How Attorneys Can Use Legal Data for Business Development and Intelligence – Josh Blandi Writes in Attorney at Work

Legal data is an equalizing force giving lawyers the ability to sharpen their business development efforts and hone their business intelligence gathering, regardless of the size of their law firm.

This topic is the focus of UniCourt’s CEO, Josh Blandi’s latest article that was published in Attorney at Work. Josh’s article, “How Attorneys Can Use Legal Data for Business Development and Intelligence,” covers how lawyers can start using legal data in two simple, pragmatic ways by looking at the litigation data of their clients and their competition to uncover new business opportunities and gain invaluable intelligence on their law firm’s overall market share. This article is also the first in a three-part series, where the next two articles will look at how legal data can be used for lateral legal recruiting and long-term law practice planning. 

Here below is an excerpt from Josh’s article in Attorney at Work:

Using legal data for business development and intelligence is no longer something reserved only for BigLaw. With the expansion of the legal tech ecosystem and improved access to tools like litigation data, small law firms and mid-sized firms can take advantage of these advances to gain a competitive edge in the legal services market.

This article is the first in a three part series discussing the ways lawyers and law firms can use legal data to fuel their legal marketing and business development efforts. First, we will discuss how data can drive market share analysis and competitive intelligence. Next, we will cover the ways data can drive insights on other lawyers who could be strategic hires or recruiting targets. Finally, we will explore how data can help drive strategic decision-making on the medium-to-long term health and viability of certain practice areas.

Start with What You Know (or Thought You Knew)

For law firms with little to no experience using litigation data to fuel their legal marketing and business development efforts, the first step is deciding where to start. 

A solid starting point for most firms, and especially defense firms, is to more intentionally examine your client roster. In other words, start where you are, with what you know: your clients. Return to the same well to see if there is more water and get a better sense of the scope of available opportunities. 

First, use litigation data to gather reporting for the last couple years on all of the cases involving one of your top clients that you want to do more business with, and see how much of your client’s legal work you’re getting compared to their total volume of cases. 

Here are some of the key questions to ask when looking at your client’s litigation data:

• What percentage of their overall litigation work are they sending your way? 
• Are there more lucrative types of cases you’d want to take on that are being sent to other law firms? 
• If your client has a steady volume of cases that are outside of your typical practice areas, would you be willing to expand your practice in order to gain new business? 
• What are your trends looking like? Even if it seems like you’re getting more cases year-over-year, in looking at the data, is your total market share with your client increasing or decreasing over time?

These are simple, yet insightful questions that can help small law firms and mid-sized firms determine whether they need to work harder to get more business from their perceived top clients or transition to looking for opportunities from other clients that may have viable long-term opportunities hidden in their litigation data. 

You can read the full article here on Attorney at Work.

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