As PwC’s comprehensive 2013 study tells us……"Pricing matters".

Where else in the provision of goods and services could such small improvements have such a profound effect on the bottom line?

I was on the train from York to London last Wednesday morning, sitting next to a lady who was diligently scribbling notes onto an RFP document, and I couldn’t help but smile to myself as her colleague proceeded to vilify all procurement professionals the world over as unpredictable, unfathomable, picky and impossible to please. Apparently deep into a tender response that was due on Friday, they went on to discuss how they’d better not give the client any opportunity to disqualify them and someone had better spell-check it properly this time. (Should just say at this point that they were discrete enough not to mention who they worked for or were tendering to…)

With Validatum Pricing Espresso® we aim to bring you your regular pricing 'shot' - the best, most interesting, thought provoking and informative material we can find globally which will be of interest, relevance and help to you in your legal services pricing challenges. [Note: we don't always agree with the content of others that we post but the philosophy of Validatum Pricing Espresso® is shared perspectives, not a personal 'soap-box']

Legal disclaimer: Having captured your attention with a mildly provocative title to this blog, we better do the whole legal disclaimer thing. This is an opinion piece designed to stimulate discussion within law firms about what we see as an extremely dubious trend. It is not a legal opinion or legal advice and you rely on it as such at your peril.

Last week a pricing specialist called me.

He wanted a chat about his career options. He was working in a strategic pricing role in the manufacturing sector. He ‘d been promoted internally to the position from a role in sales (a not uncommon story), so he’d never actually sought out a strategic pricing role before.

I was talking to a partner audience about client management last week, and the conversation came around to procurement’s involvement in relationship management and review meetings.

With Validatum Pricing Espresso® we aim to bring you your regular pricing 'shot' - the best, most interesting, thought provoking and informative material we can find globally which will be of interest, relevance and help to you in your legal services pricing challenges. [Note: we don't always agree with the content of others that we post but the philosophy of Validatum Pricing Espresso® is shared perspectives, not a personal 'soap-box']

Greetings and welcome to my first blog post as an Associate with Validatum. An introductory word: I tend to write as I speak. This is a good-slash-bad thing (see?). The odd song lyric will crop up from time to time. Hopefully you will grow to like it. I may even expand your musical horizons whilst blogging about the procurement of legal services. Come to think of it, I may have just found my USP…

It is hard to overstate the importance of starting well: The opening words of a speech, the early lines of a novel, the first few bars of a song….

Like many of you, my children have just returned to school for the Christmas term, and as part of the settling in process I was invited to ‘Parent Information Evenings’ last week. I turned up at 7.30pm to find a glass of wine awaiting me, and stood making small talk with other slightly nervous looking parents, new and old, until the Headmaster thought we were sufficiently relaxed to start proceedings.

With Validatum Pricing Espresso® we aim to bring you your regular pricing 'shot' - the best, most interesting, thought provoking and informative material we can find globally which will be of interest, relevance and help to you in your legal services pricing challenges. [Note: we don't always agree with the content of others that we post but the philosophy of Validatum Pricing Espresso® is shared perspectives, not a personal 'soap-box']

There is a quite extraordinary paradox at play here. On the one hand you would expect many lawyers, particularly those that are long in the tooth, to be quite pessimistic, negative and cynical with a hardwired expectation that most things go badly (and indeed many are, and they often do).

So why the perennially ebullient display of optimism when it comes to assessing the production cost of a piece of work?