Satisfied Clients Could Signal An Inefficient Law Department

Client satisfaction with legal departments is often measured by annual surveys, in which clients rate the service they are receiving. But giving individuals or even specific divisions within a company “good service” may not be best for the business as a whole. The goal should be supporting the business strategy, while protecting against and managing risk.

The most effective method of understanding expectations and priorities is “management by walking around.” This should include conversations that are designed to garner feedback on what legal needs to be doing to support the client and how the client views the relationship.

Attending client meetings is another good way of learning and facilitating dialogue. Once a strong mutual understanding of how legal should (and perhaps should not) support the client is established, annual surveys then can be used to diagnose how well the department is executing.

In depth understanding of business priorities, coupled with existing oper-ational mandates – for example cost reduction targets –  can be used to drive informed, strategic decision making on matters such as staffing, resource allocation and selection of outside counsel.

Communicating the plan through the legal department should be done with an eye toward getting all who are involved to understand the ultimate purpose and enabling the company to achieve its goals. Satisfying the enterprise becomes the primary motivator, rather than doing what is necessary at the moment to satisfy an individual client.