When choosing a lawyer or law firm, it is not so much the merits and media exposure of potential partners that are important for a business, but adequate communication and appropriate service.
Most businessmen want to switch to a hybrid model of working with lawyers, including a fixed fee and a success fee. These and many other insights were revealed as part of the study “How business chooses lawyers”, which was conducted by PLATFORMA and at the end of 2020.
“To find out how businesses choose lawyers today in 2021-2022, we surveyed 206 business representatives.”
Business priorities: adequate communication and service are more important than ratings
- We received 206 responses from businessmen: 75% are representatives of small businesses, 25% are representatives of medium and large businesses.
- 86% of survey participants contacted Brooklyn, NY Business Lawyer before the trial, 11% – in the court of first instance and 3% after the first instance.
- Most businessmen turned to lawyers with disputes over service contracts (42%), legal support of transactions (39%), disputes over sales contracts (34%), drafting contracts and agreements (29%) and tax consultations (24% ).
Small business
- In the first place when choosing a lawyer for small businesses were recommendations (70%).
- Unexpected was the distribution of other criteria for choosing a lawyer. Thus, the second place among the criteria was the style of communication (49%). It even outperformed the price of services (40%), customer reviews (37%) and verified success stories (34%).
- Unexpectedly, for many survey participants, the appearance of a lawyer (23%) turned out to be more important than his wins in the ratings (13%).
- How do small businesses find lawyers? In 75% of cases, on the recommendations of acquaintances, in 42% of cases through Internet searches, in 16% of cases through specialized online sites, 9% of respondents start their searches by getting advice on online sites and directories of lawyers. Only 4% are looking for Brooklyn, NY Business Lawyer based on the territorial criterion.
Medium and large business
- When choosing a law firm, medium and large businesses practically do not pay attention to activity in social networks and media activity of law firms (only about 10%), since almost all law firms maintain pages on social networks and give comments in the media. This is more of a mandatory part of marketing, rather than an add-on.
- For large companies, recommendations (44%), case studies (44%), a recognizable brand and a good reputation (33%) are more important. Participation in the ratings and the price are of interest to 10% of the participants.
- Medium and large firms also look for lawyers on the recommendation of acquaintances and word of mouth (50%), search the Internet, find individual legal sites, compare offers (50%) and conduct tenders (40%). Recall that participants could choose more than one answer.
- It also turned out that for only 10% of businessmen it is still important to have an academic degree and certificates of advanced training from a lawyer, the status of a lawyer and the participation of a firm or lawyer in ratings.
- Today, businesses most often (60%) work with lawyers for a fixed fee. The fixed + success fee model is used by almost 27% of survey participants.
- However, the majority of respondents (50.5%) would like to switch to the “fix + success fee” scheme in the near future. And they will give preference to firms and Brooklyn, NY Business Lawyer who will be ready for this form of payment.
Conclusion:
“As we see from the results of the study, a client-oriented approach and service are valued more in difficult times than a lawyer’s media exposure and a place in ratings,” founder of PLATFORMA, “Many entrepreneurs even begin to compare lawyers’ services with banks’ services.” this comparison is not in favor of lawyers.”
Head of the Development and Research Department at, believes that the demand of business for openness and transparency on the part of lawyers is obvious. “Over time, word of mouth will gradually lose ground, giving way to technological platforms and exchanges that ensure that the customer is fully informed about the competencies and reputation of a lawyer, as it happened and is happening in related industries,” he is sure.
