When mapping out the team and process your firm is going to utilize to respond to an RFP, the first and most important thing to keep in mind is that the goal of everything, always, is to win the work. Everything else is secondary, and both the process and the product need to be structured around this goal. You’re in it to win it. Here’s how it works:
First, you need to evaluate the opportunity. How likely, honestly, are you to be able to win this work? Firms frequently grossly overestimate their likelihood of emerging on top. Although a lot of factors play a role, in the end, the most potent one by far is the strength of your firm’s relationship with the client. This is highly personal, and highly subjective, but before even launching into the rest of the project, you have to evaluate how well you know the decisionmakers, what kind of reputation you have with and inside the client, and in the most cold, hard, calculating way, what kind of shot you have at winning. To a lesser extent, this can include topics like your firm’s expertise and history in key practice areas, location and accessibility of offices, ability to compete on price and so on, but in the end, RFPs are usually strongly influenced by personal relationships.
Assuming that you’ve cleared that hurdle, and decided that this is a game worth playing, you next need to assemble your team, which should be as small as possible. This is critical. Bad team dynamics are the single biggest challenge to producing a great RFP response.
Law firms are not created to respond to RFPs. Like a sea lion on land, they can do it, but they’re not designed for it. As anyone who’s worked inside a firm knows, if there’s one thing lawyers are skilled at, it’s discussion, endless debate, delay and oh, yes, they also have to practice law. Find one senior attorney, preferably the one who’s the relationship partner, give them a managerial role with the project, and minimize the presence of anyone else. RFP responses are all about momentum and clarity, and having six attorneys endlessly circulate documents and hold meetings can both chew up a lot of time and hopelessly water down the end product.
Along with responsibility for the overall content and delivery of the document, the oversight partner is also responsible for pricing. This is a complex, case-by-case topic, and every case is different. An insurance defense RFP response may be quite price-sensitive and cost-focused, while a corporate tax RFP response may be considerably less so. Pricing in the end, however, is up to the partner.
In addition to the partner, the team should consist of the following:
• One person from Marketing, who is responsible for delivering the final product
• A designer and a writer. This may or may not be the aforementioned marketing person, but you also need the people who are actually going to design and write the document in the room.
• The other attorneys who are on the team. They do not need to be involved in the actual writing, but they should be part of what’s going on, as much as necessary.
• An IT contact for any cybersecurity, data security and data confidentiality requests. This is becoming increasingly more relevant and after the Panama Papers will likely be even more of a hot topic.
• A litigation support contact who can address eDiscovery systems, processes and pricing. The trend of billing eDiscovery costs through to clients is on the rise and will more than likely be addressed in the RFP. And historically litigation support people are billable with rates higher than paralegals but lower than partners. This litigation support contact may also need to contribute to IT related questions for the systems under the litigation support purview such as document review platforms or virtual data rooms.
Project workflow typically comes in four discrete stages.
Stage One: Research and strategy. Typically, this can be executed by Marketing, with oversight from the lead partner. This phase is where the team decides what the overall positioning of the firm in the RFP process will be, and does the work to acquire the information needed to communicate it.
Stage Two: Writing. In this stage, as the name implies, the team handles the writing of the portions of the RFP response that are not already complete (such as attorney bios, practice group descriptions and so on)
Stage Three: Design and Integration. In this stage, the various pieces of writing are integrated into one document, and the designers lay it out, add photographs and design elements, and on.
Stage Four: Final Edit. The designed document is reviewed for final, minor changes, and forwarded to the client.
Of these stages, Stage One is the most critical. The key to an effective RFP response is to make it client-focused. Ideally, the firm should not mention itself AT ALL until 3 – 5 pages into the document. The initial section of the document should be focused completely on the client’s status, needs, strategy and so on. The goal is to make it clear to the client that they’re a priority, that the firm understands how they compete in their marketplace, and stands ready to support that.
It is also absolutely critical, particularly with a complex RFP, to be very conscious of, and aggressive about, enforcing deadlines. Take nothing for granted – build in plenty of extra time, if possible, and if you haven’t heard from a team member about part of the project, it doesn’t mean “everything’s fine.” It means they’ve forgotten about it. Follow up.
In addition, it’s essential to follow all the detailed steps for the process itself. If the RFP requires acknowledgement that you’ll participate, send it. Understand the process for submitting follow-up questions, and adhere to it. Answer all questions, completely, and if a question is asked more than once, answer it completely in both places. Different people may be reading different parts of your response.
Another critical element of preparing an effective RFP is to focus on crafting a persuasive document. Lawyers, and therefore law firms, are trained in making legal arguments – factual, logical, and often very similar to every other RFP from every other competing firms. This is competitive suicide. An RFP response needs to say something unique and compelling about your firm. It needs to stand out. A “me-too” RFP response – one which doesn’t differentiate your firm – is usually a losing one.
Other tips:
- Service Differentiators – Know and sell all of the services your firm can offer such as eDiscovery or large document review. People who work at large companies like one stop shopping and feeling the firm has all bases covered gives people confidence and comfort.
- Pricing Differentiators – Is your firm flexible on pricing? Do they do AFAs? Bundled rates? Make sure the client is getting the best deal the firm and CFO are willing to give.
- Talk Technology – Cybersecurity and data confidentiality are among the biggest concerns with corporate counsel and this trend is on the uptick. Know your tech capabilities and sell them.
- Address Data Privacy - Knowing HIPAA rules, Safe Harbor practices, having international offices, or having experience dealing with the EU can be very important, especially for multi-national clients.
Finally, do not underestimate the importance of photography and design when preparing an RFP response. Remember, an RFP response is a marketing document, and how it looks is as important in positioning and marketing the firm as the content. Keep in mind that the recipient will have to read a pile of six or so competing RFPs – most of which will look alike, sound alike, and make the same claims. The one that stands out as being better-designed, better written and more carefully targeted is the one that’s going to win. Which, of course, is the entire idea – remember?
-Peter Darling -- Repechage Group; David Leone -- Saul Ewing LLP