New European in-house counsel study 2006

How mid-sized companies in Europe select and review their legal services providers

November 1, 2006 – LexisNexis Martindale-Hubbell's study "How mid-sized companies in Europe select and review their legal services providers" is the first study shedding light on the buying behaviour of European mid-size companies. Until now, little has been known about their need for external legal services and what drives their choice of one advisor over another.

Commenting on the findings, International Marketing Director of LexisNexis Martindale-Hubbell James Harley said, "To develop successful business development plans, law firms have to align themselves more closely to the needs and circumstances of their prospective clients, they have to understand what happens within these organisations and how likely it is that they will respond to different marketing stimuli."

Legal marketing consultant, Silvia Hodges was tasked with interviewing mid-size companies in the UK, Germany, France, and Italy. The qualitative research was then supported by a broad set of quantitative feedback, via online questionnaires.

METHODOLOGY
The first phase of the market research comprised 31 in-depth interviews (face-to-face or by telephone). Each interview was conducted with the individual responsible for engaging law firms in the respondent company. Qualitative interviews were conducted with the company's managing director or owner, head of finance, in-house lawyer, or head of human resources/operations. Interview respondents represented 4 major EU jurisdictions: 6 from France (19%), 6 from the UK (19%), 10 from Germany (32%), and 9 from Italy (29%).

After this exercise, a supporting quantitative study was carried out to validate or rescind the initial qualitative findings. 194 questionnaires were collected: 41 from France (21%), 42 from the UK (22%), 50 from Germany (26%) and 61 from Italy (31%).

For purposes of the study, 'mid-size' companies were defined as 'for-profit' organisations with between approximately 50 and 600 full-time employees at the time of the research. The companies were then subdivided into 'small' (50 to 100 employees), 'medium' (101-250) and 'large' (251-600).

Among interview participants, 7 companies were classified as 'small', 12 as 'medium', and 12 as 'large'. In the quantitative part of the study, 78 companies qualified as 'small' (41%), 61 as 'medium' (31%), and 55 as 'large' (28%).

Respondents were segmented into three broad industry groups: manufacturing/production, retail/wholesale, and services. Respondent representation was evenly distributed across these industry sectors for both the quantitative and qualitative areas of the study: Among questionnaire respondents, 76 companies belonged to the manufacturing/production sector (39%), 67 to the services sector (35%) and 51 to the retail/wholesale sector (26%). Among interview respondents, 12 belonged to the manufacturing/production sector, 10 to the services sector and 9 to the retail/wholesale sector.