If law firms employed dedicated sales forces, those sales teams would, as all sales teams do, use a client relationship management (CRM) system to track their activities and measure their results. They would use technology to make their job easier and to manage the information they gathered about the relationships that evolved between their organization, their clients and their contacts. In law firms, however, the responsibility to generate new revenues and grow relationships rests with the lawyers themselves. Law firm marketers also assist in this process. Unfortunately, many law firms do not take advantage of the technology available to assist their attorneys and marketing professionals. Law firms can use technology to ease the burden of capturing, organizing and retrieving valuable information. The key is to use CRM technology to its fullest potential and to recognize the critical role CRM plays in the business development process.

Planning. Business planning is key to successful business development at every level in an organization. Whether you are developing a plan for the whole firm, a practice group or an individual, there are several areas where relationship management technology can streamline the planning process.

It is critical that law firms become proactive in deciding which business is “good” business. Which clients are bringing in the most revenues? Who pays their bills on time? Which industries represent a growing portion of revenues? Relationship management technology presents the data in such a way that the firm’s management can get at this data – and make critical decisions about the direction of the firm. Armed with the right information, the firm can make smarter decisions – and focus on the “right” business.

The same holds true for individual attorneys as they develop their personal business plans. CRM applications can provide a treasure trove of data from which to assess the wisdom of pursuing particular clients or particular matters. This can serve as the foundation for setting goals and taking daily actions to achieve them. In addition, sophisticated CRM applications can help lawyers measure the results of their efforts so that they can ultimately focus less on business development and more on practicing law.

Marketing/PR. Marketing and public relations activities can supplement face-to-face networking and business development efforts. Here, relationship management technology can help to effectively coordinate a firm’s marketing activities.

As David Maister has said before, “You can’t manage what you can’t measure.” Marketing becomes a critical part of the law firm’s overall strategy when it can proactively identify, develop and retain desirable business opportunities. The technology provides the tools – event reporting, campaign management, mailing list management, etc. – and the professionals supply the oversight. Together, they create measurable data that highlight what works and what doesn’t.

In this role, technology separates the tactical (the collection of data, the calculation of results) from the strategic (the decision-making behind which events to do, who to invite, etc.). The decision-makers in the marketing department, armed with supporting evidence about past performance, can make well educated and reasoned decisions about whether or not to engage in specific marketing activities.

Networking and Essential Business Development Activities. CRM systems help organize and store the information obtained during networking events, meetings with prospective clients and relationship management activities. They allow the quick retrieval of information when it’s needed most--such as right before making a presentation to a potential client.

CRM applications can also be used to engage in the ongoing nurturing process during which the firm and its attorneys maintain regular contact with the people in their networks. They can provide reminders for daily action (e.g., personal visits, calls, gifts and timely, hand-written note) and lists of contacts to which the firm can send newsletters, white papers and announcements.

CRM systems also allow a firm to leverage the relationships of all the attorneys in the organization. For example, when one of the firm’s attorneys meets someone, CRM makes it easy to find out who else knows that person and what other connections that person has with the firm. Once the notion of networking is extended to the entire firm, changes with individual contacts can be tracked effectively. If one partner in the firm has lunch with a client known by many in the firm, it’s useful to share information gathered from that lunch (i.e., a promotion) with others in the firm who should know.

If the firm’s CRM application is used effectively, it can ensure that every person in the firm who has contact with this client has access to this new information. As a result, other attorneys who are actively engaged in a relationship with this client could follow up with an e-mail or a quick note acknowledging the new information or congratulating the person on the promotion.

Sophisticated CRM systems can even provide the firm’s attorneys with ability to “watch” their contacts and be notified immediately when there are changes to those contacts. Delivered to the firm’s intranet, portal, or to the lawyer’s PDA, this information is a critical component of the firm’s knowledge management strategy.

Achieving Depth and Cross-Selling. Ultimately, a firm’s success is determined not only by its individual attorneys’ ability to service existing clients and develop more relationships for themselves, but also by the development of more relationships for the firm as a whole. Through effective knowledge management and retrieval, the firm’s knowledge-base can be mined to identify new revenue opportunities, cross-sell additional firm services to existing clients and reduce wasted billable hours through streamlined data access and client communications.

Lew Platt, former CEO at Hewlett Packard, once remarked that, “If only we knew what we know, we’d be twice as big.” It’s often difficult for organizations to know everything that individuals within the organization know. One goal of CRM is to give firms the power to know more about their clients, and understand more about how their clients interact with them. Firms can identify trends – such as recognizing that growing technology clients not only need intellectual property assistance, but also need help with their growing real estate issues. Firms can then set about capitalizing on these trends – in this case, by arranging for attorneys from the real estate team to work with the IP team to cross-sell the firm’s real estate expertise. By increasing the amount of information that the firm captures about its clients, the firm will go a long way to creating new and more desirable business opportunities.

Conclusion. Some firms embrace technology and use it to streamline everything they do. Others can’t seem to get far enough away from technology. The rest fall somewhere in between these extremes. By understanding the power of relationship management technology and learning how it can be used at various stages in the client development and relationship management process, all firms can become better at winning new business and strengthening client relationships.

Rick Klau is Vice President of Legal Markets at Interface Software, Inc. He is a graduate of the University of Richmond School of Law, and the co-author of "Law Law Law on the Internet" published by the ABA. Rick can be reached at rklau@interfacesoftware.com.