Case study: Unlocking the relationship paradox

Squire, Sanders & Dempsey L.L.P. introduced an enterprise relationship management (ERM) solution to merge technology with marketing and give lawyers a greater range of client contact information.

By Susan J. Brelus, chief development officer and George C. Gazdick, chief information officer, Squire, Sanders & Dempsey L.L.P.

Aggressive competition in the legal-services market has heightened the need for thoughtful strategic planning; focused marketing; targeted business-development efforts; and a robust infrastructure to support all of these activities. Over the past several years, Squire Sanders’ business-development and marketing function has changed radically. Increased investment, seasoned talent and sophisticated tools and resources now support formal firm-wide business planning and go-to-market strategies that link regions, industries and practices. Similarly, our technology infrastructure has grown in scope and sophistication to help lawyers deliver outstanding client service and support various business-development efforts. Addressing the intense competitive dynamics in the global legal-services marketplace, our marketing and technology teams have forged a close collaboration to advance many Squire Sanders initiatives.

Relationships: the business core

Sophisticated cultivation of client relationships is essential; both to maintain existing business and expand. Relationships matter because clients put their trust in quality and integrity. They need to know we have their best interests at heart, as well as the expertise to achieve the best possible results. In any service organisation, identifying and understanding the myriad relationships is an extensive challenge. For a complex global law practice, it is daunting indeed, but it must be wrestled to the ground if a firm is to realise its potential. Moreover, as relationships are nurtured, understanding the growing base of relationships helps identify opportunities to offer a broader and more connected portfolio of legal services. In such an effort, the cooperation of marketing and technology professionals can be incredibly productive and, it therefore follows, profitable.

The relationship paradox

At the founding of our firm in 1890, Andrew Squire, Judge William B. Sanders and James H. Dempsey could sit in the same room and quickly figure out their network of relationships and how those relationships could best be served. Nearly 120 years later, our 800 lawyers have networks of relationships with clients, prospective clients and business partners around the world. This sounds great, but paradoxically, the more relationships a firm has, the harder it is to identify and coordinate them. The complexity of this challenge has spawned a range of solutions. At one end of the spectrum, lawyers rely on calling other lawyers or broadcast e-mails firm-wide to ask who knows whom. This method has yielded some benefit but is not scalable in a large service business, nor does it methodically strengthen firm-wide client relationships. At the other end of the spectrum, some firms invest heavily in client-relationship management (CRM) software. CRM applications offer a well-developed database that organises relationship information and provides a much better opportunity to leverage those relationships. However, such a system is only as good as the data supplied.

ERM: our solution

Squire Sanders assessed a number of solutions to the relationship-management challenge. Five requirements ultimately drove our decision to invest in an Enterprise Relationship Management (ERM) solution:

Data capture must be automatic. To be complete, our system would not rely on manual data entry and maintenance to identify and manage relationships or to evaluate the strength of a given relationship. A manual system would never capture everything, and the tool would fall short of expectations, leaving an uphill battle for lawyer acceptance. Furthermore, we wanted to avoid distracting our lawyers from their work for clients, avoid adding overhead and avoid the need for global cultural acceptance as the hinge factor for data entry;
The system must be intuitive and easy to use. The steeper the learning curve, the lower the usage rate would be;
Data output must be comprehensive. While capturing every last relationship may be unrealistic, only reliable and worthwhile reporting results can demonstrate value and earn lawyers' trust in the tool;
Privacy options must be flexible and easily configurable by individual, group, office or country. Individuals need to be comfortable that the integrity of their relationships will not be compromised. This is a must in a collaborative environment, especially one that reaches around the globe. Over and above the personal trust issue, privacy laws in some parts of the world require a much higher level of planning and management than others;
Data must stay within our firewall. Our relationships and contacts are among our most valuable assets, so we strongly favoured an architecture that kept all data inside the firewall.

In short, we wanted a solution that would enable us to capture, catalogue, search and reliably report relationship information without requiring lawyers or staff to add or maintain data manually, and a solution that would also carefully address privacy requirements. For these reasons, we determined early on that any solution would have to be as much a part of the firm’s technology infrastructure as it would be a part of the firm’s client service and business-development efforts.

Solution choice

Squire Sanders selected ContactNet, an ERM solution from Contact Networks, in late 2006. The solution maps Squire Sanders' relationships among employees, companies and contacts by analysing electronic address-book contacts, e-mail traffic patterns and client billing data through its proprietary search technology and algorithms. Information is then presented through a familiar search interface.

The first stage of our implementation, installation, happened quickly, taking only a few weeks from server preparation to a fully functional application, analysing address book contacts and e-mail traffic. Squire Sanders and Contact Networks then mapped client time and billing data to identify relationships that are firm clients and improve relationship-scoring accuracy.

Shortly thereafter we announced adoption of the application to all lawyers and firm personnel – and started realising benefits. Although the ‘does anyone know so-and-so?’ e-mail traffic continues, we are also frequently able to mine ContactNet for answers to such questions and provide timely and accurate responses. The tool also helps the firm to be proactive by identifying connections to clients that strengthen overall understanding of those clients and their needs.

In very little time and with relatively little effort, the firm’s relationship assets have grown noticeably. The total number of relationships catalogued in the system has nearly doubled in just four months. It now has records of more than 850,000 individual contacts in 30,000 companies around the world.

Relationships once lost in the rush of e-mail traffic are now easily accessed when needed. ERM can fill many needs, including those of our client-service teams; proposal and other business-development efforts; geographic business initiatives and cross-selling; internal coordination and communications; and recruiting and lateral integration. Understanding relationships is critical to client service, and hence the success of our business. ERM tools such as ContactNet will continue to be crucial to the firm’s growth and success and the success of its clients.

Susan J. Brelus and George C. Gazdick are chief development officer and chief information officer of Squire, Sanders & Dempsey L.L.P. They can be contacted at sbrelus@ssd.com and ggazdick@ssd.com