THE WORK AT A GLANCE
Aligning Law Firm Strategy, Market Positioning, and Financial Performance
What We Did
Lotis Blue helped a Top 100 law firm sharpen its market position and strengthen the economics supporting its growth. Using financial and competitive analysis, partner research, and scenario planning, we developed a firmwide strategy that aligned priority sectors and services, partner performance, investment, and execution.
The Impact
The firm gained a clearer market position, stronger organizational alignment, and a practical roadmap for execution. The work also improved visibility into partner performance and compensation, clarified accountability, and established defined initiatives, owners, timelines, and measures of progress.
INDUSTRY
Legal
SERVICES
STRATEGY ALIGNMENT
PARTNER PERFORMANCE
Top 100
Law Firm
$1B
Revenue
500+
Partners
20+
Offices
01 – BUSINESS ISSUE
Creating a Unified Strategy for a Newly Combined Law Firm
Following the combination of two legacy firms, the organization had achieved significant scale, but its market position and financial performance had not yet caught up. The firm needed an integrated strategy that would clarify where it could differentiate, strengthen its economics, and align partner performance and investment decisions around shared priorities.
01
The market lacked a clear understanding of what distinguished the combined firm from its peers.
02
Revenue per lawyer, revenue per equity partner, and leverage remained below peer benchmarks.
03
Revenue generation was highly concentrated, with the top 25 client managers responsible for nearly 30% of firmwide revenue.
04
Partner performance and compensation disparities created a need for greater transparency, accountability, and strategic alignment.
02 – OUR APPROACH
Building a Law Firm Strategy Around Evidence and Partner Input
Lotis Blue began by developing a comprehensive fact base to establish a shared understanding of the firm’s market position, economics, and internal performance. The analysis included financial trends, industry and peer benchmarks, partner performance, and external brand insights.
To incorporate perspectives from across the partnership, we conducted a firmwide partner survey that achieved an 86% participation rate, along with individual interviews with every board member and member of the executive leadership team. These findings helped identify areas of alignment, sources of tension, and the strategic choices that would require further consideration.
Building on the research, we:
- Developed potential strategic pathways and modeled scenarios to assess how each could affect the firm’s desired business outcomes.
- Conducted focus groups with the firm’s top 100 partners to test the most viable pathways and gather feedback.
- Translated the selected direction into a set of firmwide ambitions, supported by a strategy map, prioritized initiatives, and defined success measures.
- Developed an execution plan that assigned ownership, timelines, milestones, and accountability for advancing the strategy.
- Supported the managing partner in introducing the strategy at the firm’s annual partner summit and establishing a clear case for change.
86%
partner survey participation
100%
of board and executive leadership interviewed
100
top partners engaged in focus groups
03 – BUSINESS IMPACT
Translating Firmwide Strategy into Measurable Action
The firm emerged with a clearer market position and stronger alignment around the sectors and services where it could build a more distinctive competitive advantage. Partners and leaders also gained a more consistent framework for directing time, investment, and resources toward shared priorities.
The strategy created greater transparency around partner performance and compensation while establishing clearer expectations for accountability. It also translated the firm’s ambitions into a practical execution plan with defined initiatives, owners, timelines, and measures of progress.
01
Established a more differentiated market position centered on priority sectors and services.
02
Gave partners and leaders clearer direction for allocating time, investment, and resources.
03
Increased transparency and accountability around partner performance and compensation.
04
Translated the strategy into defined initiatives, owners, timelines, and measures of progress.
