City lawyers are poor salesman and even worse fee negotiators, research by broker Alexander Forbes revealed this week.

In an exercise completed by 70 lawyers at four top-25 law firms, solicitors scored an average of 34% for fee negotiation, and 43% for sales skills.


The solicitors performed best at client relationships and entrepreneurialism, with an average of 59% for both, followed by 57% for pitching and 54% for networking. Participants were responding to scenarios in a pilot of the AF Insite Business Development benchmarking service, which is launching next month.


Peter Fleming, director of marketing consultancy Ridley Fleming, which developed the service, said: 'In most cases, the lawyer thought they had done better than they had.


'There was a significant correlation between strong client relationship skills, and poor selling and fee- negotiation skills. Being close to the client means lawyers are missing opportunities to sell, because they think the client will call them if they want something. But clients do not always know what they want.'


He added: 'They are also too quick to write off time rather than negotiate fees.'