Blog · Wallet share and penetration · Law firms
How a law firm measures, from the practice management export alone, which practice areas each client instructs against the norm for clients like them, which long-standing clients have gone quiet, and how referrals flow between partners, reconciled to billed fees and without exposing any partner's book to another.
A law firm has usually held its best clients for a decade and never asked who does their employment work. The practice management system knows every matter, its type, its partner and its fees. This guide sets out the three lists that come from it, per partner, without any partner seeing another's book: practice-area gaps, dormant clients, and referral share.
Per client:
Practice-area share = areas instructed ÷ areas in the norm for the client's type and size Gap value = Σ (missing areas × the firm's average fees per area for that band) Dormant = no matter opened in the window
Per partner:
Concentration = fees from the top three clients ÷ total fees Referral share = matters on the partner's clients opened by another practice ÷ matters
Client identifiers only.
Band clients by type and size. For each band, the share of clients instructing each area over the trailing three years. The norm is every area instructed by more than half the band. A client below it has a gap; one above it is a reference client for the band.
billed fees = Σ partners = Σ clients = Σ practice areas
The by-area equality catches a matter type renamed. The by-partner equality catches a client with two relationship partners and no agreed lead.
Corporate client band, norm of four areas. One client, twelve years with the firm.
| Practice area | Instructed | Fees, trailing 3 years | In norm | Gap at rate |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Corporate | Yes | £640,000 | Yes | |
| Employment | No | Yes | £110,000 | |
| Real estate | Yes | £85,000 | Yes | |
| Disputes | No | Yes | £160,000 | |
| Tax | No | No |
Two of four areas, £270,000 of gap at the firm's rates. The same partner's dormant list includes a client with £1.2m of lifetime fees and no matter in fourteen months. The partner sees both lists; the disputes head sees that a corporate client in that band has never instructed disputes, without seeing the client's name unless the firm decides otherwise.
Matters coded to the opening partner's area. A disputes matter opened by the corporate partner and coded to corporate makes the client look un-served in disputes. Code by matter type, not by who opened it.
Group clients. Subsidiaries as separate clients with partial area sets. Roll up to the group the relationship partner manages.
Dormant for a reason. A client between deals is not lost. The partner marks it and it moves to a watch list.
Norms from thin bands. Four clients in a band give no norm. Merge bands until the median means something and say so on the report.
Mapped once, the practice management export produces the three lists per partner every quarter, reconciled to billed fees, with scope applied so each partner sees only their own. Covirage builds this from the export as it is, client identifiers only, inside the firm's tenant on an enterprise deployment. The law firms page describes the setup.
Scope is applied in the data layer. Each partner sees their own clients, their gaps and their dormant list. Practice heads see totals by practice area. The managing partner sees the roll-up. Client identifiers stand in for names throughout.
A client with no matter opened in a window, typically twelve months for corporate clients and longer for private clients with episodic needs. Ranked by lifetime fees, the top of the list is a relationship worth a call whatever the window.
The share of a client's matters that came into a practice from another partner's client. It shows which partners send work across the firm and which practices never receive any, and it is computed from the same matter data.