I
laughed,
I
cried,
it
was
considerably
worse
than
Cats.
That
pretty
much
sums
up
client
reactions
to
the
pitch
decks
law
firms
slap
together
manually.
A
grand
farce
draped
in
the
delusion
of
strategy,
built
on
systems
that
make
even
the
DMV
look
like
an
agile
startup.
The
State
of
Proposal
Generation
and
Business
Development
in
Law
Firms
for
2025,
put
together
by
Ikaun,
examined
the
RFP
process
and
discovered
a
slow-moving
pageant
of
legacy
tools,
tribal
fiefdoms,
and
task
duplication.
And
it
cuts
across
the
industry,
with
respondents
drawn
roughly
a
quarter
from
each
the
Am
Law
100,
Second
Hundred,
NLJ
500,
and
beyond.
As
corporate
legal
departments
raise
expectations
–
70%
now
demand
faster,
more
tailored
RFP
responses,
up
from
56%
in
2022
–
law
firms
are
under
pressure
to
respond
with
greater
speed,
precision,
and
professionalism.
Yet
many
remain
stuck
in
inefficient,
outdated
processes
that
hurt
their
ability
to
compete.
For
Act
I,
we
have
“Manual
Labor
As
Performance
Art.”
According
to
the
report,
79
percent
of
law
firm
proposal
workflows
are
“fully
or
mostly
manual.”
The
most
popular
tool
for
putting
together
proposals
is…
Microsoft
Word?
Apparently,
46
percent
of
firms
are
still
cranking
out
proposals
in
Microsoft
Word
and
I
can
only
assume
the
other
54
percent
are
in
Word
Perfect.
Word
is
a
perfectly
fine
word
processor,
but
winning
business
isn’t
a
constrained
by
local
rules.
Unsurprisingly,
respondents
weren’t
satisfied
with
their
technology
while
remaining
committed
to
doing
the
same
thing
over
and
over
and
expecting
a
different
result.
That’s
supposed
to
be
the
definition
of
a
psychopath,
but
it
applies
to
law
firms.
On
second
thought…
that
might
track.
Moving
to
Act
II:
“The
Secret
Garden
Of
Bypassed
Tools.”
Despite
firms
spending
hefty
sums
on
tech,
68
percent
of
users
said
they
bypass
those
tools
entirely.
Whether
it’s
a
product
of
stubborn,
luddite
users
or
ill-suited,
clunky
tech,
the
theme
is
a
misalignment.
Like
any
good
play,
we
now
introduce
Chekov’s
Large
Language
Model.
The
only
thing
firms
agree
on
more
than
doing
proposals
from
scratch
like
a
middle
school
book
report
diorama,
it’s
that
AI
will
swoop
in
to
save
them.
A
whopping
84
percent
said
“AI
and
automation
will
shape
the
next
era
of
proposal
generation.”
On
to
Act
III:
“They
Don’t
Get
Off
The
Island.”
Every
episode
of
Gilligan’s
Island
had
to
end
with
our
castaways
failing
to
get
off
the
island.
Why
did
Zsa
Zsa
get
to
leave
and
why
didn’t
she
send
back
help?
Don’t
ask
such
questions.
The
point
is
the
treadmill
must
continue
and
the
crew
must
remain
on
the
island
until
the
inevitable
made-for-TV
reunion
backdoor
soft
reboot
pilot.
For
our
current
purposes,
this
means
firms
unhappy
with
their
tech
and
pining
for
AI
must
keep
doing
what
they’re
doing
until
the
heat
death
of
the
universe.
The
survey
reveals
that
most
firms
spend
more
time
assembling
proposals
than
improving
how
they
propose.
That’s
a
problem
because
integrating
the
AI
tools
that
they
all
expect
to
save
them
will
require
devoting
some
serious
time
to
coming
up
with
a
better
process.
AI
without
a
vetted
process
is
revenue
stream
chatroulette.
And
that’s
not
helped
when
proposal
ownership
is
itself
a
fractured
mess.
Does
Marketing
run
it.
Sort
of?
Business
Development?
Also
yes.
Relationship
partners?
Why
the
hell
not?
What
firms
need
is
not
just
better
templates.
They
need
an
infrastructure
shift:
one
that
enables
real-time
collaboration,
accurate
data
reuse,
and
scalable
delivery
models.
As
legal
procurement
becomes
more
sophisticated,
proposal
generation
must
evolve
from
a
tactical
task
into
a
strategic
growth
engine.
Firms
need
to
give
their
teams
the
time
to
make
the
leap.
The
opportunity
to
rewrite
the
playbook
is
there,
but
it
takes
human
effort
to
build
a
plan
that
gives
AI
an
opportunity
to
contribute
in
a
useful
way
or
it’s
just
a
computer
playing
Mad
Libs
with
the
firm’s
future.
Without
a
plan,
the
AI
everyone’s
hoping
will
go
off
in
the
third
act
will
end
up
another
disappointing
tool
people
bypass
as
they
churn
out
something
passable
in
Word
to
keep
the
lights
on.
Joe
Patrice is
a
senior
editor
at
Above
the
Law
and
co-host
of
Thinking
Like
A
Lawyer.
Feel
free
to email
any
tips,
questions,
or
comments.
Follow
him
on Twitter or
Bluesky
if
you’re
interested
in
law,
politics,
and
a
healthy
dose
of
college
sports
news.
Joe
also
serves
as
a
Managing
Director
at
RPN
Executive
Search.