Why Industry Expertise Is the Currency of Credibility for Law Firms
I’ve been thinking about KPMG a lot lately.
I spent the first half of my career in the accounting profession. At the time, the largest international firms occupied a distinct position in the professional-services marketplace. Collectively, they represented the five pillars of a professional services brand:
Quality of Work
Value for Fees
Client Service Excellence
Business Acumen
Industry Expertise
The Original Five Elements of Professional Services Branding
In the late 20th century, Price Waterhouse was the “Quality” firm. It was the oldest and smallest of the Big Five, yet it boasted more Fortune 500 audits than any other and paid its new accountants the highest starting salaries. Quality, in that era, was the cornerstone of trust—and Price Waterhouse owned it.
Today, quality is the baseline. It’s the price of admission, not always a key differentiator.
Coopers & Lybrand became synonymous with Value for Fees. In 1977, two young entrepreneurs walked into the firm’s San Jose office seeking an audit for their fledgling company. The youngest partner, Nick Moore, told them to return when they had $2 million in sales. Two years later, realizing his mistake, Moore offered pre-IPO, venture-backed companies 75% off on audits—betting on their future growth. That bold move redefined Coopers as the value-driven firm and catapulted Moore to become its Chair, then CEO and ultimately Chair of the combined PricewaterhouseCoopers firm.
Ernst & Young claimed Client Service as its identity. It was the first major firm to invest heavily in marketing, hire dedicated sales professionals, and build a firm-wide client-service methodology. They understood that the client experience—not just technical expertise—was a lever for loyalty.
Arthur Andersen, the most profitable of the group, built its brand on Business Acumen. When it automated General Electric’s payroll in 1954 (and established the forerunner of Andersen Consulting, later Accenture), ArthurAndersen effectively invented consulting as a companion to audit. Their unofficial mantra—“Anyone can be a good accountant; we are the best businesspeople”—encapsulated their vision of professional services as strategic partnership, not compliance.
Whither KPMG?
KPMG was born last, in 1987, from a series of transatlantic combinations involving English, American, German and Dutch firms. That same year, KPMG introduced a fifth dimension to a profession’s brand—Industry Expertise. They pioneered the first organized industry sub-sector team focused on Information, Communications, and Entertainment. It was the moment professional services stopped defining themselves by geography or functional practice and formally started organizing around client industries.
The Strategic Pivot to Industry
That shift to industry focus changed everything. Less than a decade later, after the merger of Price Waterhouse and Coopers & Lybrand, I joined PwC as their Global Director of Marketing for the technology, infocomm and entertainment & media industry sub-sectors. On our kickoff call, my boss made an announcement that would shape the next 25 years of professional-services marketing:
“We will never again go to market by geography or by practice group. From now on, we go to market by industry.”
That declaration marked the true professionalization of business development in accounting and consulting firms. It recognized a simple truth: clients think in terms of their business models, not your practice areas.
Why Law Firms Must Catch Up
Fast-forward to today’s legal market. Many law firms still define themselves by traditional silos—litigation, corporate, IP, real estate—while their clients organize around industries: life sciences, energy, fintech, healthcare, AI.
As a result, law firms often undersell their most valuable differentiator: their ability to understand how legal risk intersects with business reality.
Industry expertise accomplishes what practice expertise alone cannot:
Contextual Relevance. A Healthcare client doesn’t want to hear how you litigate—they want to know how you navigate the FDA, CMS, and reimbursement landscapes.
Strategic Foresight. Industry-focused teams anticipate trends before they hit the courts or regulators.
Business Fluency. Lawyers who speak the language of their clients’ balance sheets, technologies, and value chains are not just advisors—they’re partners in growth.
Relationship Depth. Cross-practice collaboration naturally increases when everyone serves the same industry ecosystem.
The Bottom Line
When the Big Five divided the professional-services world into five core brand pillars, the final one—Industry Expertise—proved to be the most enduring. It’s the differentiator that still separates the firms that grow from those that plateau.
For law firms, mastering industry knowledge isn’t simply a marketing strategy—it’s a survival strategy. In a world where every firm claims quality, service, and value, industry fluency is the last true differentiator.
James J. Stapleton is the Managing Principal of Client Sciences. Mr. Stapleton spent several decades building multiple AmLaw 100 law firms and large accounting firms including PwC and Arthur Andersen, during which time he managed over 7,500 transitions between law firms on behalf of clients.
Client Sciences works with clients to optimize relationships with your law firms and streamline your internal legal processes. Mr. Stapleton can be reached at 408.440.7660 or via e-mail at: james.stapleton@clientsciences.com.
