Pricing is the Starting Place for Everything with Melissa Prince and Dan Pope Artwork

Pricing Matters

Pricing is a catalyst for innovation and collaboration in the legal industry. Business professionals from interdisciplinary teams including pricing, business development, client value, procurement, legal operations, practice and project management are working together to create pricing solutions that deliver value and profitability. Digitory Legal wants to highlight the important work that these professionals are doing to advance the business of law, so we created the Pricing Matters Podcast. Your host, Aurelia Spivey, will be speaking to thought leaders who discuss market trends, provide actionable insights and share their experience of the evolving landscape of legal pricing.

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Pricing Matters

Pricing is the Starting Place for Everything with Melissa Prince and Dan Pope

October 15, 2020 • Season 1

Our Guests

Melissa Prince serves as Ballard Spahr’s Chief Client Value and Innovation Officer and sits on the firm's Management Committee and Expanded Board. Melissa focuses on listening to client needs and understanding how each client's business operates in order to make the connection between value and innovation. She oversees the firm's Client Value and Innovation program, which includes more than 20 business professionals focused on creating a customized experience for each client.

Melissa is a frequent speaker, presenter, and author on legal operations topics. She recently launched the Ballard360 Insider blog, which is focused on delivering insights and best practices in legal operations. Under Melissa's leadership, the firm was named to the Financial Times' Most Innovative Law Firms Business of Law, an innovation "Mover and Shaker" by BTI Consulting, and a finalist for the American Lawyer Industry Awards in the best law firm/client team and best business team categories.

Before coming to Ballard Spahr, Melissa held similar roles at two Am Law 25 firms. She is an attorney who, before leaving private practice, managed complex commercial litigation matters. She is a Six Sigma Green Belt, Certified Legal Project Manager, ALPP and ALPM.

Dan Pope is the Director of Strategic Pricing & Profitability at Ballard Spahr and oversees a team of pricing professionals that focus on using state-of-the-art tools and technology to gather and analyze information and evaluate the variables that drive cost.

The team partners with firm clients to develop accurate cost-projections, customize pricing and value-based fee arrangements, establish goals and expectations, and identify preferences for cost efficiency, predictability, transparency, and value.

Dan also leads an ongoing initiative to review the firm’s top clients to ensure firm profitability benchmarks are met. The program focuses on current arrangements, staffing,

KEY TAKEAWAYS
- Innovation Philosophy: There is no innovation without adoption! When a new approach isn’t working, you need to be able to fail fast and rethink what you are doing.
- Competitive Intelligence: It's about giving clients something that they cannot find elsewhere.
- Regulating the Legal Industry: Change is coming and Law firms need to think more quickly and innovatively about how they are operating.