October 2, 2006
CitiGroup Private Bank Benchmarking Involvement
Competitive intelligence and specifically peer group benchmarking has been growing in importance as law firms increasing adopt traditional business practices. This post is one of several summarizing information garnered from the September 2006 Benchmarking Symposium held in Nashville Tennessee.
One might be surprised that a bank is one of the leading players in benchmarking services to law firms. CitiGroup Private Bank has 200 professionals who serve law firms. The bank has relationships with 650 firms. Its venture into benchmarking was initially to assist the bank in risk management. Benchmarking separated high-risk situations from those law firms that represented quality relationships for the bank. That evolved into using benchmark information to help bank customers improve financial performance and eventually became a highly sought after service by larger law firms.
CitiGroups answer the question, “Why should you consider benchmarking?” this way: “It lets the members of the law firm know where they are and if they are making progress toward their goals.”
As the City Group representative pointed out during his presentation at the recent Nashville Benchmarking Symposium the legal industry is consolidating and becoming more competitive. Law firms are run more like a business than ever before. Given these conditions a good fact base gained from benchmarking can help gain consensus about important decisions.
Thomson West has partnered with CitiGroup as the content provided for its new PeerMonitor™ service. The service is targeted toward large law firms. Thomson’s news release explained the new services: “Law firm leaders, often frustrated by the lack of real-time competitive information available to them, now have an answer that will help them to make more informed management decisions.” According to Thomson West, PeerMonitor provides law firms with competitive facts as current as the most recent monthly financial statements. PeerMonitor enables law firm executives to benchmark their business performance to a named group of peer law firms across a range of pricing, profit and expense categories.
Other benchmarking providers speaking at the symposium included, Juris, Inc., PriceWaterhouseCoopers, and CitiGroup Private Bank. Juris Insight service is targeted at midsized U. S. law firms. Redwood, PWC and CitiGroup are primarily targeted at the largest 250-attorney to 300-attorney law firms.
Morepartnerincome.com is sponsored by Juris, Inc. For information about Juris® products and services for increasing law firm performance and partner income, go to www.Juris.com.
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Filed under Benchmarking by Tom Collins