Small Law Firms

Clio’s Latest Legal Trends Report Reveals A Troubling Truth About Lawyers

Most firms have a long way to go towards improving the client experience by becoming more responsive.

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Four years ago, the practice management company Clio launched the Legal Trends Report, a now-annual analysis of the business of practicing law. What sets it apart from most surveys of law practice is that it is based on actual data — data aggregated and anonymized from the tens of thousands of legal professionals who use Clio’s products.

The first year of that report produced a startling finding: Lawyers spend only 2.3 hours a day on billable tasks and collect an average of only 1.6 hours of their billable time, demonstrating a deep disconnect between how lawyers desire to manage their time and how they actually do.

The 2019 survey, released at the recent Clio Cloud Conference, again brought news, including findings on what drives law firm success and what clients really look for when hiring a lawyer. But the most troubling — even shocking — finding in this year’s survey was based not on time-and-billing data, but on a unique market survey.

Seeking to better understand what it is like to shop for a lawyer in 2019, Clio hired a third-party research company to put itself in the shoes of a person seeking legal help. Pretending to be a potential client, the company emailed 1,000 law firms and telephoned 500 from the same group to collect data on how firms respond to actual inquiries.

Ask lawyers about this, and they will tell you they are great at responding. In surveys conducted by Clio, 89 percent of legal professionals said that they respond to phone and email inquiries within 24 hours. But ask clients what they expect, and Clio’s research has found that 32 percent of clients who have shopped for legal help do not expect a firm to get back to them.

So what did Clio’s sample survey find? I’ll get to that, but first a bit more about the survey.

The survey was conducted among 1,000 randomly selected U.S. law firms with practices focused on at least one of five specific issues:

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  • Family (child custody);
  • Criminal (domestic abuse charge);
  • Bankruptcy (debt elimination);
  • Employment (racial discrimination); or
  • Business (incorporation).

The outreach to each firm was tailored to correspond with the type of law the firm practiced. Firms chosen for the survey all had to have:

  • An active web presence (such as a live website, a social page with activity in the three months prior to the study, or an active directory page);
  • A publicly available email and phone number; and
  • Information available that indicated they handle legal issues related to the ones in the survey.

Now for the surprising findings: 60 percent of law firms did not respond to the emails at all and 27 percent of firms did not answer or return phone calls.

Think about that email finding and how it correlates to your own experience as a consumer. When you inquire about a product or service, how are you most likely to initiate that inquiry? For most of us, the answer is email. Clio’s research finds that 25 percent of clients prefer email as their initial method of outreach.

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Yet even those firms that responded by email did not do so in a manner that was responsive to the potential client’s concerns. Fifty-three percent of the email responses asked that the clients follow-up by phone. Just 29 percent of firms that responded by email provided responses that were timely, clear, answered at least one question, and provided some information on either booking a consultation or cost.

A “law firm email scorecard” included in the report gave only two of the 1,000 firms surveyed an excellent rating, meaning they achieved six criteria:

  • Responded within 24 hours;
  • Professional and courteous;
  • Clear and easy to understand;
  • All questions answered regarding the matter and the lawyer’s ability to help;
  • Detailed information on what to expect from the process and next steps; and
  • Detailed information on consultations and overall rates or cost.

Phone calls to firms fared better. Of the 500 firms called, 56 percent answered. Another 39 percent went to voicemail. Of those, 57 percent did not return the voicemails within 72 hours. Overall, 73 percent either answered or returned the call, meaning that 27 percent of firms never did.

Responding to a call is one thing, but being responsive is another, the survey found. The survey found that few of the firms that answered or returned calls were able to provide key information by phone or even to demonstrate their knowledge and experience in the type of case. Many firms said they would discuss these matters only in a face-to-face meeting.

For the “law firm phone scorecard,” Clio gave 20 firms — or 7 percent of the total — an excellent rating. This was based on the extent to which they did the following during the call:

  • Answered most questions asked;
  • Demonstrated experience with the client’s legal issue;
  • Provided information on rates or overall cost; and
  • Explained the process and next steps.

Clio says this survey represents the largest primary data set ever assembled on law firm responsiveness. But what do the findings mean? The Legal Trends Report offers several takeaways.

For one, the survey suggests that most firms have a long way to go towards improving the client experience by becoming more responsive. For another, the lack of responsiveness probably also indicates a deeper underlying problem of a lack of efficient processes. And whatever reason underlies a firm’s failure to provide a better client experience, it is undoubtedly holding the firm back from greater success.

Of course, the flip side of some firms’ failures is other firms’ opportunity.

“This deficiency presents a major opportunity for law firms to innovate and differentiate themselves within their markets,” the report says. “Firms that meet — or exceed — expectations will capture more clients as they reach out. Firms that can then fulfill their client work in a similar manner will also grow their referral opportunities down the road.”

In the keynote he delivered to open the Clio Cloud Conference, CEO Jack Newton talked about the access-to-justice paradox in the legal market. On the consumer side, there is a huge unmet demand for legal services. On the law firm side, 81 percent of lawyers say they are looking for more clients. This gap in access to justice, he said, is an enormous opportunity for firms that make the effort to be more entrepreneurial and deliver better customer service.

Even just small steps by a firm can make a big difference, Newton said, alluding to the Legal Trends Report. “You can improve access to justice literally just by answering the phone,” he said. “There is so much market opportunity to be unlocked just by doing simple things.”

Robert Ambrogi Bob AmbrogiRobert Ambrogi is a Massachusetts lawyer and journalist who has been covering legal technology and the web for more than 20 years, primarily through his blog LawSites.com. Former editor-in-chief of several legal newspapers, he is a fellow of the College of Law Practice Management and an inaugural Fastcase 50 honoree. He can be reached by email at [email protected], and you can follow him on Twitter (@BobAmbrogi).

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