Tenders as a channel of sale of legal services: results of a survey conducted by the Legal Success magazine

Lately, holding tenders for selection of external consultants has become an increasingly popular practice, since it permits to very quickly assess the market of providers of legal services and to get the idea of the price level. But a belief that tenders for external legal consultants in Russia are nothing more than a fiction, a fashion, events with a predetermined outcome, is common among the representatives of the law firms. Is it really so? Does the world-wide practice of purchasing legal services through tenders have any chance of becoming an efficient instrument in our country? What problems do the tender participants and organizers face?

On the study

In the end of 2011, the Legal Success magazine held a survey and a series of interviews with representatives of legal departments and law firms. 29 heads of largest legal departments of Russia and 44 representatives of law firms from Russia, Kazakhstan, Belarus and Azerbaijan took part in the survey. Largest international companies as well as classical advocate’s bureaus, old-timers and newcomers to the market were among the respondents – law firms. Two questionnaires were preliminarily drawn up: one for law firms and another for legal departments. One could answer the questions anonymously, by filling in the questionnaire on the website or by sending it in accompanied by an authorized commentary, which the editor was entitled to directly use in the final report.

The following issues were to be studies:

• Whether legal departments use tenders for selection of legal consultants or not, and why;
• How the tender participants are informed of the tender’s holding;
• The criteria employed by the heads of legal departments to establish the winner;
• How often law firms take part in tenders;
• Whether they are willing to fulfil tests within the framework of filling in a questionnaire of tender participant;
• What sources of information on tenders are the most convenient for law firms?

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Tender as a way of promotion of a law firm

A tender may also be used as a way to promote (to increase the recognizability of the brand) of a law firm.

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Evgeny Zhilin, Associated Partner at the Firm, Head of international projects, believes that sometimes results of a tender motivate the firm to change its view of a certain type of its activity.

He notes: “Unfortunately, the organizers do not always enable feedback and rarely disclose the motives of their predilection for a certain company to the detriment of the other participants of the tender”.

All respondents are of the opinion that subjective evaluations are of material significance for the selection, but it would be well if the companies, which fail it, knew, which parameters of their activity required improvement.

E.Zhilin thinks that participation in a tender, first, helps to find new clients, and second – forms the self-awareness of the firm, permits to evaluate its possibilities and to understand, what it does correctly and better than others.

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Legal Success No. 1, 2012 (January-March)

Full version of the publication is available here.