Practical Competitive Intelligence: The Thinker & The Doer

Reposted with permission from AALL Spectrum, Volume 28, Number 3 (January/February 2024), pgs 40-41

By Josh Farley, Coordinator Competitive Intelligence, Norton Rose Fulbright US LLP

Why balancing tactical and strategic intelligence is vital to building a successful competitive intelligence function.

Competitive intelligence (CI) can help law firm marketing and business development (MBD) teams gain insights, identify opportunities, and avoid threats in a dynamic and competitive legal environment. But how should CI professionals approach their work? Should they prioritize tactical intelligence support for MBD activities—like profiling potential and current clients, gathering information for requests for proposals (RFPs), and matching conference attendees with the firm’s list of clients? Or should they devote more time and resources to strategic planning—such as monitoring industry trends, assessing competitor capabilities, and developing thought leadership?

The answer is not “either-or” but “both-and.” CI professionals possess a unique perspective that transcends firm silos. They have the ability to connect dots that may not be immediately evident to the MBD team, which is often focused on the day-to-day activities of their specific practice or sector. This insight also differs from the C-suite’s perspective, which, while maintaining a high-level view of firm operations, often lacks the bandwidth to monitor day-to-day activities firm-wide. As CI professionals, it is important to incorporate both roles into your position in a way that aligns with your firm’s goals and priorities. Below, I will explore the relationship between tactical and strategic intelligence in legal CI and provide a framework for finding the delicate balance necessary to thrive.

Experience at AALL’s Course: Competitive Intelligence Strategies & Analysis

By Allison C. Reeve Davis, Senior Library Manager, Littler Mendelson, P.C. and Caren Luckie, Research Attorney, Jackson Walker LLP

Allison and Caren were both awardees of the PLLIP-SIS grant to attend the course and in this post share their experiences and “a-ha” moments.

On May 16-17, 2022, several legal information professionals gathered in Chicago for an immersive course on Competitive Intelligence (CI) in law firms. The small group of 11 comprised individuals from law firms of various size and included librarians and CI researchers alike. Facilitators Ben Brighoff (Foley & Lardner, L.L.P.) and Lynne Kilgore (Baker Botts, L.L.P.), along with additional speaker Nathalie Noel (Jenner & Block), led the group through several CI strategies, team development, stakeholder buy-in, working collaboratively with other departments, and other considerations. Attendees took away ideas and made connections with each other creating a larger network of colleagues working in this space. We have already seen members of the group reaching out with questions and sharing ideas.

Organizers of the course kept the attendee list intentionally small. This created an open environment in which all were encouraged to share their experiences, expertise, and ask questions in a welcoming environment. Learning that individuals came from various levels of experience or diverse groups of research settings lessened any intimidation of being in a room with only high-level experts. Quickly, the group felt comfortable asking questions and sharing their goals for further CI development on their home teams. We learned that many of us face the same problems, and that we were all searching for the right (or better) resources to help us provide enhanced competitive intelligence to our firms.

We Need Intel!: Recap of AALL’s Competitive Intelligence Foundations Training

By Theresa Greco, Advisory and Managed Services Manager, HBR Consulting

I recently had the privilege of attending the American Association of Law Libraries (AALL) 2021 Virtual Competitive Intelligence Foundations training.  Special thanks to the Private Law Librarians and Information Professionals (PLLIP) Grants Committee for sponsoring my attendance to this informative event. 

The two-day training educated attendees on the skills needed to effectively establish a competitive intelligence (CI) function in their firm.  Presenters also shared practical tips and tricks for leveraging competitive analysis for enhanced marketing, client management, and other firm strategic initiatives.

Facilitator Patricia Ellard kicked off day one with a healthy dose of enthusiasm and motivation.  “Confidence is key!” were her words of encouragement to new and experienced CI professionals gathered on Zoom to learn all they could about the ever-evolving Competitive Intelligence function within a law firm.

The importance of “value adding” was a key theme throughout the event.  A panel discussion with Business Development (BD) and CI specialists Barbara Malin, Emily Rushing, and Samantha Callahan reinforced that CI is not an “information collection” activity and that “data on its own is never intelligence”.  What turns a “data dump” into CI is “connecting the dots” and pointing out both the risks and the opportunities for the client.

Practical Competitive Intelligence: Taking on CI in the Virtual World

Reposted with permission from AALL Spectrum, Volume 25, Number 3 (January/February 2021), pgs. 44-45.

By Kevin Miles, Manager of Library Services at Norton Rose Fulbright US LLP

Your reference librarian recently transferred to a competitive intelligence (CI) professional role. How does he or she get and keep a seat at the firm’s virtual (remote) business development table during this pandemic? Even though we are not currently working together in an office, collecting, analyzing, and acting on information from CI efforts is more important than ever. The financial markets are increasingly volatile, more attorneys and support staff are changing firms, and some practice groups are underutilized. A physical table has size limitations, but a virtual table is infinitely large. In other words, there is room for more seats and voices at the virtual business development table.

Changes and Challenges

As we all know, the pandemic has challenged how we conduct business. For many law firms, employees work well from home. Yet working from home sets new expectations, such as 24/7 availability. What are the boundaries between home and work during the pandemic? Having a working knowledge of communication via Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Skype, WebEx, or similar tools is now critical for sharing ideas. But because we also know that law librarians are very adaptable, such challenges can be readily met and overcome.

Private Law Librarians & Information Professionals Group Releases New Resource Guides

Below is a re-post with permission of the same article by Jean O’Grady on her Dewey Be Strategic blog.

The Private Law Librarians and Information Professionals – Special Interest Section (PLLIP) of AALL released two new resource guides on strategic planning and intranets. They also re-issued a major revision of a previously published guide on internet research.The Guides are free and available to law librarians and legal information professionals as well as law firm administrators who are interested in learning about best practices for managing information services. These guides are “slick” professional publications which combine high quality content with a visually polished presentation. Steve Lastres, Chair of the PLLIP Communications Committee, Natalie Lira, Communications Committee Member and Chair of the Resource Guides subcommittee and Cheryl Niemeier, Chair of PLLIP deserve special credit for shepherding these guides from concept through publication.

“Strategic Planning for Law Firm Libraries.” was written by PLLIP members Anna Irvin, Natalie M. Lira, Saskia Mehlhorn and Lindsay Carpino. Since 2007 the law firm market has been in a continuous state of reinvention. Firms are facing competition from alternative service provides, increased pressure from clients to control costs and offer alternative billing arrangements. Firms are exploring off-shoring, on-shoring, outsourcing and new types of partnership structures. It is more important than ever for information professionals to reassess their mission, goals, structure, and services to maintain alignment with the strategic goals of their organization. The resource guide highlights some of the non-traditional initiatives which information professionals are undertaking to improve strategic alignment including centralization, collaboration with other departments, embedding practice specialists, competitive intelligence, knowledge management, practice portal development, risk management and non-traditional outreach.

The strategic planning guide provides a step-by-step outline for the strategic planning process which can be used as a tutorial for newer managers and a checklist for more experienced professionals.

Law Firm Library Intranets was written by PLLIP members Julia Berry, Emily R. Florio, Catherine Monte and Nola M. Vanhoy. Law firm intranets have become important knowledge sharing platforms which provide access to key firm, client, administrative and staff data. As law libraries are going digital, intranets provide links to full-text treatise libraries, online databases, knowledge repositories, and educational platforms. The resource guide addresses key issues facing information professionals who want to develop the firm’s first intranet or enhance an existing intranet, Topics include: selection and design, collaboration, project justification, content creation, Sharepoint tools, alternatives to intranets, extranets and suggestions for continuous improvement.

The Internet as  a Legal Research Tool was revised by PLLIP members Andrea Guldalian and Cheryl Niemeier. According to an ABA study 50.8% of lawyers begin their legal research using free internet resources. Information professionals are uniquely qualified to assess the risks of free legal research resources. They are often the only professionals at the firm engaged in training lawyers on internet “hygiene” and creating resources and intranets which direct lawyers to the most cost-effective and reliable internet resources. The guide includes an important discussion on authority and guidelines for assessing reliability of resources. There is guidance on best practices for legal research on the internet as well as using mobile apps for legal research.

Earlier guides cover how to hire a law librarian, new roles for law librarians, competitive intelligence, collection re-balancing, negotiations and space planning.