Understand the business. That, as BTI Consulting CEO Michael Rynowecer has reported for years, is an attribute that General Counsel and other buyers of legal service demand from their favored outside laws firms.

Few law schools provide business development training and none teach sophisticated business analysis. Lawyers know a lot; many though, don’t know how to derive actionable meaning from standard information sources such as SEC filings or company analyst reports. I was reminded of this deficiency in conversation with Big 4 accounting firms former BD executives who, like me, moved to BigLaw.  At PwC while I was there, there was an unspoken but palpable requirement that business professionals know the fundamentals of business analysis. Not so at law firms.

How can this be, given the priority that buyers of legal services place on “Understanding the Business?” Some lawyers – for example those who earned not only a law degree but also an MBA — are up to the task. Most lawyers, though, just don’t have the temperament nor the time. Just ask information-services professionals what happens when they provide a stack of consequential but unfiltered business information to a lawyer: teeth are gnashed, eyes are rolled, groans are muttered, tears are shed.

Lawyer reluctance to personally conduct research and analysis creates a big professional opportunity for law firm sales and marketing professionals. With only a little formal training, widely available at affordable prices and often funded through a firm’s professional development budget, they can become “understand the business” heroes and materially contribute to initiating relationships with prospective clients and deepening relationships with existing ones.

True, some research assignments require the efforts of highly-trained law firm internal staff, external geniuses such as those at Latin Brains, or the automated horsepower of Mind Alliance.

But when the research need is less demanding – like when a lawyer is having lunch with a prospective client, or when the firm is sponsoring a CLE and has the identities of attendees – a lighter touch will do. In instances like that, client developers don’t have to wait until they complete formal training to get started. It is possible for anyone – anyone smart enough to be hired by a contemporary law firm and with basic computer skills and an inquiring mind – to compile and synthesize information that quickly can get lawyers sufficiently up to speed.

When I was a CMBDO, I used the topical outline, below, to generate basic reports. Borrow this list, use a search engine to find a list that appeals to you, or generate a list of your own. It really doesn’t matter, as long as it leads to a well-crafted summary for the professionals who will be at the point of sale.

Sample business analysis index:

• Company basics – what does it do, for whom, where?
• Brief history of the company
• Financial performance – how does the current year compare with previous years, the plan, and the competition
• Strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats
• Strategy
• What the company says about itself
• What third parties (business publications and investment-company analysts) say about the company
• Industry developments
• Law firms utilized by the company
• Risks and opportunities
• Legal issues

To orient yourself, scan the company web site. Then, turn to LinkedIn for basic information on individuals of interest. For publicly traded companies, visit sec.gov for the most recent public filings such as 10-Ks, where you can home in on the risk and footnote sections – sections containing information easily digested even by beginners. (Later, when you take formal analysis training, you’ll quickly learn to understand and interpret all parts of public filings such as 10-Ks.) Access industry reports that can be found online. That’s more than enough sources for this exercise.

Next, turn to your favorite search engine. Type in the name of a company of interest and one of the topic headings above. For instance, “What is the 2024 business strategy for Acme AI?” or “How is the financial performance of Rossum’s Universal Robots?” You’ll be amazed at how much information pops up, and how fascinating business stories can be.

It’s possible to get lost in the vast maze of available information. If you stick strictly to the topics you’re trying to cover, there’s a lot less danger of wandering into rabbit holes. After an hour, summarize your findings in two or three pages. Even if your early research and analysis work is not exhaustive or detailed enough for investors, it is guaranteed to be useful and digestible for lawyers and client-facing BD professionals. By the way, it’s healthy and reasonable when an initial report generates more questions that require additional digging.

It’s a bit risky (but not all THAT risky) for business professionals to give this a try. If it proves not to be your métier, find another way to deliver value. However, the rewards of becoming a go-to answer person for the lawyers around you more than justifies giving it a try.

As I finished writing this blog post, I remembered the potential utility of generative artificial intelligence. I asked ChatGPT to provide a 1,000-word business analysis of Flex Corporation, which I know well, having researched it extensively over the years. In seconds, a respectable, though general, response emerged. It certainly didn’t contain hidden gems that would be found via human research. However, I thought, if I had a lawyer ready to climb into an Uber on the way to a client meeting, and if she were desperately demanding “Quick, what do we have on this company?” AI would be far better than nothing.

If you’d like to chat more on this topic, please contact: Steve Bell at 202-421-5988 / sbell@lawvision.com.