Law firms are sitting on a wealth of untapped potential within their existing client relationships. Yet many fail to recognize the full scope of these opportunities, leaving significant revenue on the table by not identifying service gaps that their clients desperately need to fill.
As law firms grow and become more specialized globally, the challenge of cross-practice collaboration has intensified. Partners operating in multi-jurisdictional, multi-practice organizations face structural and cultural barriers that hinder their ability to provide comprehensive service to clients. These barriers not only limit growth but also create vulnerabilities that competitors can exploit.
The cross-practice revenue opportunity
The reality of service silos is stark and pervasive across the legal industry. We frequently see scenarios where multiple clients in the same industry are served by just one practice group, despite having needs that span the firm’s capabilities. For example, a technology client might work extensively with a firm’s intellectual property group while having significant unmet needs in employment, regulatory compliance, or commercial contracts.
Traditional systems fail to surface these cross-selling opportunities for several reasons. Practice management systems typically track matters within practice silos rather than providing holistic client views. Client relationship data often resides in disconnected systems or individual partners’ personal networks. Perhaps most significantly, partners lack visibility into their colleagues’ capabilities and client activities, making it difficult to identify potential connections.
This siloed approach has become increasingly problematic as consensus buying has transformed how clients purchase legal services. Decisions that once rested with a single executive now involve multiple stakeholders across different functions and levels of the organization. Serving these clients effectively requires broader engagement that spans practice areas to address diverse stakeholder concerns.
The competitive advantage of expanding within existing relationships versus competing for new business is compelling. It’s significantly more efficient and profitable to grow within established client relationships where trust already exists than to pursue new clients through competitive pitches. The economics of client retention and expansion make cross-practice collaboration not just a growth opportunity but a strategic imperative.
Visibility challenges in complex organizations
Partners face significant hurdles in staying informed about firmwide activities in specific industries. Without specialized systems, they struggle to track which colleagues are working with similar clients or addressing related issues. This information gap creates blind spots that prevent effective collaboration.
When client needs arise that extend beyond their expertise, partners want to know which colleagues can help solve these problems. This seemingly simple requirement becomes extraordinarily complex in global firms with hundreds of specialists across multiple offices. The traditional approach of “knowing who knows what” breaks down as firms grow beyond the size where personal relationships can effectively bridge practice boundaries.
The difficulty of maintaining awareness across practice and geographic boundaries is compounded by organizational complexity. Different practices often have distinct cultures, terminologies, and work processes that create friction in cross-practice collaboration. Geographic dispersion adds another layer of complexity, with time zones and regional differences further complicating communication.
Traditional information-sharing methods like firmwide emails, practice group meetings, and internal newsletters create information overload rather than actionable insight. These approaches typically deliver unfocused, unfiltered information that requires significant time investment by both practice and professional staff to process. As one managing partner told us, “We’re drowning our partners in information and starving them of insights.”
Creating collaborative Activators
The Activator approach breaks down practice silos by fundamentally changing how partners view their roles within the firm. Rather than seeing themselves exclusively as practitioners within a specific discipline, Activators recognize their responsibility to connect clients with the firm’s full capabilities. This mindset shift transforms collaboration from an occasional activity to a core element of client service.
Building meaningful connections across practice groups requires deliberate effort and systematic approaches. Clients require forward-looking, integrated insights that combine comprehensive sector expertise to address current and future challenges. Successful firms create structured opportunities for cross-practice interaction, including interdisciplinary client teams, industry-focused groups that span practices, and regular forums for sharing client insights across specialties. These formal structures complement informal networks and help overcome the natural tendency toward practice isolation.
According to research from DCM Insights, Finnegan, a leading boutique intellectual property law firm, demonstrates the power of technology-enabled collaboration. Their approach leverages firmwide experience-management technology to capture comprehensive insights across practices, industries, courts, judges, and the varied technical backgrounds of their IP professionals. This systematic knowledge capture creates a searchable catalog of the firm’s collective expertise that partners can access in real time. When client opportunities arise, attorneys can quickly identify and spotlight colleagues with precisely the right skills and knowledge for specific engagements—substantially increasing their success rate with both existing and new clients. We’ve seen similar approaches transform collaboration at other firms by removing the friction that typically prevents expertise sharing.
Strategies for developing broader client relationships with multiple points of contact include:
- Conducting regular client service reviews that involve partners from multiple practices
- Creating client teams that span practice areas to provide a comprehensive service
- Mapping client organizations to identify key stakeholders across functions
- Developing industry expertise that transcends practices to provide synthesized proactive advice
- Establishing formal client succession planning that includes cross-practice integration
Perhaps most importantly, creating a culture where expertise sharing becomes the norm requires leadership commitment and aligned incentives. Firms that excel at cross-practice collaboration typically incorporate collaboration metrics into partner evaluation and compensation systems, recognize and celebrate successful cross-selling, and establish clear expectations for information sharing.
Technology as the connector
Modern technology solutions like Intapp DealCloud Activator help overcome the structural barriers to cross-practice collaboration by making previously invisible connections visible. The platform surfaces cross-practice opportunities by analyzing relationship patterns and client needs, identifying potential connections that might otherwise remain hidden.
The system makes firm-wide expertise accessible and actionable when client needs arise by creating a searchable repository of specialist knowledge and experience. Instead of relying on personal networks or chance conversations, partners can quickly identify colleagues with relevant expertise in specific industries, jurisdictions, or technical areas.
Unlike traditional information-sharing approaches, DealCloud Activator delivers filtered, targeted information rather than overwhelming data dumps. The platform uses intelligent filtering to ensure partners receive only the most relevant insights about clients and industries they care about, dramatically improving the signal-to-noise ratio. This targeted approach respects partners’ limited time while ensuring they have the information needed for effective collaboration.
The technology also measures and reinforces collaborative behaviors that drive growth. By tracking cross-practice introductions, shared opportunities, and collaborative matters, the platform creates visibility into collaboration patterns. This visibility enables firm leaders to recognize successful collaborators while identifying areas where additional support or intervention might be needed.
Modern platforms create transparency across the organization without generating information overload by balancing comprehensive data collection with intelligent filtering. Advanced permissions models ensure sensitive information remains protected while still enabling appropriate sharing across practice boundaries.
Perhaps most importantly, technology keeps lawyers connected to add client value through timely nudges about potential opportunities, client developments, and relevant capabilities. These connections happen in the flow of work rather than requiring partners to step away from client service to seek collaboration opportunities.
The vision of integrated global client service
The vision of truly integrated client service through global cross-practice collaboration represents a significant competitive advantage in today’s legal market. Clients increasingly expect their legal partners to provide seamless service across jurisdictions and specialties with coordinated teams that understand their business needs holistically.
Technology transforms siloed firms into collaborative revenue generators by making cross-practice collaboration systematic rather than opportunistic. Instead of relying on chance encounters or extraordinary efforts from individual partners, firms can build collaboration into their standard operating procedures through platforms that connect people, information, and opportunities.
The financial impact of effectively leveraging existing relationships through systematic cross-practice collaboration is substantial. While 73% of Activators frequently introduce clients to colleagues in their firms, only 29% of other partners do the same. These Activators sell the collective ‘we’ of their firms rather than just the ‘me’ of their personal expertise, resulting in significantly higher profit margins than work from new clients due to lower acquisition costs and established relationships.
By bridging the gaps between practices and making expertise discoverable across boundaries, firms can unlock the full potential of their client relationships while delivering more comprehensive service that clients increasingly demand.
To learn more about how your firm can uncover hidden revenue through cross-practice collaboration, download our comprehensive white paper, explore our previous blogs on What’s Keeping Law Firm Leaders Up at Night and Bridging the Gap Between Law Practice Expertise and Business Development, and discover how Intapp DealCloud Activator can help transform your firm’s collaborative capabilities.
Research conducted by DCM Insights, sponsored by Intapp, and published in the Harvard Business Review.