The way to establish value as perceived by the client requires 1) an understanding of what the client is trying to achieve (both generally as a business and specifically in the context of a particular brief) and 2) the way that the law firm can help the client achieve those outcomes (rather than "just" provide a service). In this way, the legal firm is perceived as contributing to corporate KPOs rather than "just" being a cost (and therefore detracting from those KPOs.)

In order for the firm to do these two things, a person within the firm needs to understand the client's context and needs, and be integral to, engineering a service or group of services provided by the firm that will help deliver those outcomes for the client. This person must be able to pull resources from anywhere in the firm (or outside of it) to deliver what the clients need.

Intellectually, most people in the legal community will acknowledge this as a truism and obvious. The challenge comes from aligning the firm structure, processes, accountabilities and reporting with the needs of its clients and the market.

As I understand the structure of legal firms, service lines have their own utilisation, sales and contribution accountabilities. This is OK if you are based on a "sales" culture where every service line is trying to (and measured by) selling and utilising its time and resources. However it's not the optimal structure if you have to engineer different service line inputs as and when a client may need them so that the firm can "deliver value".

Therefore, if a firm is serious about delivering value, then it needs to seriously consider the suitability of its structure to deliver such value.

There is another problem that will occur in moving to a "marketing" culture (i.e. giving the client what he wants rather than selling them only what you're offering). Without getting too philosophical about the issue, a sales culture tends to be "Left-Brain" meaning that it is predictable, sequential and ordered. People know where they belong and to whom they are accountable. A marketing culture is more "Right-Brain". People are more flexible, able to handle ambiguities and don't stress with more than one person to be accountable to.

Therefore, a culture that is value-driven and market-oriented, will necessarily be more right brain than left brain. If your firm is currently composed of a lot of technical experts with a fine eye for detail, then I suspect they are predominantly left-brain. If you impose a right-brain culture on them (e.g. a matrix form of management) they will stress because they seek orderliness and predictability. If the firm restructures to provide a fluid environment to best deliver value to clients, then expect stress to increase. This needs to be managed or else the firm will implode (i.e. staff will leave to find less stressful environments.)