Tis the season to nurture client loyalty

Smart law firms are using the legal directory submission process as an opportunity to reinforce client loyalty by showing that they care about their clients’ needs.

While you may not have your Christmas tree up yet, you will no doubt have given some thought as to when to order it.

Yes, it’s that time of the year again. Decorations are going up, the supermarkets are showcasing their ludicrously expensive festive commercials, and Love Actually is starting to trend again on Netflix.

But while some may be winding down for the festive season, bankers are frantically pursuing their end-of-year bonuses … and law firm BD and Marketing (BDM) professionals should already be working on their legal directory submissions.

The much-dreaded annual submissions season kicks off early next year, due in no small part to IFLR’s decision to bring forward their deadline to 26 January 2026.

What does this mean for BDM professionals? Well, while many BDM teams might be reviewing submission categories to decide which ones to target, collating their most compelling work highlights, and giving consideration as to which additional lawyers they would like to see ranked, not enough are thinking about their client referees.

This is a mistake, and for a number of reasons.

Worst case scenario … firms fail to verify the status of a client referee before putting them forward in support of their submission, thereby potentially harming their response rate and … ultimately …. their ranking (this still happens!).

But even if your firm follows the advice of the directories and seeks the permission of your clients before forwarding their details as part of your submission (a courtesy that some might regard as common sense), the process itself remains a disturbance for your clients.

From their perspective, their day is being interrupted to give feedback on the nature and quality of the legal services provided by the law firms they use. While the directories will argue that their rankings are important benchmarks for clients (as well as prospects, referrals, the media, and job applicants), any immediate client benefits are difficult to see.

For law firms, the submissions process is now so rigorous that many house teams of dedicated staff who spend hours, days, weeks and months assembling information for submissions of one kind or another. According to the Legal Marketing Association, when taking into consideration all related costs (including partner time), the average cost to complete a single submission for Chambers is US$4,506.

The return on this investment is a judgment call that all law firms have to make. While we don’t consider directory rankings to be the most effective form of legal marketing, the merits for persevering with the process are well known (and much debated).

Meanwhile the publishers of the legal directories, increasingly powered by the ruthlessness of private equity, gratefully convert an abundance of law firm data into escalating revenue streams (mostly selling advertising, research products, subscriptions and various other methods to “elevate your digital real estate” on their website).

Client care

Recent research from BTI Consulting showed that 72 per cent of clients have a desire to provide feedback to their law firms. That should come as no surprise given that many of them are much more deliberate about collecting feedback from their own clients (approximately 88 per cent of the Fortune 200 run formal client experience programmes).

While this can of course be achieved via a third-party legal publisher, the value of such feedback (from the law firm’s perspective) is extremely limited given it is anonymised and indirect.

More importantly, law firms would have failed to grasp a wonderful opportunity – and one of the key touchpoints during the year – to nurture the client relationship.

Remote working and fewer in-person interactions have reduced opportunities to build deep understanding of your clients, so law firms need to be more intentional about this now. And they are … to a degree.

According to one recent assessment of the state of client feedback in legal services, 56 per cent of responding law firms said they were asking for feedback in a meaningful way. While this was up from the 48 per cent recorded in 2010, it is still lower than it should be and often only involves key clients.

Law firm BDM teams frequently talk about taking a holistic approach to directory submissions from a content-generation perspective. In other words, viewing submission drafts as one of a number of outlets for content generated centrally that might also be repurposed for other marketing initiatives (such as blog posts, press releases, and thought leadership reports) as well as for tenders, annual reports, and other vehicles.

The smarter law firms are considering the client referee management process in a similar vein i.e. viewing it as one of a number of touchpoints throughout the year that affords them the opportunity to get to know their client better and, importantly, add value to that relationship.

Collecting feedback at key touchpoints – such as via end-of-matter surveys, RFP post-mortems, and end-of-year check-ins – enables law firms to evaluate the client journey, identify issues like billing or budgeting, and learn from them.

Managing your client through the directory research process is a perfect additional opportunity to seek feedback, not only on the quality of your offering and how it stacks up against your nearest competitors, but also on client priorities.

Many firms still view client feedback as just a compliance exercise, rather than something that can drive commercial value. And yet, according to Thomson Reuters Institute research, clients spend twice as much with law firms that reach out through dedicated programmes compared with those that don’t.

Seeking strategic feedback on client focus areas not only helps identify cross-selling or relationship development opportunities with that client (insights that can be fed back into strategic planning for the year ahead) but also reinforces client loyalty by showing that you understand – and care about – their needs.

A quarter of clients have complaints they never voice, which means feedback collection is as much about client protection as it is about client growth. So, less about quick wins and more about long-term relationship-building.

As the old adage goes … “If you’re not talking to your clients, somebody else is.”