ALMResearchBlog

Data Content 09

I've just returned from a conference called Data Content 09 run by Infocommerce Group.  To oversimplify, the gist of the two day conference is how companies can use data to create new products, improve current products, collect additional data or license existing data for others to use.

Being in the research and marketing business - content is king.  I know you've heard that before, so have I.  What made me actually pay attention this time is the new ways companies are using different forms of data to enhance their businesses.  User generated content, was a big topic.  Customer reviews and self-submitted profiles continue to grow - and as one participant pointed out - as they grow, the volume of information that gets collected makes them more valuable, and actually drives more user generated content.  Mobile was another big topic.  It's amazing how many iphone apps exist, and even more amazing how many people pay for them and use them.  The question of the day was not "should we develop an iphone app?  it was "what iphone app should we develop?"

How does content relate to your law firm competitive intelligence and business development? 

Well think about your CRM system;  Are you using it to it's fullest?  Capturing as much information as possible on each contact and centralizing that data so that others in the firm with the same contact can append their info? Making them all search-able by practice area, geography, company, industry etc?

How about billing and collections?  Do you know what your realization rates are?  By practice?  Or office?  That information is available in the market to benchmark and compare.  (Full disclosure:  yes, that is a survey that we sell.)

Compensation is another area. And as the market continues to be difficult, many firms are looking at aggressive compensation plans based on performance metrics other than just hours billed. 

Bottom line is that there are plenty of places to look within a law firm, or company, to find information that will either help you run more efficiently, or will create new opportunities for business.

Survey: In-House Counsel Require More of Their Outside Counsel

According to an Associated Press report about the 2007 ACC/Serengeti Managing Outside Counsel Survey counsel have become more systematic in the ways that they manage their work with outside counsel and are applying basic vendor management practices in their evaluations.” Another major change during the past three years, according to the report, has been the increase in resources spent on compliance issues, “including periodic reporting on legal spending and developments.” Benchmarks from the survey available free through SerengetiLaw.com. The full report is $500 for ACC members, and $750 for non-members.

ALM Research E-Newsletter: Tech Focus

The October/November issue of the ALM Research e-newsletter, NewsLine, went out today. The focus of this issue is Technology. Technology surveys, technology studies, technology reports. Ratings of products, rankings of law firms, products law firms and legal departments are using, trends in budgets and salaries, trends in purchasing.

If you're not already a subscriber to the newsletter, you can access the current NewsLine by clicking here and you can subscribe to the newsletter by clicking here.

Global 100: Coverage on the Other Side of the Pond

We’ve seen the coverage in The American Lawyer, but it’s interesting to see what they have to say at Legal Week about the recently-released Global 100, a joint reporting effort of the two magazines. Yes, there are few firms that aren’t from the U.S. or U.K. that wind up on the list each year—Canada, Australia, France, Spain, and Holland also have giant-size firms. But the majority of Global 100 firms are based in the U.S. or U.K., with two U.K. “magic circle” firms taking the top spots.

And what was Legal Week’s take on this year’s rankings?  Headline: Global 100: international converts put pressure on Wall Street’s elite. In other words, national U.S. firms that have been in expansion mode (such as Latham & Watkins, Dechert, and Morgan Lewis & Bockius), along with London-based international firms (Clifford Chance, Linklaters, Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, and Allen & Overy) are moving into “Skadden” territory. Legal Week quotes Freshfield’s management as explaining it this way: “There are two trends that can explain why the New York firms are not growing as fast as the European and national US firms. Firstly, they are less inclined to follow the international model and, secondly, the growth of London as a financial centre relative to New York.” And Skadden’s executive partner concurred: “London has become an increasing priority to US firms with significant capital markets practices over the past half-a-dozen years and this will continue to be the case.”

The full data set from the 2007 Global 100 is available from ALM Research Online for both subscribers and non-subscribers. Archival data, starting in 1997, is available to subscribers only.

New Release: The Global 100

The American Lawyer has just published the 2007 Global 100 rankings and once again top three firms on the planet, based on annual gross revenue, are Clifford Chance, Linklaters, and Skadden Arps. But after that, there's been a bit of shuffling of the deck since last year's list. This year, Baker & McKenzie is in 4th place (last year, the firm was 6th), with a gross revenue that is different than what was presented in the annual Am Law 100. This is due to Baker & McKenzie's rather inconvenient fiscal year end, June 30th--two months after the publication of the Am Law 100 report. (Most American law firms' fiscal year coincides with the calendar year; most British, Canadian, and Australian firms' fiscal year ends at the end of the first quarter of the year.)

This year, the Global 100 chart was compiled in conjunction with our new sister publication, Legal Week this year. Note that there are actually three "Global 100" charts: the key chart ranks by gross revenue, and a second chart ranks by size (number of lawyers). A third chart ranks firms by their profits per equity partner; only firms on the first two charts are considered for these rankings. In all, there are 113 firms that made one or both of the first two charts.

The Global 100 in searchable spreadsheet format is now available through the ALM Research Store, and it includes all the data points covered in the three charts. The data from the Global 100 charts is now archived in the ALM Research Online database for subscriber searches.

Outsourcing News

According to a recent post on Bloomberg News, Jones Day and Kirkland & Ellis are among the latest biglaw firms to outsource work to India. The only specific work mentioned in the article customizing a residential lease for all 50 U.S. states. Other work was referred to as simply “low end” or “routine” legal work. Also mentioned are a variety of companies whose in-house legal departments outsource some work to India, as well as the names of a half-dozen India-based outsourcing companies. According to the article, much of the outsourced work is done for roughly 10% of what it would cost in the U.S.

ALM Research has not yet conducted a survey to explore the outsourcing of legal services, but we have surveyed firms to explore the outsourcing of administrative services. That survey, the 2006 Law Firm Outsourcing Survey yielded interesting information about trends in outsourcing human resources, document production and management, IT support, and finances functions. That survey and others are available through ALM Research Publishing.

Commentary on Survey of Law Firm Librarians

Several web sites have posted commentary about the report of the  2007 Law Librarian Survey, published recently in Law Firm Inc. Joe Hodnicki, on the Law Librarian Blog focused on the issues of budget cuts, vendors, and knowledge management, and referenced another post which focused on the fact that “librarians are spending more time on rainmaking by performing marketing and competitive intelligence research which increases their prominence and influence with the lawyers who employ them.” The feature article accompanying the survey report in LFI focused on the fact that Librarians Like Their Jobs But Are Displeased With Vendors.

The survey results are available from the ALM Research Online Store in searchable spreadsheet format and includes data from both the 2007 and 2006 surveys for comparing trends. For a direct link to the product, click here.

Firm Financials: Baker & McKenzie

The Am Law 200 has barely been assimilated into our archives, and now Baker & McKenzie, which has a different fiscal year cycle than most of the other top firms, has announced that its gross revenue for the 2006-2007 fiscal year has risen by 20% and its profits per equity partner have broken $1 million. Still, though it’s the largest firm in the world based on number of lawyers, Baker will continue to trail AmLaw number-one firm, Skadden Arps, which registered $1.829 billion in revenue for fiscal year 2006.

But all the U.S. firms will have to take a back seat to U.K.’s “magic circle” firms in the upcoming 2007 Global 100 (October issue of The American Lawyer). Using today’s conversion rates, Clifford Chance is destined to take the top spot, with about $2.366 billion in revenue, and Linklaters is not far behind, with $2.222 billion, followed Freshfields with approximately $1.954 billion.

For those who want to get a jump on how the Global list will play out, financials for The Am Law 200 are available through the ALM Research Store. Our sister publication in London, Legal Week, has their Top 50 available in PDF format. 

Executive Compensation Responsible for Increase in Compliance Cost?

Foley & Lardner recently released the results of its fifth annual survey of Sarbanes-Oxley costs. Among the findings, as described in a web-only report from National Law Journal, was that corporations’ Sarbanes-Oxley Act compliance spending costs with outside advisers climbed in 2006, while internal compliance costs dropped. Foley & Lardner attributes last year's uptick to executive compensation disclosure rule changes, higher audit fees, and board compensation. To download the report from Foley & Lardner’s web site, click here

Wall St. Journal Free Company Research

The WSJ has a new feature, earnings cheat sheets for Q2 2007 that's bookmark-worthy, along with its Markets Data Center, which provides information on U.S. and international stocks, exchange-traded funds, mutual funds, bonds, rates and credit markets, and much more.