Friday, July 25, 2003 2:18 PM
Ran across this interesting book covering the topic of how businesses buy legal services.
Inside Outside: How Businesses Buy Legal Services
by Larry Smith, Richard S. Levick
My own sense is that businesses, especially larger businesses, still make decisions based on old line factors such as personal relationships, networking and lawyer/firm reputation. Decisions based on technologies that a lawyer/firm can bring to the relationship, seem the exception rather than the rule. Part of this reality likely results from a lack of knowledge as to what technology can offer. Indeed, as Law.com recently acknowledged in this article, corporate legal departments often lag well behind the law firms that serve them in terms of technology use.
And, yet, in survey after survey, corporate counsel respond that they would love for the lawyers that serve them to offer technology solutions that enhance the legal relationship, especially in the area of administrative and document control efficiencies.
Perhaps as the leading edge of the Blawg community continues to push for a greater role for weblogs in legal marketing and knowledge management, it would pay dividends to explore how potential clients think and make decisions with regard to their legal spend.