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Knowledge as a Revenue Driver, Not a Cost Centre: the LexisNexis GLP and How to Use Market Intelligence to Make Knowledge a Vital Growth Engine for Law Firms

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  31 March 2021

Christopher O'Connor
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Abstract

This article by the LexisNexis Segment Marketing team explains the approach, methodology and findings of the LexisNexis Gross Legal Product (GLP) report, first presented at the BIALL's Virtual Conference in June 2020. The GLP is a quantitative measure of underlying demand for legal services in the UK, comprised of 250 individual metrics which serve as proxies for legal activity. The article outlines the methodology and sources used to build the GLP; headline findings for Q2 2020 YTD; and provides suggestions for how firm leaders and knowledge professionals could use the information in their work. The GLP Q2 model found that demand for legal activity has declined by 7% since the start of 2020.

Keywords

law firmsmarket intelligenceknowledge management
Type
Selection of Papers from the BIALL ‘Virtual’ Conference 2020
Information
Legal Information Management , Volume 20 , Issue 4 , December 2020 , pp. 213 - 218
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2021. Published by British and Irish Association of Law Librarians

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References

Footnotes

1 All past and forthcoming editions of the GLP report can be found on LexisNexis’ website – www.lexisnexis.co.uk/GrossLegalProduct

2 ONS Legal and Accounting Activity

3 Law Society, Annual Statistics Report

4 The Lawyer Top 100 report

5 PwC, Annual Law Firms’ Survey

6 PA Methodology Change – two changes were made to our Practice Area definitions after feedback from practitioners. As a result, growth rates have changed (incl for 2017–19 and Q1 2020) from those previous shown:

  1. 1.

    1. The definitions (and metrics included) for Commercial and Banking & Finance have been changed from the Q1 report to more closely mirror how firms label their areas of work:

    1. a.

      a. Commercial now covers metrics that reflect core legal support for business clients – including transactions, contracting and licensing

    2. b.

      b. Corporate contains the M&A elements previously included in ‘Banking & Finance’

    3. c.

      c. In future reports, additional PAs will be added

      1. i.

        i. Banking & Finance will be reintroduced with the more narrow definition of non-M&A investment banking – fundraising, asset management and private capital markets

      2. ii.

        ii. Financial Services will be introduced to cover financial regulation and compliance

  2. 2.

    2. Litigation has been split and all litigation elements have been removed from Crime

    1. a.

      a. Litigation – Criminal now includes all measures of court and mediation work related only to crime

    2. b.

      b. Litigation – Civil includes measures of litigation and mediation related only to Civil or Family work

    3. c.

      c. Crime – previously included some measures of criminal litigation, for clarity this has now been removed and the PA focuses on underlying crime levels, prosecutions, parole and prison

7 Treatment of furlough - In the Q1 GLP report, the enormous amount of work created by the government furlough scheme was included in the Employment practice area data, driving Q1 growth of 10.2%. With the announcement of the end of the scheme at the end of October and the one-off nature of the incremental work created, we have decided to remove this driver from the Employment data going forward. To allow for comparison on a like-for-like basis, the Q1 Employment growth rate shown here has been restated to exclude the furlough effect (reducing the rate to 3.0%)

8 LexisNexis, Bellwether 2020 Report

9 ONS Monthly GDP Estimate