reach him by email at [email protected].