0:03 Hello and welcome to the 16th annual BTI
0:05 market outlook and client service
0:08 review. I'm Michael Rhinoeser, the
0:10 president and founder of the BTI
0:12 Consulting Group. Uh we have a great
0:13 crowd today. We're going to break a
0:16 record as soon as everybody is finished
0:18 logging on and we're pretty excited.
0:20 We've got a lot of things to cover
0:23 today. Um we have uh such a large crowd.
0:25 Unfortunately, we cannot take questions
0:28 live, but please send them to BTI
0:31 webinars at bti consulting.com and we
0:34 will respond after the session. There
0:36 will be a recording of today's session
0:38 available. We're hoping to get it out
0:40 first thing uh tomorrow morning. So,
0:43 that'll be our afternoon priority. Uh it
0:46 is afternoon here just outside of Boston
0:50 where BTI is located. It is 42 degrees
0:52 with a gorgeous blue sky. I mention that
0:54 because it is much warmer than it has
0:56 been for about the past four weeks where
0:58 we had some kind of polar event. Very,
1:00 very cold. But we're delighted to the
1:03 weather and we're delighted to have you
1:05 all with us today. Before we get
1:07 started, I want to send out a special
1:10 thank you to uh Jennifer Marcus who is
1:12 sitting quietly on the other side of
1:15 this uh uh presentation who is our
1:17 director of operations effective January
1:21 1 of this year. and um she is just
1:23 instrumental in making all this happen.
1:25 And Joyce Michelli, our lead
1:28 interviewer, who makes sure that
1:29 especially as we get close to the
1:33 webinar date, she is digging for all the
1:34 new insight and all the new thinking
1:37 that's kind of out there. So, um I
1:40 appreciate their efforts and um we're
1:42 going to really talk about a a number of
1:44 things today, but really how I'd like to
1:47 get started today is by talking about
1:51 physics. And when we talk about physics,
1:53 I really would like to talk to you about
1:56 very specifically fusion. Fusion is the
2:01 idea and the concept that it consumes
2:04 less energy than it produces. It takes
2:06 atoms. It takes the energy source and it
2:09 can produce more energy than it
2:13 consumes. This is a fundamental of why
2:16 the theory of the sun being as bright as
2:18 it is, the stars being as bright as they
2:22 are for as long as they are, it is the
2:25 power behind all of that. And there's a
2:28 couple of startups that have tried to
2:31 develop fusion commercially. Google has
2:33 actually entered into a purchase
2:36 agreement to purchase this uh power
2:38 source to help with their data centers.
2:40 So, it'll be interesting to watch on the
2:43 one hand, but it's going to have a big
2:46 impact on not just data centers and
2:49 energy and the world, but on law firms.
2:51 And you're probably asking yourself,
2:54 well, how can fusion have such an impact
2:57 on law firms? Well, in studying fusion,
2:59 there's two things that really are
3:02 important to understand. Fusion is the
3:05 idea that you take two lighter atoms and
3:08 you combine them to make a heavier atom,
3:10 which is the energy. So, if you take two
3:12 lighter things, end up with something
3:15 heavier, what you've got is you've
3:17 produced more than you've consumed. Now
3:20 if we think of those two um kind of
3:23 lighter atoms, one being law, one being
3:26 business that your clients are all in,
3:28 when they combine, that is creating
3:32 fusion. That is creating more of what is
3:34 out there than was there before it. That
3:37 means that the risks are getting higher.
3:39 The kind of dynamics of the way clients
3:41 are thinking about what they're doing is
3:44 changing. And it's resulting, if it's
3:46 kind of interesting because when you
3:48 think about this, um, for those of you
3:50 that read the press, there's a growing
3:53 trend to talk about nuclear verdicts and
3:56 they're so large and they're just so
3:58 unexpected that again, it's a fusion
4:00 type event. So, there's a lot of fusion
4:03 going on. And if law firms can tap into
4:05 that, there's going to be an
4:08 extraordinary opportunity. And it also
4:13 signifies how dramatic and how large
4:15 kind of the dynamics are changing in the
4:17 legal world and what's making it so
4:20 difficult for some and so amazingly
4:22 lucrative for others. There's a couple
4:24 of things that I think that underly
4:26 this. As I just mentioned, it's
4:28 exploding value in risks and outcomes.
4:32 So, if you're a um corporate counsel, if
4:33 you're a general counsel, if you're a
4:36 CEO, it's one thing to be worried about
4:38 whether or not you're going to lose a
4:40 claim for 5 million or $10 million. If
4:42 you're a large company, maybe that's
4:44 half a million dollars if you're a small
4:48 company. But now with the the fusion of
4:51 business and law, it's no longer about
4:53 am I going to get a fine, am I going to
4:55 lose a claim? It's about how do I
4:57 protect a revenue stream? How do I enter
4:59 a new market? How do I get the
5:01 technology that I need? How do I protect
5:04 what seems to be unprotectable? These
5:06 are changing what could be a measurable
5:09 claim in litigation or an M&A
5:12 transaction to revenue streams worth
5:14 hundreds of millions, if not billions of
5:16 dollars. If I'm selling something, I
5:18 sure want to help with something that
5:20 gets a hundred millions in risk versus a
5:23 million if I have the choice. This is
5:26 what business and law fusion is doing,
5:30 creating these immense um opportunities
5:33 for business if firms can figure it out.
5:35 It's collapsing time frames because when
5:37 you're talking about business issues,
5:40 there's no court dates. There's no uh
5:42 looking out months or planning for a
5:44 multi-year litigation.
5:47 CEOs want answers. They want to get into
5:48 the markets they want to be in. They
5:50 want their competitive advantage.
5:52 they're calling on their um corporate
5:54 legal officers much more frequently and
5:56 expecting answers when they call or at
5:59 least certainly guidance.
6:01 It's creating a whole litany of new
6:04 matters and and needs and clients, more
6:06 big wins, which is the opposite of the
6:09 value and risk because if you can save a
6:12 revenue stream that is, you know,
6:14 enormously larger than anything else you
6:16 might have saved the client. And as I
6:19 mentioned, it's changing things faster
6:22 than most law firms can see. And if
6:24 you're missing this, you're going to
6:27 watch a lot of high value, high rate
6:29 work go by because things are moving
6:33 just so quickly and it's dynamic and on
6:34 the one hand it's exhilarating. On the
6:36 other hand, it's a challenge to keep up
6:38 with. So if you're not looking for it
6:40 and if you can't put your hands on it,
6:42 then it's going to be a lot more
6:43 difficult to get all the benefits that
6:50 So how do we tap into this? Well,
6:52 there's a couple of things. We've been
6:54 asking corporate council to describe
6:57 their role for about, you know, I'm
6:59 going to say 10 to 12 years. And what's
7:03 really interesting is between 2024 and 2025,
7:05 2025,
7:07 what you had is a significant drop in
7:10 those clients that would say, "I'm no
7:13 longer primarily the client defender, my
7:15 company defender. I'm doing other
7:17 things." That doesn't mean they're not
7:19 defending the company. It means it's no
7:21 longer the top priority. Now look at
7:23 that. In the period of one year, we went
7:27 from roughly 71% to 48%. That's about
7:29 maybe a third drop. We expect that trend
7:31 to continue. And you can kind of see
7:33 that if you look out into the
7:36 marketplace and look at what's happening
7:39 with CLOS's, um, chief legal officers.
7:41 For those of you following the news, you
7:44 already know that Apple hired the chief
7:47 legal officer out of Meta about a month
7:49 ago. Uh Meta just announced that they
7:52 hired the chief legal officer out of
7:55 Microsoft. Microsoft promoted a new
7:57 chief legal officer within the last
8:00 month or so. um who is pivotal in
8:01 helping them make their business
8:04 decisions about open AI and structuring
8:07 that as well as some other business type
8:09 decisions which co-mingled and fused
8:13 with legal. So if you want to see what's
8:15 happening with the role of the CLLO, I
8:18 think that Apple, Meta, Google,
8:19 Microsoft are going to be kind of like
8:21 the bellweathers. They're going to be
8:24 showing you the direction that all legal
8:25 departments eventually will follow.
8:28 Probably tech will lead the way. So,
8:30 watching the turnover, watching your
8:33 clients hire, asking your clients if
8:34 they're going to be bringing in new
8:37 counsel, whether it be the CLO, the GC,
8:40 or associate council, is going to be
8:42 pivotal to positioning yourself to get
8:44 some of this new and exciting and
8:47 lucrative work.
8:50 Now the other side of the equation is if
8:52 you ask clients if they were trusted
8:55 adviserss just a year ago in 2024
8:58 um you know only about half said that
9:01 they were really trusted adviserss. Now
9:03 what's happened is corporate council are
9:05 getting so many calls from their top
9:08 executives, CEOs, board members. They're
9:10 getting it from, you know, EVPs, chief
9:14 operating officers, because the linkage
9:16 between the decisions on what they're
9:17 going to be doing with their
9:20 transformation digitally with AI and
9:23 protecting their own development is
9:25 intersecting with legal as we just
9:28 talked about. So where if you're a CEO,
9:29 where do you call? You call your CLO.
9:31 You call your corporate counsel and you
9:34 start discussing with them. I can't tell
9:36 you how many corporate council we have
9:38 talked to that have said they have
9:41 talked to their CEO, their COO more
9:43 times in the last 12 months than they
9:45 have in sometimes their 10 or 15 year
9:48 careers substantive conversations that
9:51 is. So what they're doing is by
9:53 providing this advice they're certainly
9:56 you know in embedding embedding
9:58 themselves in the business decisions but
10:00 it also places them where they need to
10:03 have almost a real time response to
10:05 their management. You can't say to your
10:07 CEO I'll get back to you in a few weeks.
10:09 I'll get back to you next week. They
10:11 want an inkling. They want direction
10:12 because they need to make business
10:13 decisions and and they just can't wait
10:16 for the competition to sit back and say,
10:18 "Oh, well, we'll figure this out, too."
10:22 Everyone is looking for that edge. So,
10:24 in order to kind of meet this need and
10:26 help clients, they're turning to their
10:28 outside counsel because they need to
10:31 respond quickly and they are looking for
10:33 the counsel that give them answers.
10:35 Doesn't have to be the final answer.
10:38 doesn't have to be the thoughtfully
10:42 detailed 42-page memo. They need what um
10:45 the author of the tipping point would
10:48 tell you is a thin slice, little bit of
10:50 information, little bit of direction,
10:51 maybe big direction depending on your
10:55 experience, but they want to be able to
10:57 hear from their outside counsel what
11:00 makes sense in the facts that they have.
11:02 And this is notice that's almost you
11:06 know 90% uh not quite doubling but
11:08 enough to certainly get our attention
11:11 and again tapping into this and helping
11:14 clients be the better trusted advisor is
11:16 a key to getting new business and
11:18 business development in this whole new
11:21 world that we're operating in.
11:24 And then finally, I also found it really
11:28 interesting that in 2024, 14% of
11:30 corporate council said they were growth
11:33 enablers. That has more than doubled to,
11:36 you know, we'll call that 39%.
11:38 So all of a sudden they go from being
11:41 defenders to enablers, their advisors,
11:43 and they're really finding themselves in
11:45 a position where they're doing things
11:47 that they just simply have not done
11:49 before. they've only heard about before
11:52 or maybe they've observed. So if you
11:55 think about it really what's happening
11:57 is you have a lot of corporate council
11:59 that were very much in their comfort
12:02 zone. They are you know they knew the
12:04 regulations, they knew the strategies,
12:07 they knew how to defend the company. Now
12:09 they're being kind of brought into the
12:11 growth zone. And for some corporate
12:13 council, they couldn't wait for this day
12:15 to happen. There's another group of
12:16 corporate counsel that are saying, "Oh,
12:19 wow. this this is stressful. This is
12:20 this is, you know, not what I thought it
12:23 would be. This is asking me to step
12:25 outside my knowledge base. And that's
12:27 something where we really need to, you
12:29 know, you can only get to that by
12:31 talking to your clients and listening to
12:33 your clients. It's a very hard thing to
12:36 pick up any other way. Now, the
12:38 listening to the clients part isn't the
12:41 real breakthrough. The breakthrough is
12:43 the kind of stress points the clients
12:45 are feeling about this. There's never
12:47 been a higher stress point for corporate
12:50 counsel before. So understanding that
12:52 could lock you into a client wherever
12:53 they may go because we're expecting a
12:55 lot of turnover based on the kind of
12:58 Apple metal Microsoft moves that I had
13:01 mentioned. And you know being able to
13:02 help them with their growth prospects
13:06 and help their CEOs only helps you your
13:08 firm and usually is going to lock in a
13:11 long-term relationship.
13:13 To get a better understanding of this,
13:16 we asked over 350 corporate council to
13:19 tell us the three words that kind of
13:22 describe their daily role. Okay? What
13:24 are they living? What are they feeling?
13:26 What are they experiencing? This is a
13:30 word cloud of the answers. The larger
13:32 the word, the more we heard about it.
13:35 The more towards the center, the more we
13:37 heard about it. So, you can kind of look
13:39 from the center, look out. Um, but
13:42 there's a couple anomalies. You can see
13:44 what was interesting is, you know, like
13:46 looking right in the center here, you've
13:48 got challenging, which is positive.
13:50 You've got challenged, which, you know,
13:52 is a little bit more stressful,
13:55 unpredictable, which can be both, uh,
13:59 fast-paced, rewarding, frustrating, um,
14:02 aggressive, fun. So you've got great
14:06 you've got clients all over the map um
14:09 and unappreciated. So you got them all
14:12 over the map. And if you really want to
14:16 get the kind of the the nonRFP,
14:19 the really lucrative juicy work, it's
14:21 being able to tap into these kind of
14:24 subtle thinking that clients have. They
14:27 know most firms can do the work. um but
14:29 they don't believe many firms understand
14:32 kind of where they're at and who really
14:34 can help them because this is underlying
14:36 all their decisions. If you want to have
14:39 kind of a different look, we took the
14:41 liberty of highlighting the positive
14:43 words in green. So you can see
14:45 challenging, interesting, dynamic,
14:48 rewarding, innovative. Um you know, you
14:50 don't need me to read these to you, but
14:52 you know, they're what you would expect.
14:54 But if you look at the red, which are
14:57 kind of the the challenging in more
14:59 stressful sentiment, you've got, you
15:01 know, there's the word stressful right
15:03 there that might say it all. We talked
15:05 about being challenged um as opposed to
15:09 challenging, uh latigious, aggressive,
15:12 overwhelming, frustrated,
15:14 which words are all there. And when you
15:17 put them in balance,
15:20 you kind of get almost a 5050 split.
15:22 When we did the quantitative analysis,
15:24 it's within one or two percent of each
15:28 other. So your chances of getting this
15:31 and understanding correctly and the way
15:33 clients want you understand it without
15:36 kind of a talking to clients in some way
15:38 and having more than just a cursory
15:40 dialogue, it's going to be a real
15:42 challenge. you've got a kind of a 5050
15:45 shot at getting it right. Given the
15:47 rates that you can get, given the amount
15:49 of business that is streaming into the
15:52 law firm world, I would want to be kind
15:54 of making sure that I'm developing
15:57 questions and I'm developing ways to
16:00 hear how clients are thinking. Client
16:02 feedback certainly is one way, but
16:04 there's other ways that you can be
16:05 having these conversations with groups
16:08 of clients, with individual clients. But
16:10 somehow getting this on the agenda is
16:12 going to be the difference between the
16:14 super high growth that Amal loves to
16:17 write about and the not so super high
16:20 growth which when it gets the publicity,
16:21 you know, it'll be popular but doesn't
16:23 get near the publicity that the growth
16:26 firms do. So this is something to be
16:29 thinking about. Now, what is the
16:33 absolute key? What is the the kind of
16:35 one behavior that will get you into the
16:38 middle of this? And for that, I would
16:40 like to get dedicate to the rest of this
16:42 presentation to my friend the lizard
16:45 here. Why would I be talking about
16:49 lizards? Well, lizards are believed and
16:52 many have scientifically proven that li
16:54 lizards are absolutely one of the best
16:56 listeners on the planet. They can hear
16:58 amazing things. They can synthesize
17:00 those things and they can put it
17:03 together to sense, you know, how they
17:05 kind of maneuver in their world. There's
17:07 even some science to suggest that they
17:10 go beyond listening and can integrate
17:12 environmental factors almost like a six
17:15 sense. So the question is is how do we
17:19 become lizardlike and become what some
17:20 people call the lizard is a super
17:23 listen. Not just a listener but a super
17:26 listener. And being the super listener
17:27 is the difference again between getting
17:31 that kind of inside track and being on
17:33 the outside wondering what clients are
17:36 thinking and doing. Couple of key things
17:40 to understand about the super listener.
17:43 A good listener will often listen to try
17:45 to develop new business where the super
17:48 listener knows that if they listen and
17:50 learn they're going to get the new
17:51 business. So they're going to focus on
17:53 the learning and that's one big
17:57 difference right here. Um they kind of
18:00 um listen to understand where most
18:01 listeners even active listening
18:05 unfortunately listening to respond
18:07 versus listening to understand because
18:09 the super listeners know that they will
18:12 learn. They will then understand.
18:15 They hear not only what's said but what
18:17 is unsaid. You know what was silent?
18:19 What wasn't brought up? what would you
18:21 have expected to be brought up? This is
18:24 like a second order analysis of what
18:27 you've heard and again adds context to
18:29 everything you just learned and are
18:31 trying to understand.
18:34 What's other you know the the other big
18:36 two are you know you're connecting the
18:39 dots between conversations and most
18:41 listeners even good ones will treat
18:44 these as independent events but to super
18:47 listeners these are patterns. These are
18:49 what's happening and sometimes they will
18:51 connect what is said and unsaid in
18:53 different conversations to be able to
18:55 kind of triangulate what clients are
18:57 thinking, how they're thinking, what the
19:00 risks are, what they're concerned about.
19:03 And if you want to kind of go through
19:06 that, that's the process. You know, some
19:08 will keep notes, some can do it mentally
19:10 because they're very sharp. But the
19:12 ability to kind of connect the
19:15 conversations and keep the track going
19:17 is the difference between that kind of
19:19 deep super understanding and just an
19:21 understanding. It's also important
19:23 there's something implied in here is
19:26 that this is
19:29 plural multiple conversations. The
19:32 conversations are ongoing.
19:34 Interestingly, they're kind of short as
19:36 opposed to long. There's a lot of, you
19:38 know, exchanges of information. They
19:40 tend to be, you know, highly, I call
19:42 them high calorie conversations. They're
19:45 short. There's a lot of meat in them.
19:47 And if you can put those together over
19:49 time, that puts you in the super
19:52 listener category. And then finally,
19:54 this is something that I've seen, I've
19:56 heard about, I hear about in our
20:00 interviews is that many times in a
20:02 conversation, we've all talked about the
20:05 awkward silence. And what super
20:09 listeners have learned is that that
20:13 silence, that awkwardness is often the
20:15 time clients need to process their
20:18 thinking. So, they have learned to use
20:22 that to give the client that space.
20:25 A good listener will often try to fill
20:27 that space because they don't like the
20:30 awkward silence. They're concerned that
20:32 their client, whoever it is they're
20:34 talking to, prospect, whoever it might
20:37 be, is uncomfortable because of this.
20:40 So, they will allow the client to
20:43 process the thinking. If it goes too
20:45 long or what they think is too long,
20:47 they may say something like, "Let's
20:49 share our thinking. What are you
20:52 thinking? Let's think out loud to kind
20:55 of create a safe zone to go into that
20:57 kind of listening zone, that super
21:00 listening zone away from breaking up
21:03 that process. This is often pivotal in
21:05 business development as you can develop
21:08 new services. you can develop kind of
21:10 new risks, new needs that the client may
21:13 not see. And this is extra helpful
21:16 because if you can get into a mode where
21:18 you're kind of co-solutioning with them,
21:20 you're working with them, that's going
21:23 to put you in a category that very few
21:26 firms are in. again drives you to the
21:29 place where that high business is on the
21:31 high rate business on the inside track
21:34 being able to get to that before any
21:38 other firm even thinks about it.
21:41 Now based on that what we've been doing
21:43 over the past couple of years actually
21:45 we've been doing it for more than 20 but
21:47 it coalesed over the past five or six
21:50 years is what are the different things
21:53 that really are driving the business
21:56 development right now. What is you know
21:58 the the things that make client go to
22:02 one firm or the other. So we went out
22:03 you know based on thousands of
22:05 interviews. We were gauging the
22:08 importance and influence of the core
22:11 kind of BD activities that are often
22:13 living in the marketing and business
22:15 development department. They're
22:17 behaviors that the attorneys the
22:20 partners engage in and they're you know
22:22 in some ways they're behaviors that
22:27 clients kind of observe or or more
22:30 importantly engage in. So, for example,
22:33 they'll observe as opposing counsel is a
22:36 big source of who I might think about
22:39 wanting to throw my business to. Um, on
22:41 the other hand, you know, if you're
22:44 actively networking online, clients
22:48 online together, um, that is networking
22:50 different clients to each other. You can
22:52 see you've got content sharing. This is
22:56 the trust factor along here.
22:58 This is the value factor. Now, in order
23:00 to get hired, we got to find a way to
23:03 deliver both, which is kind of where
23:07 this matrix comes in. This area up here
23:10 is where you've got high trust or higher
23:12 trust and higher value. If you can start
23:14 delivering on those, that's going to be
23:17 the place where business gets awarded
23:19 along the inside track. That doesn't
23:21 mean that these things out here aren't
23:24 important, because they are. Because
23:26 this is what's going to get you to a
23:29 point where you can start establishing
23:30 all the things that are with the purple
23:34 dots that are the highly influential.
23:36 They're the things that will get you
23:37 hired. There are the things that make
23:39 clients forget about all the other
23:41 things all the other firms that they
23:44 hear. It's a matter of you know the
23:47 relevance factor is high in here. The
23:50 value factor is high and the trust. So
23:52 this is something that's earned. These
23:55 are both earned as well. And this is how
23:56 clients are kind of thinking about
23:59 things. So when we look at this, what we
24:03 see is the kind of six factors that are
24:06 up here are you can see the top of the
24:07 list, the most important thing in any
24:10 business development situation is super
24:13 listening. The ability to get there to
24:15 get the business without super listening
24:18 is exceptionally difficult. Um that's
24:21 why you've got things like um RFPs are
24:22 only down here because that's just the
24:24 beginning of the process. They don't
24:26 know if you're a super listener and most
24:28 RFPs are not. Um you don't see super
24:30 listeners. You see a lot of talking of
24:32 clients as many of the people on this
24:35 presentation today already know. I
24:38 mentioned the value and co-solutioning.
24:40 And so if you're sitting there in that
24:43 awkward silence, what that may actually
24:46 be is kind of an unrecognized
24:48 opportunity to develop something with a
24:51 client. You can see that that brings in
24:52 value because you're getting to a
24:55 solution and it brings in trust because
24:59 your client is providing you with what
25:00 you need at the time you need it.
25:02 They're being authoritative. They're
25:04 being informative. They're providing new
25:07 information. It's a a really good setup
25:09 for kind of the super listener approach
25:13 to um getting business, but you can't
25:15 get there unless you've got the super
25:17 listening. You've got anticipating
25:20 needs. Now, what's great about this is
25:22 this easily links to co-solutioning
25:25 because you can help clients anticipate
25:26 through your questions and through your
25:29 listening. So, these will often work together.
25:31 together.
25:34 And what's happening in today's day and
25:37 age is innovative solutions are now
25:39 becoming, you know, super important
25:42 because there's so many new and novel
25:44 cases. There's so many new and novel
25:48 claims. Clients want the new and
25:50 innovative solutions they haven't seen
25:53 before. In addition, as we talked about,
25:55 the fusion of business issues and legal
25:59 issues require different thinking,
26:01 different matters, different approaches.
26:03 There may not even be precedents for
26:05 this or we have to apply old precedents
26:08 to completely new fact patterns. And
26:09 these are the things that show that
26:12 you're invested that you're willing to
26:14 kind of put in more work than most
26:18 because only 21% of law firms show up as
26:20 delivering these kinds of innovative
26:22 solutions. And then finally, you've got,
26:25 you know, creativity, which means that
26:27 you've got something new. You've got
26:29 something they haven't seen before, and
26:31 maybe, you know, it's going to be linked
26:34 to something innovative if that works.
26:36 And then finally, educating. There's
26:39 very few things that will create a bond
26:42 as strong as educating. And what's you
26:44 know as you think about you know
26:47 educating clients it's one of the few
26:49 things in the world that will deliver
26:53 that kind of dopamine high to both the
26:57 educator and the educate. That is
26:59 dopamine rises. You get a dopamine hit
27:02 when you teach somebody. You get a
27:04 dopamine hit when you learn something.
27:06 That's why people love their schools.
27:08 That's why people so much like to learn
27:10 and take online courses and
27:12 self-development. So, if you can find a
27:15 way to educate your clients, you're now
27:18 doing that kind of dual dopamine. Now,
27:20 just before we leave this, I have to
27:21 tell you that there's another dual
27:24 dopamine phenomena, which is actually
27:26 it's a dopamine phenomena, which is
27:29 talking about yourself
27:32 induces a dopamine hit. So, think about
27:33 that. Why do people talk about
27:35 themselves when they're pitching?
27:37 because you're getting that dopamine
27:39 hit. It takes some discipline. It takes
27:41 some understanding to realize you can
27:43 get the same, if not better discipline,
27:46 your do dopamine hit by educating
27:47 clients and they're going to get it the
27:50 same way. So, the dopamine can be a
27:53 double-edged sword as you look outside
27:55 of what we call the super listener
27:58 matrix up here. Um, you know, you've got
28:01 your strong BD kinds of activities.
28:02 You've got your thought leadership.
28:05 You've got an active LinkedIn bios,
28:08 content sharing, RFPs, networking your
28:10 way in. You know, we could go through
28:12 these everybody's famous, you know,
28:14 favorite ranking and directories, which,
28:16 you know, are kind of outside of that
28:19 box. But the point being is, you know,
28:22 there's think of this in two phases.
28:24 Here's how we can, you know, remain
28:26 relevant, if you will,
28:28 and here's how we can improve our
28:31 relevance. We can improve our kind of
28:34 lock into clients and you know the more
28:37 we do of this it tends to drive this but
28:40 nothing will drive what's up here more
28:43 than super listening.
28:47 So why is all this important? Well,
28:49 there's a lot of reasons. Long-term
28:52 success, strategic um positioning,
28:53 market positioning, but in the near
28:57 term, 61% of corporate council are
29:00 planning to increase their legal
29:03 spending by a pretty reasonable amount
29:05 in 2026.
29:08 So, if you want to get to that work and
29:10 you want to get to that work faster,
29:12 better with higher rates than everybody
29:14 else, that's going to take the super
29:17 listening. only 23% are going to hold
29:20 steady and you know that takes care of
29:22 roughly 84% of the market. There's
29:23 always going to be a portion of the
29:25 market that's cutting and you know that
29:27 means that your chances that your
29:30 clients are at least increasing or
29:33 holding steady are pretty good. So how
29:37 are you going to be able to um tap that
29:39 business without issuing thousands of
29:43 RFPs and without kind of um you know
29:45 doing mass emails? Well, it comes back
29:48 to picking your clients, picking the
29:50 best clients, picking the strategic
29:52 clients, and then finding ways to have
29:54 conversations with them. That is going
29:57 to have less effort than an RFP, be
29:59 highly effective, and at the end of the
30:02 day, more attorneys will like it than
30:03 not like it because they do like to
30:06 engage with clients once they may get
30:08 over any reticence to want to talk to
30:11 their clients about things like this.
30:15 Now what's interesting is if you think
30:19 about the 61% what you've got is also we
30:22 ask corporate counsel you know who wants
30:24 their law firms to use AI to get better
30:28 outcomes and coincidentally
30:30 that's also this almost the same exact 61%.
30:32 61%.
30:34 Now I know there's a lot of polarization
30:37 about the use of AI and you know one of
30:38 the things I'm personally finding
30:40 interesting is every blog post that I do
30:45 about AI I get you know equal numbers of
30:49 emails saying AI is um you know nothing
30:51 but the you know the the wizard behind
30:54 the curtain and I get an equal amount
30:55 saying it's going to change the world.
30:57 So it'll be interesting to see what
31:00 happens today. But the point is is that
31:02 most of the clients that are increasing
31:04 their spending, you know, what I want to
31:08 do is really cross out AI and really
31:10 emphasize this. What they're really
31:14 saying is they want better outcomes. And
31:17 if AI can get you a better outcome, you
31:20 ought to use it. It isn't really a
31:22 mandate that says, "Show us how you're
31:24 using AI to get us better outcomes."
31:28 They're just saying it's a new world. Go
31:29 back to the slide we talked about where
31:31 they're between the growth zone and the
31:35 comfort zone. Go back to, you know, the
31:37 the fusion that's taking place, the
31:41 overlap between business and law. Go
31:44 back to they're all advisors now. There
31:47 are so many of them advisers. They want
31:50 a better outcome. Period. If AI gets you
31:53 there, that's great. If AI is not the
31:54 vehicle to get there, they don't really
31:56 care. They want the better outcome.
31:58 Co-solutioning, which is one of the six
32:01 activities, is, you know, an immensely
32:03 uh effective way to get a better
32:05 outcome. Creativity, all the things that
32:09 are in that upper right quadrant of the
32:12 um the super listener BD approach is
32:15 what's going to get you the place where
32:18 you get better outcomes. And you know,
32:22 this speaks to the fact that clients are
32:24 not really necessarily feeling like
32:25 they're getting what they want from
32:28 about 71% of their law firms. So, if
32:31 you're in the 29%, good for you. You're
32:33 in the green. But you can never give a
32:36 client too good an outcome. So working
32:39 at this and working with your clients
32:42 and having this lead you because it's so
32:43 important to those that are increasing
32:46 their spending, it will define a path
32:48 right to where the increased spending
32:51 is. So think of this more as a BD
32:55 roadmap than a litmus test on using AI.
32:57 How do you get better outcomes? I
32:58 wouldn't take on the argument whether
33:00 you should or shouldn't use AI, but I
33:02 will tell you anything you can do to get
33:05 a better outcome is going to only get
33:08 you in a place where clients stop
33:09 thinking about other law firms as
33:11 essential. You will become the essential
33:14 law firm. So,
33:16 So,
33:18 where will this business be? What does
33:20 it look like? I want to go through a few
33:23 of the individual practices.
33:25 These are the practices we cover in the
33:29 BTI practice outlook report which we
33:32 released at the end of November for the
33:35 15 or 16 different practices that um we
33:37 are interviewing about and and getting
33:40 the details for roughly the third year
33:44 in a row. Everything is growing and
33:47 everything is you know not there's not a
33:50 lot over here in the rate zone. You can
33:52 see everything to the right is getting
33:55 better rates. Everything moving up above
33:57 this horizontal line is growing. So,
33:59 it's only a question of how quickly
34:03 we're growing. There's kind of three
34:04 different segments. You've got kind of
34:06 litigation employment, then you've got
34:09 this grouping, and then you've got some
34:11 others. So, you know, the opportunities
34:13 are certainly there. Depending on your
34:15 individual firm, you're going to want to
34:18 emphasize some of these over others. And
34:21 this is going to be, you know, the the
34:24 the road map overlaid with your kind of
34:26 co-solutioning and super listening to be
34:29 able to roll this out practice by practice
34:36 starting with employment, the fastest
34:39 growing practice. Um, you know, I can
34:42 tell you that out of more than 350
34:44 interviews, I don't think there was one
34:47 corporate council that didn't think any
34:49 decision they made about doing something
34:53 with DEI or affirmative action um was
34:55 not going to bring a lawsuit. They just
34:58 saw it as a class action or some kind of
35:01 action waiting to happen. And they're
35:03 still trying to figure out exactly what
35:05 they should be doing. They're talking
35:08 about new mental health claims, AI bias,
35:11 and hiring. Um, I've been doing this for
35:13 over 20 years, and for 20 years, I've
35:15 heard that wage an hour has finally worn
35:17 out its welcome, but clients don't think
35:21 so. It's alive and well and growing. Um,
35:22 if you're looking to develop business
35:25 here, you know, up until probably last
35:28 year, you had two major approaches. is
35:29 the labor only firms were coming at it
35:32 from a regulatory perspective being able
35:35 to help clients anticipate regulations
35:37 and changes. Um the general practice
35:40 firms were equally as strong and coming
35:42 in by industry. What you've got now is
35:44 some of the labor only firms are
35:47 introducing more industry kind of um
35:50 perspectives. The general practice firms
35:53 are getting more specific about tactics
35:55 and strategies by industries. We're
35:58 seeing industry play a larger role.
36:00 Industry practice, industry risk,
36:03 industry preference, um industry
36:06 strategies that is winning more work at
36:09 this juncture. Not that clients aren't
36:11 worried about all the regulatory changes
36:13 and all the regulatory conflicts, but
36:17 they see um the competitive aspect
36:19 coming in. And this is again where you
36:21 see the fusion of business and law. It's
36:23 where the industry knowledge is going to
36:25 be what they need to tell the CEO. CEO
36:26 doesn't want to know about the
36:28 regulations. They want to know what they
36:30 need to do and that's where the industry
36:33 knowledge comes in and uh it's
36:36 understanding the impact on operations.
36:38 So understanding that you know these
36:39 corporate counsel are now talking to
36:42 their CEOs regularly what they're doing
36:44 is they're saying I need to understand
36:46 the impact of whatever problem I'm
36:48 taking to you as my outside law firm on
36:51 operations. Um, is it going to, you
36:53 know, raise red flags? Is it likely to
36:56 hinder operations? Is it likely to
36:58 somehow, you know, make operations
37:01 smoother? Um, you see this a lot in
37:02 tech. You see a lot in financial
37:05 services. And you're you're seeing a lot
37:08 in manufacturing where they're adopting
37:10 uh digital or AI kinds of
37:19 uh litigation commercial litigation is
37:21 I'm going to say roughly one-third of it
37:23 is price sensitive twothirds of it is
37:26 you know strong to robust there are so
37:29 many new and novel claims that are out
37:32 there and more importantly or equally
37:34 importantly is that clients will tell
37:36 you you know nobody really wants to
37:38 settle anymore plaintiffs don't want to
37:42 settle excited about settling so they
37:44 see themselves digging in they're going
37:47 further in litigation matters than they
37:50 thought they might. It requires kind of
37:52 new strategy and new thinking on the
37:54 part of outside counsel to go that much
37:57 deeper. Um, some of the new issues that
37:58 you're hearing about that there's
38:02 serious litigation over is AI content
38:04 that is either governed or not governed
38:07 by contract with third parties, access
38:11 and use of data for training uh, models,
38:13 tech implementation failures which are
38:16 growing fairly dramatically. the joint
38:18 ventures and partnerships that are were
38:20 created three years ago are now
38:23 unraveling some of them anyway and there
38:25 could be some very big money. I mean
38:30 just look at the poster child for um
38:31 restructuring joint ventures
38:33 partnerships and investors would be open
38:36 AI which seems to every week raise an
38:38 enormous amount of money have new
38:41 partners who are competitors conflicting
38:45 each other um it's just uh imagine that
38:48 on every scale with so many different
38:51 JVS but that's or the investors and
38:53 that's the kind of thing that's going on
38:55 right down the line to some of the small
38:59 investments that companies have made. Um
39:02 their resupply chains are you know for
39:04 many of them trying to undo contracts
39:07 and supply contracts are really
39:10 challenging and again the way to get
39:13 this business is twofold. One is knowing
39:15 the impact on the business. Is it
39:17 affecting revenue? Is it affecting cost?
39:20 Is it affecting our supply chain? Is it
39:23 affecting tariffs? Is it affecting
39:25 regulatory issues in Europe where they
39:28 seem to be pretty anti- US? Knowing that
39:31 walking in the door, being fluent when
39:33 you walk in the door about where this
39:36 may go, what it could be, understanding
39:39 that it's no longer litigation, it's a
39:42 business issue. And the risk of a
39:45 business issue is just so quantifiably
39:48 higher that anybody who doesn't talk and
39:50 you don't necessarily have to know the
39:52 business issue as you walk in the door,
39:55 but in order to make an impact, ask.
39:57 Asking is just as good as knowing
39:59 because they'll tell you. But they want
40:01 to deal with law firms who know that it
40:03 has a business impact.
40:06 Now, we're going to talk a little bit
40:09 about um IP litigation. This I have to
40:11 tell you has become one of the most
40:16 aggressive parts of litigation. Um every
40:19 uh almost every single corporate council
40:21 that we interviewed want to just
40:24 obliterate and crush the other side.
40:25 They don't want to settle. They don't
40:27 want an emicable agreement. They want
40:29 the other side so they don't exist
40:32 anymore. Some of the big is oh and the
40:34 you know very few interested in
40:36 settlement anymore. It's all about
40:39 winning and crushing the other side. IP
40:42 leakage through AI is a big issue right
40:45 now. AI assisted patent trolls are are
40:46 something that are emerging as a
40:49 problem. Uh brand knockoffs are an issue
40:51 moving out of kind of like the the
40:54 patent range. And what really clients
40:56 want is
40:59 one the impact in knowing that certain
41:01 intellectual property has a huge impact
41:03 on the product roadmap, product
41:07 planning, revenue, market rollouts, um
41:10 market positioning and they also want
41:13 unfailing confidence that the whoever
41:16 they hire is going to have a winner take
41:18 all attitude. They want to create a
41:21 strategy that can deal with the
41:24 litigation, the idea that we don't want
41:26 to settle and um they kind of want to
41:28 know that you're in the foxhole with
41:31 them. You're sitting there beside them
41:32 and you've got the same level of
41:34 investment. That's what's getting the
41:37 kind of business especially in tech and
41:39 pharma. And now you're starting to see
41:41 it in some of the big manufacturing
41:42 global manufacturing companies where
41:46 there's largecale adoption of technology
41:53 class actions growing um again one of
41:55 the top growers claims are getting
41:57 bigger which are creating bigger cases
42:00 bigger fees it's interesting because PL
42:02 plaintiffs are
42:05 finding more ways to make claims from
42:08 the same situation I think four years
42:11 ago, a cyber breach would generate one
42:13 class action. Now they're generating
42:17 between, you know, two and six. So, um,
42:18 you know, the plaintiffs are getting
42:21 very creative. Um, you've got issues
42:24 around biological data privacy, which
42:25 are now coming up as some pretty large
42:29 class actions. What clients want in a
42:31 law firm is they want quick assessment.
42:32 That word fluent comes up again. Can you
42:35 walk in the door and know kind of what's
42:37 going on or assess it? They want
42:40 aggressive stands and they want
42:42 strategies to deal what they will call
42:45 pylon litigation because the minute you
42:48 get class action, it raises awareness of
42:50 perhaps other issues or regulatory
42:53 issues and this will really kind of be
42:55 the trifecta and the way to get the
42:57 class action work that's out there now
42:59 and understanding how big that it's
43:01 gotten and the impact in some cases of
43:03 the company's size on the balance sheet
43:07 itself. So um you know the opportunity
43:10 is there but clients um you know really
43:14 want to see that fluency that
43:16 firms are not intimidated by the size of
43:18 it that they can see all the different
43:20 things that are kind of can roll out of
43:22 the class action and being able to stand
43:25 up in front of a client on day one and
43:28 be able to talk about those things.
43:31 And then finally um it just wouldn't be
43:34 fun if we didn't talk about M&A. there's
43:37 super pent-up demand. Um, tech and
43:41 pharma, especially manufacturing, they
43:43 see their M&A activities as more
43:46 strategic than they have ever been. It's
43:49 enabling them to leapfrog competition.
43:51 It's enabling them to be able to be in a
43:53 place where they can change their
43:56 product line to take advantage of all
43:58 the technologies that might be out
44:00 there, whether it be AI or not, although
44:03 so many are. um you know they're kind of
44:06 looking for uh creative structures you
44:08 know right now you know kind of
44:10 Microsoft led the way the way they
44:14 invested in open AI um Nvidia is doing a
44:15 lot of things to make sure they can
44:17 acquire the assets they need the people
44:19 they need meta is doing the same thing
44:22 so they're looking for structures the
44:24 regulators are starting to catch up with
44:26 these structures so it's incumbent on
44:28 the law firms to be able to come up with
44:30 even newer structures to kind of stay
44:32 one step ahead said and being able to
44:34 deal with what could be hostile
44:37 regulatory agencies. Clients are just
44:39 are, you know, they're just not sure
44:41 what kind of reaction they're going to
44:44 get in so many different arenas. So
44:46 having that flexibility and then there's
44:50 a high education quotient. Clients want
44:52 to be educated by their M&A firms so
44:54 they're up to speed and they want to see
44:57 supreme confidence. the firms walking in
44:59 the door with that are the ones getting
45:03 those big M&A assignments that are, you
45:05 know, only going to get larger and
45:07 probably if interest rates get cut or
45:09 the economy gets picked up, uh, picks up
45:10 a little bit more, you're going to see
45:17 And then finally, bet the company. Um,
45:20 it's actually become a growth industry.
45:22 Um, when we first started doing this,
45:24 there were four reasons why something
45:26 would become bet the company. Now
45:30 there's 15. Um, some of them include
45:33 things like um, you know, decimating the
45:36 balance sheet, stopping operations,
45:38 halting a revenue stream, something that
45:41 could become criminal. What clients want
45:43 is the law firm that walks in with a
45:45 real-time assessment, knows the client
45:48 culture, knows their risk sensitivities,
45:50 their risk adverse, whether they're
45:52 where where their kind of risk soft
45:56 spots are, and focus on either settling
45:59 and defending at the same time. Um, the
46:00 firms that can walk in and talk about
46:02 what it means for the stock price,
46:05 balance sheet, and defending them are
46:06 much more likely to win the work than
46:09 those that talk about how many bet the
46:16 For those of you that have joined us in
46:18 one of the last 16
46:21 webinars or the six
46:23 um meetings that we had in New York
46:25 before we went to the webinar format,
46:27 this is what we affectionately within
46:32 BTI call the BTI hotspots. The blue is
46:35 where the need is the most acute. It's
46:37 growing and it is getting high rates.
46:39 The gray is where there's moderate
46:41 growth and the dark gray is where
46:43 there's low growth. You'll see there's
46:47 only one place for that. Um, if you want
46:49 to kind of understand this, the way most
46:52 of our clients use this is they will
46:55 take it by industry and see where the
46:57 hot spots are. If you're looking at
47:00 this, tech has 13, pharma has 12,
47:03 healthc care has 10, manufacturing 10,
47:06 consumer goods nine, transportation has
47:09 nine. That's a lot of hot spots. That's
47:11 a lot of acute needs in some very high
47:14 spending industries. If you look at it
47:17 by practice, M&A, you'll find 11
47:20 industries. Uh regulatory, you'll find
47:22 11. Litigation, you'll find 11. Labor
47:25 and employment 10. Class action 10.
47:27 There's a lot of hot spots on here.
47:29 Again, what most of our clients will do
47:32 is they will lay it out by practice and
47:35 or industry, work with their practice
47:38 group heads and try to map out which
47:41 clients fit into kind of which need and
47:43 how to go and engage in the super
47:46 listening and the co-solutioning and all
47:48 those things that will get you the kind
47:50 of business that you want to get. you
47:52 would get more work from two clients
47:55 than you would get from probably most of
47:57 the RFPs that you would send out in a
47:59 single year. But the point of this is
48:01 there's a lot of opportunity, a lot of
48:03 opportunity by industry, a lot of
48:05 opportunity by practice. And this will
48:08 kind of since industry knowledge is so
48:10 important right now because of the
48:13 fusing of business and law, this is kind
48:17 of your road map on how to do that.
48:19 So, how do you win in a law fusion
48:22 world? First, we highly recommend asking
48:25 what we call catalyst questions. So,
48:28 what's keeping this from moving faster?
48:30 What what can we do? Whatever the issue
48:31 is, how do we move faster? Because
48:34 that's what CEOs want. What's the most
48:36 important impacts on the business? Even
48:38 if you think you know, ask. You will
48:40 learn something from your client. What
48:42 are we underestimating? What are we
48:44 missing? Clients will tell you. They
48:47 will stop. they will think and can we
48:48 reframe this? How do we think about this
48:50 differently? How do we start from the
48:52 left instead of the right or the front
48:54 instead of the back? Clients, these are
48:57 all steps to start your co-solutioning.
48:59 Clients, I've had attorneys say to me,
49:01 "Won't clients think I'm not very smart
49:03 if I ask these questions?" But it's
49:05 interesting because clients think you're
49:07 very smart if you ask these questions.
49:09 They know that you can't get them a
49:12 better outcome until you answer these
49:14 questions. especially in today's world.
49:16 So, we would highly recommend not just
49:18 using them, training your partners to
49:20 the extent you can, even if it's just a
49:22 half hour. How do you ask these
49:23 questions? What kind of answers to
49:26 expect? How do you engage to create that
49:29 super listener profile?
49:32 Second, create an anticipation of needs
49:35 review. every 90 days, take one top
49:38 client, two top clients, put some smart
49:41 partners in a room and say, "What can we
49:43 anticipate for this client? What's
49:46 likely to happen?" Now, your 90day isn't
49:47 your anticipation period. You may look
49:52 out 90 days, 100 days, a year, but the
49:55 purpose is by having it at least once a
49:58 quarter, you institutionalize this idea
50:00 of we're always going to be looking
50:01 forward to what's going on in our client.
50:03 client.
50:05 focusing on the top clients of the firm
50:08 that will change the culture and how the
50:10 attorneys think about business development.
50:12 development.
50:14 Following client job boards and
50:16 postings, you know, it's great to track
50:18 them in the news and Google alerts, but
50:20 if you really want to know what clients
50:23 are up to, see what jobs they are
50:26 posting. Apple po when they were in the
50:30 trying to develop a um fully autonomous
50:33 car, they put all the ads on LinkedIn,
50:35 the most secretive company in the world
50:38 except for defense contractors. Um
50:41 openly put the jobs right up on the
50:43 postings LinkedIn um and then the Wall
50:45 Street Journal grabbed that and wrote a
50:47 whole story on it. Now, Apple doesn't do
50:49 that so much anymore, but the point is
50:51 is that you will learn where they're
50:54 headed, what to anticipate. You can use
50:56 that as a kind of a conversation starter
50:59 for your co-solutioning, for your
51:02 learning, for your super listening, but
51:04 it'll give you a perspective on how
51:07 clients view themselves moving forward
51:11 in a way that almost no other document
51:16 or no other piece of intelligence can.
51:18 Provide small format value every week.
51:21 Now, this can be two sentences. Recruit
51:24 an associate to help. Um, get, you know,
51:26 do one-on-one with one associate to a
51:28 partner, one associate to two partners,
51:30 whatever your ratio is. Get an associate
51:33 in. Have them come up with two high
51:36 value sentences per week, maybe every
51:38 two weeks about a client. That's it.
51:41 Maybe two clients, but clients love
51:43 small snippets of highv value
51:46 information. two sentences, high value.
51:49 Do that three weeks in a row. Do that
51:51 three months in a row. You will be
51:53 remembered. They will look for those
51:55 emails and it'll be way more effective
51:57 than any client alert that you could
51:59 possibly come up with. And it'll be
52:01 teaching your associates how important
52:03 it is to understand clients and it'll be
52:07 making the partners look better.
52:09 Finally, I would recommend you adopt one
52:11 of my favorite exercises, which is the
52:14 15minute why win and lose exercise. I
52:16 like to take no more than 10 or 12
52:19 attorneys, put them in a Zoom call or
52:21 put them around a table, and you say,
52:23 "I'd like each one in the room to tell
52:26 me about their best win. At least eight
52:28 of the 10 partners in the room will say
52:31 something to the effect of, "Oh, I could
52:33 see this coming. I had it wired. I know
52:36 this client like the back of my hand. I
52:38 knew exactly what was happening. I could
52:42 see this from a mile away. Then you go,
52:43 you ask the same attorneys, tell me
52:46 about your biggest loss.
52:48 And inevitably, you'll hear about how
52:51 some other, you know, not so bright firm
52:53 bought it. How, you know, the other firm
52:55 didn't know what they were getting into.
52:57 Oh, the corporate council, you know,
53:00 didn't have authority to hire us. our
53:02 price was too high, which was the famous
53:05 one. And um you know, my other favorite
53:07 is you know, the the other firm just a
53:10 bunch of Well, it was always
53:12 interesting because if you point out at
53:15 the end of that exercise that we always
53:18 win because we had it wired and we
53:20 understood it better than everybody else
53:22 and when we lose it was because the
53:26 other firms were largely idiots.
53:28 So, think about the power of that and
53:29 how to get them to focus on the super
53:32 listening. And that's kind of where we
53:34 are today. This we think and we're
53:36 seeing our clients are using this
53:38 approach and getting assignments that
53:40 are much much bigger than they might
53:43 have anticipated when they started this
53:46 and are kind of all in on how this goes.
53:48 So, with all that, you know, we think
53:50 there's a lot of material here that can
53:53 help you develop business. We certainly
53:55 hope that you find it the same way. We
53:57 appreciate you taking the time early in
54:01 the year and uh we invite any comments,
54:03 questions, thoughts. Please, that's my
54:07 direct dial. You can email me um and we
54:10 will be responding to emails starting as
54:12 soon as we shut down the webinar today.
54:14 So, I would like to thank each one of
54:16 you for joining us, wishing you the best
54:18 of luck in your super listening and look
54:20 forward to hearing how successful
