Clients are on the hunt for greater value from their legal spend - a trend likely to further shake-up the legal services industry in 2011.

As competition for legal services has slowed over the last couple of years, clients globally have been using their increased market power to extract further value from their legal spend. It's a trend that has been backed by numerous studies internationally over the last 12 months, including one by Deloitte earlier this year that found the status of legal counsel in Australia has risen substantially, with senior executives now more likely to trust their internal advisors, often in preference to their external law firms.

That means that law firms can no longer rely on their reputation and specialised skills alone to attract and retain clients. They must also offer value that goes well above and beyond what legal departments can offer their own organisations.

As such, clients seeking value for money in legal services emerged as a key trend in 2011 for law firms contacted by Lawyers Weekly for this report.

According to Minter Ellison's John Weber, such a focus by clients may define the coming year for legal services. "Clients will continue to seek greater value from their legal spend and will find it in those lawyers and law firms with deep expertise and industry knowledge in particular," he said.

Gavin Bell, the CEO of Freehills, agreed and stated that discussions regarding value for clients will continue through 2011, with a focus on real commercially savvy advice essential.

It's a trend that Norton Rose managing partner Don Boyd sees as inspiring the internationalisation of legal services, in that clients will look to obtain more value for money from external advisors by seeking out law firms with a broader physical presence. "As there is more cross-border activity, then providing you can offer value for money [as a law firm] and if you have an international presence, you will do better," he said.

Cat Wirth, director of clients and markets at DLA Phillips Fox, believes global investment is driving a need for cross-border legal service requirements which will ultimately benefit those law firms with a global reach in 2011. "We are also seeing a trend towards smaller legal panels and a preference for using global and globally-connected firms," she said.

But will such drive from clients for value for money translate to more alternative billings offerings? According to Maureen Peatman, the chairman of Hunt & Hunt, debates regarding the billable hour will continue through 2011, but really, such debates are more about value for money than they area about how clients are billed. "I think that you'll see a lot more clients in the coming year wanting firms to explain, in much clearer terms, the value they bring to their businesses," said Peatman. "Firms that do this well and develop an intimacy with their clients will continue to have the opportunity to serve those clients for years to come, without an undue focus on price as the sole discussion point."

Meanwhile, most law firms contacted by Lawyers Weekly agreed: Australia has not seen the last Magic Circle firm to land on our shores. 2011 may just be the year that brings Allen & Overy some Magic Circle competitors.

And overall, it's the recovering economy that will truly impact law firms in the coming year.

Henry Davis York's managing partner Sharon Cook is simply happy to let her optimism do the talking in hoping that next year's trends will all come down to a continually improving economy. "What we're experiencing at the moment is uncertainty and patchiness of recovery in the economy and I think that how the economy goes will obviously have a huge impact on how law firms travel in the coming year," she said.

"We seem to take one step forward and two steps back at the moment. Until we just keep putting one foot in front of the other, the uncertainty that brings has an impact on all law firms."