Tweet

Are lawyers really worthy that money

Written by: Gerry Maguire

Article Overview: Business professionals, lawyers, accountants, engineers and others are sometimes viewed as a necessary evil. Each profession has offered a lot of material for jokes and comedians over the years. We have the bottom dwelling lawyers, the charisma by pass, cardigan wearing accountants and the geeky computer dorks to name a few. As well as jokes these professions have something else in common. It is the ability to charge relatively high fees for their services. Do they prtovide the value to justify these fees.

Are lawyers really worthy that money

Business professionals, lawyers, accountants, engineers and others are sometimes viewed as a necessary evil. Each profession has offered a lot of material for jokes and comedians over the years. We have the bottom dwelling lawyers, the charisma by pass, cardigan wearing accountants and the geeky computer dorks to name a few. As well as jokes these professions have something else in common. It is the ability to charge relatively high fees for their services.

Do businesses and individuals get value from these high fees? To answer this question I reviewed the 2008 Beaton Consulting Annual Business and Professions survey. This survey looked at the demographics of the business professions and client perceptions of the value that these professions provided. The professions were:

*
* Legal
* Accounting
* Actuarial
* Patent and trade mark attorney
* Architecture
* Management Consulting
* IT Services
* Consulting Engineering


The demographic part of the survey found that there are more female lawyers than male lawyers and that females also dominated in the accounting profession. At the other end of the spectrum 82% of consulting engineers are male as are 72% of IT service professionals.

The survey asked clients what they looked for in their professionals that they used. The two keys attributes overall were “proactive innovation” and “excellent service, communication and client focus”. However there were significant differences between how theses were valued in the different professions. “Proactive / innovation” was rated much above the average in the IT services professions while “service, communication and client focus” rated much lower in the IT and consulting engineer’s professions. The Legal and actuarial professions rated very high on this client focus attribute.

The clients were then asked how the professionals performed in providing innovation. In the IT world innovation was valued highly. However. The survey found that the IT profession was a relatively poor performer in delivering innovative solutions. The high performers in providing innovation were the Patent and Trade mark Attorneys and the Legal profession.

In regards to client relationship management the professions are focusing on the following.

* Making Efforts to build personal relationships
* Providing a client relationship contact
* Acting on feedback

The areas of relationship management in which clients indicated there had been the least amount of work were:

* Providing metrics on the service provided
* Identifying opportunities and referring business

Fees were typically viewed as high; however, this did not naturally lead to a perceived deficiency in value provided. It was suggested that fees were only one component that determined overall value. The ones perceived with the highest fees were management consultants, accountants and lawyers. Patent and trade mark attorneys were perceived as having the lowest fees and providing the highest value. However, the IT profession who were ranked second lowest in regards to fees were ranked last in regard to value. Also lawyers who were perceived as charging high fees were also judged as providing a high level of value.

What are some of the take aways from this survey?

* There is a huge opportunity for IT professionals

Unmet demand from clients in regards to innovation

* Lawyers may cost but they are satisfying their client needs
* Patent and Trade Mark Attorneys are potentially exceeding client expectations
* Generally these professions do have a high cost but overall they are delivering value

A message from the survey for the business professionals with a strategy of developing client relationships is that to differentiate yourself from competitors you will need to do more than develop a personal relationship. Referring business and providing metrics are two opportunities to help retain those valuable clients.

As with most business decisions it is important to start with the end in mind when engaging a business professional. This should be communicated to the professional and ideally done in writing before work commences. This will help clarify expectations and keep the professional focussed on solving your issue. This perhaps painful process up front will increase the likelihood of you extracting the value that the professional offers.

Related Articles
  How to Say No
  An SEO is the next Lawyer in your life.
  Legal Marketing: Blog opportunities
  Real Estate Marketing Strategies: Are your Self-Limiting Beliefs holding you back?
  The same cigarette as me

Article Tags: accountants, business professionals, lawyers



Related Forum Posts
Re: Should you hire ambitious workers or employees with no goals - Shri is right, If your employees are not ambitious they are also not trust worthy and in the end you find yourself doing all the work again, and even twice the job, fixing their mistakes, so why hire them in the first place!? You need to spend money to earn money, and in the end it will pay off. Tanny
Re: OT: Shop For Museums - While I'm all in favor of supporting worthy causes... I'm not sure that donating a small portion of profits to a non-profit organization/charity would entice me to spend more money with a particular retailer/vendor. I mean, if a person wanted to make a difference, wouldn't it just be easier to give a direct donation?
Re: Do Women Play the Stock Market? - [quote="BuzzAroundBooks":5h1fgq0c]Hi Barbara, My mother simply lets my father handle her entire stock portfolio because she believes he's more knowledgeable in the subject of "finance and money" (especially since my dad worked as an accountant for 35 years).[/quote:5h1fgq0c] Hi, Kevin That brings up another subject! Too many women - probably not any entrepreneurs here, but housewives - let their husband handle all the money. He does everything. Then, when he dies (and most husbands die before their wives)... they are left not knowing how to balance a check book or anything! They don't know where the stocks are, they don't know where the life insurance policies are, etc. (And hopefully there [i:5h1fgq0c]are [/i:5h1fgq0c]some. I believe the amount of people who die intestate is over 50%, which leads to a lot of trouble - and a lot of money made for lawyers!
Re: How should a young entrepreneur dress to impress? - Regardless of how someone gets to dress while they conduct business with clients... what about when they have to deal with "money people" - investment bankers, lawyers, and the like? Or if they want to franchise out their business. (Of course, the more successful they are, the more the money people won't care what they wear as long as they can sign them as a client!) I'm reminded of the commercial for...I think it's American Express, where a man and his woman partner are overseas talking with Germans about expanding, and he decides to pay for their lunch with a credit card with a superhero on it, which gets the Germans all annoyed at his lack of unprofessionalism and leave.... in real life if he'd had a good idea I doubt if they'd have stirred!
Suggested folder topic - Legalities and lawyers You can get into trouble with or without 'em... But they and what they can do for you should be talked about..


Share this article with your friends. Fund someone's dream.

Leave a comment below or share on the left and you'll help support entrepreneurs in Africa through our partnership with Kiva. Over $50,000 raised and counting - Please keep sharing! Learn more.

Tweet

Newsletter

Get advice & tips from famous business
owners, new articles by entrepreneur
experts, my latest website updates, &
special sneak peaks at what's to come!

Name:
Email:

Popular Articles

Making the Most of Your Trade Show Experience

Are You Fulfilled

Suggestions

Email us your ideas on how to make our
website more valuable! Thank you Sharon
from Toronto Salsa Lessons / Classes for
your suggestions to make the newsletter
look like the website and profile younger
entrepreneurs like Jennifer Lopez.