The research -- undertaken by UK market research firm Acritas and reported by The American Lawyer -- found that unhappy clients tended to bunch together their reasons for firing a firm into four clear categories. With 21 per cent, costs formed the biggest slice of the pie, while lack of expertise wasn’t far behind on 18 per cent. Some 15 per cent cited poor service as a reason for firing a law firm, while the departure of a key lawyer was mentioned by 11 per cent.

Aggrieved

The companies – of whom 20 per cent reported revenues of more than $6 billion, and another 40 per cent reported more than $1 billion in turnover – were frank with their answers, with some of the in-house lawyers clearly aggrieved by the services received.
Around 30 per cent of the in-house lawyers had ditched a firm within the last year, with reasons ranging from ‘they were doing a bad job: no results and a lot of invoices,’ to ‘poor service; lots of delay; when challenged, they were completely up front and just said [they] don't have enough resources, which is pretty astonishing for an international law firm.’

Neglect

One of the more worrying issues for law firms was the inability to maintain a relationship when the partner handling a client left the practice. One in-house lawyer said: ‘I find that often when partners leave, those firms neglect to contact clients to say we still want your business and we have signed a new relationship manager. They tend not to correspond with you. Yet the partner who leaves always contacts you from the new firm.’