Why Fred Flintstone Should Work With George Jetson – Use Court Data For Business Development
on Topics: Use Cases
In a recent post at the Mad Clientist BTI blog entitled “Forget AI, Fred Flintstone Has a BD [Big Data] Lesson for Law Firms,” Michael B. Rynowecer, the President and Founder of BTI, gave advice on a simple “stone age” approach to keeping tabs on your firm’s relationships with major clients.
What Rynowecer suggested is that law firms try one simple trick to retain clients and get more of their business. What firms need to do, according to Rynowecer, is count their clients and the client billings.
Rynowecer argued that just keeping track of when your clients are and are not using your services, noticing when contact is waning and thus when you are billing them less, will help you keep your clients and get more of their business.
“Any top client who shrank to become a regular client deserves immediate attention, as does any client where billings shrank at all.” – MBR, Mad Clientist BTI blog, February 21, 2018
Rynowecer is absolutely right, of course. That is, he’s right when he says that keeping track of when you’re losing clients and keeping track of when you’re billing clients less is absolutely necessary.
Although this is great advice, once you’ve done the counting your firm will also gain a tremendous advantage from using court data to get the whole picture of your client’s litigation history via legal analytics.
You’ll be able to discover:
- Whether your client’s litigation is trending up or down
- What law firms your client retains
- What percent of your client’s litigation is going to your firm vs. your competitors
- Measure the results of your business development efforts over time.
Consider this example:
Let’s say Google is a major client whose billings declined in 2017. Using legal analytics you could discover whether their litigation has really decreased or is more of it going to your competitors?
Analyzing Google’s litigation history will help you figure out just how much of their business you are or are not losing.
Is your competitor’s hourly rate just lower? Do they offer flat fee arrangements? Would offering to match your competitor’s rates win back or gain more of their business?
Fred Flintstone style counting with an abacus is a great first step towards client retention, but getting a complete picture of your clients’ litigation needs through court data and legal analytics will give you the whole picture.
So, yes, turn to the Flintstones and count your clients and track billings, but don’t forget to turn to the Jetsons as well. Using big data and legal analytics from court records is a powerful tool for client retention and business development.
About UniCourt
UniCourt connects people to court records. We are on a two-fold mission to organize court records and make them universally accessible and useful, and to help our customers use court data to find and retain clients and grow their business.