I’ve written many articles and blogs about cross-selling and both internal and external referral management. And I always mention the need to remove barriers and risks and ensure that there are adequate rewards. So here’s an interesting Legal marketing case study.
So I was interested to talk to the good people of Keystone Law. This is a 150 lawyer firm (average age of 44 and 22 years’ PQE) using some cool technology which allows flexible working and fee rates across 25 practice areas from £240 to £450 an hour.
Clients go to Keystone for a personal service and their clients range from small and medium sized businesses to large corporates and from sophisticated individuals to household names. Their lawyers do not have billing targets and control their own workloads. They are remunerated through a US style performance-related pay (“eat what you kill”) scheme – receiving a direct cut of their fees as well as a share of the fees from work done by colleagues following their referral.
What is even more striking about this unusual business model is that the internal referrals bonus ensures that whilst each lawyer typically generates 60% of his or her own work, 40% is generated by colleagues in the firm. That’s a pretty impressive cross-selling achievement!
And they shared another interesting insight with me. They regularly conduct internal surveys. In the latest of such they asked “to what extent has joining Keystone had a positive impact on your life?” 83% said joining had had a “very positive effect” and the balance replied to say the effect had been “positive”. And the biggest reasons the lawyers had left their previous firms and joined Keystone? 86% said “office politics”…
Further information:
http://www.lawsetfree.com/ The lifestyle calculator is particularly interesting!
