Recently, Managing Partner Ronald Shechtman spoke with The American Lawyer about the growing competition among Am Law firms to acquire middle-market clients.
In recent years, an increasing number of firms have redoubled their efforts to secure, and deepen existing relationships with, midmarket clients. These companies generate substantial amounts of deals and other matters, even if the price tags don't compare with transactions undertaken by Fortune 500 clients.
For midsize law firms like Pryor Cashman, marketing to these clients just made sense, Shechtman told The American Lawyer. The majority of our firm's clients are outside the Fortune 500. "It's less a target than a natural outgrowth of who our partners are, and who their contacts are, and who they do business with. The nature of our practice as it's grown and developed has been relationships fostered between our partners and midmarket companies that often do not operate within the bureaucracy of a general counsel's office."
Deep-rooted relationships are common among law firms that service midmarket clients. And while these companies often expand, they generally do not want to scale up to BigLaw prices.
That's why the clients may seem more willing to compromise with their firm, Shechtman said. They're starting from a more reasonable point. "Midmarket clients are highly sensitive to fee structure, [so] we have to be nimble in dealing with fee arrangements," he explained. "It's more of a function of the attorney's sensitivity to the client's needs and the client's budget, and working to make it fit."
To read the full interview, please click here.
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