This is one of the questions I am currently working on through L&F CG Benchmark.
My working hypothesis is simple:
Law firms that are better at commercializing their services will also be more profitable over time.
I do not know yet how strong that relationship is, or how much of it is causal. That is part of the problem I want to explore.
Why I find the problem interesting
Legal expertise alone does not explain how effectively a firm turns that expertise into demand, client relationships, sales and growth.
If commercial capability matters, it should be possible to observe meaningful differences between law firms — and make those differences useful rather than merely descriptive.
What the Benchmark is meant to make visible
L&F CG Benchmark is being built so managing partners, partners, business developers, lawyers and other employees can see how well their own firm — or a competing firm — appears to commercialize its services.
The useful part is not the ranking itself. It is the ability to see:
- where a firm appears stronger or weaker commercially;
- which areas may need improvement if the firm wants to sell more and grow more profitably;
- what better-performing firms appear to do differently; and
- which improvements may matter most for the growth the firm actually wants.
The practical question underneath the Benchmark
Can we turn a broad idea like “commercial capability” into a market-based view that helps a law firm decide what to improve next?
That means the Benchmark should not simply say who is ahead. It should help explain why.
What I currently think
My current hypothesis is that stronger commercialization should, over time, contribute to more consistent demand creation, better conversion of expertise into client value, stronger commercial choices and therefore better growth and profitability.
But the Benchmark should test and refine that hypothesis rather than assume it is true by design.
What I still do not know
How strong is the relationship between commercial capability and profitability? Which commercial capabilities matter most? Does the pattern hold across different types and sizes of law firms? Which differences are genuinely actionable, and which are mostly consequences of market position, practice mix or scale?
Those are the questions I want the Benchmark to help make more observable over time.