Recently the Association of Legal Administrators (ALA) released its first white paper on law firm pricing: The Client Cost Conundrum: Legal Service Pricing in a Post-Recession Market.

The February 2016 publication attempts to explain the importance of pricing within the legal industry by focusing on the reactions to the Great Recession by clients, law firms, and business partners. The paper also introduces a high-level understanding of pricing, using the retail and insurance industries to illustrate the importance of a pricing strategy.

The report highlights six key areas for law firms to consider when building a pricing strategy:

• Find Out What Clients Wants
• Increase Internal Efficiency
• Obtain Metrics for Insight
• Consider a Pricing Review Process
• Price Accurately Against the Market
• Advertise Your Services as an Asset.

ALA turned to several industry thought leaders for their knowledge and insights, including Philipp Biermann (Simon-Kucher & Partners), Connie Brenton (NetApp), Toby Brown (Akin Gump), Tim Corcoran (Corcoran Consulting), Barron Henley (Affinity Consulting), Colin Jasper (Jasper Consulting), Andrew Perlman (Suffolk University Law School), Peter Secor (Pepper Hamilton), and the author.

A copy of the 11-page report is available online: click here.

The ALA will be offering an Advanced Profitability Track (which includes pricing) at its 2016 Annual Conference in Los Angeles on May 23-25. For details, click here.