Using AI to Uncover Attorney Client Data
The Dilemma
Unreliable Data on the Clients and Industries Each Attorney Has Worked With
When hiring attorneys, one of the most critical and time-consuming tasks is understanding their client history and industry exposure. Traditionally, this has involved a manual and often inconsistent process:
- Reviewing firm bios and public matter databases
- Cross-referencing press mentions and deal trackers
- Manually compiling and maintaining records over time
This approach is not only inefficient, but also leaves room for missing information, creating blind spots in decision-making, especially when it comes to high-stakes, senior hires.
The Feedback That Shaped the Solution
On Pirical Legal Professionals (PLP), some client information was already available on profiles. While helpful, it still required significant manual effort to interpret and assemble. It was clear that a more structured and intelligent approach was needed.
Through targeted feedback sessions with our users, two key priorities emerged:
1. Structure the data
Users wanted an easy way to view a clear, consolidated list of clients a lawyer had worked with- no more piercing things together from scattered mentions.
2. Understand relationship depth
Beyond names, firms needed to know how meaningful each client relationship was. Was it a one-off transaction? Or was the attorney the long-term relationship holder?
The Solution
Use AI to Structure the Client Career Histories of Individual Attorneys
This is why we developed Client Work further to solve exactly this.
This AI-powered feature automatically extracts and aggregates client and industry data from multiple public sources. This result is a clean, structured view of each attorney’s client portfolio, visible directly within their PLP profile.
"There's huge value in leveraging AI to get better insights out of data, that you otherwise would not be able to get with a person looking through the records one by one."
Omkar Joshi
Director Global Business Development & Strategy, Skadden
You can now instantly see:
- Which clients an attorney has worked with
- The industries where they have the most experience
- The
depth of their
client relationships–based on deal frequency, client type, and their level of involvement
The Results
1. Find the Right Lateral with Shared Clients
A recruiting team was looking for a new Partner to help better serve a key financial services client. They wanted the Partner to have already worked with that client.
With Partner targeting based on a specific client, they filtered potential candidates by prior work with the key institutional client.
2. Map How Competitor Teams Are Structured Around Key Clients
Business Development teams want an winning edge when preparing for pitches. Success often comes down to knowing who you're up against and clearly stating how your firm stands apart.
Example: A team in a leading international law firm used the Client Filter to map out which competitor firms had existing connections to the client. By filtering for the target client, they quickly generated a list of attorneys across different teams who mentioned that client in their work history or public records.
Client Work on PLP helps teams to:
- Identify which competitor firms already have relationships with the client
- Understand how those relationships are structured across practice areas
- Spot gaps or opportunities to differentiate your own offering.
3. Industry-Focused Recruitment
When evaluating attorney candidates or planning a sector-specific growth strategy, firms need more than just claims of industry experience, they need data they can trust.
Client Work on PLP helps teams to:
- Break down an attorney's client work by industry
- See industry exposure as a percentage of total transactions
- Compare candidates more objectively when industry alignment is critical
Why does this matter?
One candidate might list Healthcare on their profile, another might have 60% of their recent transactions in Healthcare, backed by actual client data.
Client Work turns that difference into a
clear, competitive insight.
Find Out What Pirical Can Do For Your Firm
Essential Data for Lateral Recruitment and Strategic Growth
Global attorney database built with the most comprehensive sources of data on the market. Designed for law firm lateral hiring teams, legal headhunters and strategy planners, our data tracks over 660,000 profiles across 130+ countries. PLP enables firms to source talent quicker, leverage their own network for referral opportunities, map out competitors’ org structures, research new markets and much more.
Subscribe to the latest data insights & blog updates
Fresh, original content for Law Firms and Legal Recruiters interested in data, diversity & inclusion, legal market insights, recruitment, and legal practice management.
