Firms Need To Sell Advantage Of ‘Trusted Advisers' To Clients

With clients' loyalty to legal service providers diminishing, lawyers say firms should do more to promote the benefits of more in-depth relationships between clients and their advisers

As clients display a greater tendency to shop around for legal services, it is argued that lawyers need to make greater efforts to communicate the value of the `trusted adviser´ relationship as this benefits both the law firm and the client. As a consequence, lawyers argue, potential problems are more likely to be anticipated.

A number of recent Iberian legal market studies have emphasised the importance of trust in a lawyer-client relationship. Iberian Lawyer's Generation 3.0 research – which sought to identify the characteristics clients look for in the lawyers of the future – revealed that key to the success of the next generation of lawyers will be the ability to create close, personal client relationships based on trust.