October 6, 2006
Benchmarking Services for Midsized Law Firms
Competitive intelligence and specifically peer group benchmarking has been growing in importance as law firms increasingly adopt traditional business practices. This post is one of several summarizing information garnered from the September 2006 Benchmarking Symposium held in Nashville, Tennessee.
Juris, Inc. recently joined the ranks of Redwood Analytics and Thomson West in offering automated peer group benchmarking. What sets Juris apart is that its service is targeted at midsized firms—those below the largest 200 law firms. Until now only BigLaw has had the insight one gains from meaningful peer group competitive intelligence. Not any more! Juris has changed that.
Juris, Inc. referenced the company’s recent Law Firm Economic Survey in noting that firms that set goals, measured performance, and held people accountable dramatically outperformed others. The disparity in per-partner income between the top performing 25 percent of midsized U.S. law firms and the rest of the pack is eye-opening. Partners in the top 25 percent earn twice the income of the next quartile and more than seven times the per-partner income of the lowest 25 percent.
Intuitively, managing partners understand. For years they have purchased every law firm survey they could get their hands on. Unfortunately, the surveys were always at least one year outdated. Most firms could never find survey segmentations that represented a perfect peer group for comparisons.
Automated benchmarking services change everything for the law firm. Live benchmarking and shared information among anonymous peers will identify areas of competitive advantage as well as areas for improvement—from billing rates to collection days. Just as record keeping in sports has changed the quality of the game, live peer group benchmarking will change the practice of law for the better.
Juris Insight is the first live benchmarking system created solely for the benefit of midsized law firms. Unlike traditional surveys, Insight provides information that is as up to date as your most recent monthly reports. Using state-of-the-art data extraction technology, Insight directly pulls standardized information from your database, encrypts it and sends it via highly secure Web services to the Juris data center – of course, all names and other identifying information are purged from the system – where it is aggregated into our data warehouse. The information is then presented via a customizable Web site called JurisInsight.com.
Today, law firm managing partners and executives invest significantly in the purchase of year-old surveys, and then invest their time and staff time in comparative analysis against imperfectly matched segmentations. They do this in an effort to collect competitive intelligence as a guide for improving the law firm’s own performance. Automated benchmarking eliminates manual compiling of information, replaces year old information with a continuous flow of business and competitive intelligence information.
Juris Insight service is currently available only for law firms using Juris business software but Juris, Inc. expects to eventually expand its offering to all law firms in the future.
Previous posting covering other presentations during the symposium include the following:
- The Importance & Power of Legal Surveys
- Benchmarking Services by Redwood Analytics
- CitiGroup Private Bank Benchmarking Involvement
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