Many partners feel uncomfortable pricing their services. Building their knowledge in the field can improve their confidence. This session covers:

• Contemporary theory and practice for the pricing of professional services
• How to influence a client’s willingness to pay
• Leading practices in pricing professional services
• Practical guidance for improving the pricing outcomes in your practice

To avoid competing on price, firms must compete on value. This session focuses on credibly demonstrating the value we deliver to clients. It covers:

• A comprehensive framework for identifying the value lawyers create for clients
• An exploration of how leading partners effectively demonstrate the value they deliver
• Methods of communicating value before, during and upon completion of matters

When partners struggle to win work at rates targeted by their firms, the common response is to offer a bigger discount. This significantly impacts on the profitability – and viability – of the practice. Rather than win work at discounted prices, partners need to know how to win work at premium prices. This session covers:

• How to identify opportunities to win work at premium prices
• How to justify why we should be chosen, even if we are more expensive
• Alternative strategies for dealing with low utilization

Most sophisticated clients seek estimates from firms and are increasingly treating these estimates like capped fees. This session covers:

• A range of approaches for creating estimates including how to deal with uncertainty
• Practical tips for increasing the chance of success when providing an estimate
• Strategies for dealing with cost over-runs and scope creep in a manner that clients appreciate

Clients are regularly seeking more innovative pricing arrangements from firms and yet they are often disappointed with the response. This session covers:

• Dealing with client requests for innovative pricing arrangements
• A comprehensive look at AFAs, when to use them and how to manage them
• A practical guide to using AFAs including an exploration of leading case studies

Increasingly large clients are requiring firms to submit bids in order to win projects. While tender success can be essential to ensuring a regular flow of work, the pricing of bids may significantly restrict the profit potential of the firm. This session covers:

• A broad range of practical strategies to increase success rates in competitive bids
• Research evidence on how clients perceive firms actually differentiate themselves to justify selection
• When to loss-lead and how to deal with “low ball” competitors

Clients are under pressure to contain and reduce their budgets. Not surprisingly, they are increasingly negotiating fees with firms. This session covers:

• Dealing with common pricing challenges such as “The estimate’s too high”, “That’s more than your competitors”, “I thought that was included in the original estimate”, and “Other firms are offering me a 20% discount”
• Converting confrontational negotiations into relationship development exercises
• Strategies for dealing with different types of clients including aggressive buyers

Mid-market firms often feel their pricing is constrained both by the high levels of competition from direct competitors and by premium firms competing aggressively in their space. This session covers:

• How leading mid-market firms have increased their price-setting discretion
• How to compete effectively – and justify our price – against premium firms, other mid-market firms and low-cost alternative providers
• Behaviors that drive the success of mid-market firms

A recent report described client experience “as the new frontier on which law firms are competing.” To enhance the client experience firms need to make all interactions with clients – from engagement through to invoicing – as seamless and positive as possible. Unfortunately, research indicates that the primary issues damaging the client experience are all pricing related. This session covers:

• The various pricing interactions that can damage client relationships
• The contrast between client and partner concerns with pricing
• How firms can use pricing to enhance the client experience

One of the most powerful yet underused pricing approaches is to provide our clients with different pricing options. This approach can often help change the client conversation from “should we use you” to “how do we best use you?”. How can you use pricing options to change your client conversations for the better? This session covers:

• Why options are a key component of our professional services “pricing tool-box”
• How to effectively develop your pricing options
• Understanding available and appropriate options to provide
• How to effectively communicate your pricing options to your clients

Whilst a large number of professional services firms now have pricing functions in place to help their partners, fee earners and client teams, many do not, despite this being acknowledged as one of the main drivers of more profitable growth and stronger client relationships within professional services firms. So, what should you be considering if you want to get started? This session covers:

• Understanding the positive impact these teams can have, and how to assess this prior to hiring
• What type of skills leading firms’ look for and where to find them
• How pricing teams are structured for success
• What other leading firms are doing

Once your pricing team is in place, how do you make sure they continue to deliver value for your firm and also continue to develop the required pricing and broader commercial skills within the team? This session covers:

• Identifying and prioritizing your key pricing opportunities
• Planning team succession – balancing skills, opportunities and impact
• How other leading firms have approached this challenge

Although we all negotiate every day at a personal level and are often required to do so for our respective clients, the thought of conducting a commercial or fee negotiation can fill many people with a sense of dread. How can you avoid the key negotiation pitfalls, become more comfortable when having these discussions, and create greater value for both your firm and your clients? This session covers:

• Understanding the key phases of a negotiation and how to prepare for success
• Avoiding the key pitfalls of negotiation and understanding the impact of “value-adds”
• Dealing with intermediaries – effectively engaging with client procurement or operational teams
• Successfully negotiating significant fee or rate increase

We strongly believe that pricing is not an “event” but more of a process. This means that we should be managing our pricing conversations throughout the delivery of the project and overall client relationship. For many in law firms, this means having a much greater focus on legal project management and its key themes. But how can get your attorneys started on their LPM journey? Over three separate sessions (or one longer one, based on your preference), we cover the following:

• Session 1 – What LPM is all about
  • Why legal project management matters for our firm and to our clients
  • The basic principles of project management
• Session 2 – Putting LPM into action: starting well
  • Scoping, budgeting and communications
• Session 3 – Putting LPM into action: staying focused and finishing strongly
  • Managing and controlling the matter
  • Knowledge capture and driving process improvement
  • Training recap