Customer/client relationship management (CRM) systems are high on many law firms’ wish lists. But for most, anything that the average marketing partner on the Clapham omnibus would recognise as CRM is an unfulfilled wish rather than a working business process.

By 2002, more than five years since CRM first appeared as a legal seminar topic, most firms have spent serious money on culture change initiatives and computer systems. All too often the results have been disappointing.