In last week’s Law.com Trendspotter column, we wrote that requests for proposals are often a waste of time or law firms and clients alike. Firms expend considerable resources on their pitches but frequently fail to sway legal departments away from their existing outside counsel.

Often that’s because, despite a growing hunger among in-house leaders for more innovative and tech-savvy legal services, legal department decision-makers fail to ask the right questions, law firms offer superficial answers or some combination of the two.