Two Free Value-Based Pricing Checklists
Thinking about Value-Based Pricing?
There is a big difference between talking about value-based pricing and actually implementing it.
Law firms often begin with enthusiasm. There may be a partners’ meeting, a working group, a new pricing template or a few brave souls experimenting with fixed fees.
That is a good start.
But implementing value-based pricing properly is a change-management project. It affects leadership, behaviours, pricing skills, scope, client conversations, management information, incentives, technology, AI, training and much more.
So I have created two completely free checklists to help.
They do different jobs.
And, ideally, you should use both.
1. The Managing Partner’s VBP Readiness Checklist
Are You Actually Ready to Start?
Before launching a value-based pricing project, it is worth asking one fairly important question:
Is the firm ready for it?
The Managing Partner’s VBP Readiness Checklist is a practical health check for law firm leaders.
It helps managing partners, CEOs, boards and leadership teams consider whether the foundations are in place to make value-based pricing work.
The checklist looks at 12 important areas, including:
leadership;
partner buy-in;
scope discipline;
pricing confidence;
client communication;
AI costs and economics;
management information;
incentives and behaviours;
training and support;
governance and consistency;
pilot projects; and
staying power.
You do not need to tick every box.
In fact, if you can tick every box before you have started, I would be mildly suspicious.
The point is to identify the gaps.
Where are you already strong?
Where could the project wobble?
What skills, information or processes are missing?
And what needs to happen before you ask the whole firm to change the way it prices legal services?
Use it with your management board, at a partners’ meeting, on an away day or with the small group of people who will lead your pricing project.
Then turn the unticked boxes into actions.
Download the Managing Partner’s VBP Readiness Checklist. Find out whether your firm is genuinely ready to move from talking about value-based pricing to doing it.
2. The Value-Based Pricing Implementation Checklist
So You Have Decided to Implement VBP. What Happens Next?
This is where things get bigger.
Much bigger.
Value-based pricing is not simply a new fee template or a different way of calculating a number.
A successful implementation can involve people from across the business: lawyers, finance, business development, IT, HR, knowledge management, leadership and others.
The Big Yellow Penguin VBP Implementation Checklist is designed to show you the potential scale of the project.
It contains more than 125 tasks and considerations that may need to be addressed during a value-based pricing implementation.
They are organised around the 8 P Point Plan and give firms a practical starting point for working out:
what needs to be done;
who needs to be involved;
where responsibility sits;
who should be consulted;
who needs to be kept informed; and
which parts of the project may otherwise fall between the cracks.
The checklist uses a RACI-style approach — Responsible, Accountable, Consulted and Informed — to help clarify roles throughout the project.
It is deliberately comprehensive.
You may not need every task.
You may need others that are unique to your firm.
That does not matter.
The purpose is to help you see the whole iceberg rather than simply the bit sticking above the water.
Download the VBP Implementation Checklist. Use it to start building your firm's own value-based pricing implementation plan.
Which Checklist Should I Use?
The answer is simple.
Start with the Managing Partner’s VBP Readiness Checklist.
It asks:
Are we ready?
Then use the VBP Implementation Checklist. It asks:
What do we actually need to do?
One helps you diagnose. The other helps you deliver.
Together, they provide a practical starting point for any law firm serious about moving towards value-based pricing. And both are completely free.
No silver bullets. No magic pricing formula.
Just two useful tools designed to help you ask better questions, identify the work that needs doing and turn value-based pricing from an interesting conversation into something that actually happens.