Client Feedback Vital For Law Departments

Internal client feedback is an effective tool for maximizing the satisfaction of internal clients. In one example, the legal department of a Fortune 500 pharmaceutical company wanted to measure the satisfaction of its internal corporate clients and what the department could do to improve it. Executives from sales and marketing, research and development and the finance/HR operating groups were interviewed. A central theme that emerged was that the legal department had “right-sized” itself to the point that it had become too small to get work done in a timely fashion.

One change that ensued was a new process by which attorneys began working on specified days each month in the operating groups that requested this accommodation. Response time from executives’ queries was reduced by 25 percent. Another development was the establishment of a protocol for engaging select outside firms for intellectual property matters that have become bottle-necked in the legal department.

Jeff Carr, former General Counsel for FMC Corporation, suggests some reasons why more corporate legal departments don’t seek feedback. “Some attorneys are afraid of what they might hear,” he says.

Another reason is that some in-house departments think they receive feedback on a daily basis just from interacting with clients. Carr contends that normal interaction is not feedback, it’s just the working process. He suggests adding a feedback loop that pointedly helps uncover what the lawyers in the department can do and their time frame for getting each matter accomplished.