Quick Guide to PERSUIT for Law Firms and Providers

This article gets you off to a great start, walking you through the key functionalities of the PERSUIT platform as a law firm or vendor user. It covers:

• Why use PERSUIT?
• Logging In
• Law Firm Profile
• Accessing the RFP
• Clearing Conflicts
• Accepting an Invitation to Participate
• Reading / Printing the RFP
• Sharing with Colleagues
• Creating a Proposal
• Submitting a Proposal
• Revising / Withdrawing a Proposal
• Reverse Auction Settings
• Messaging

Why use PERSUIT?

100% of the AmLaw 100 firms have submitted a proposal on PERSUIT and the many benefits of the platform for law firms and providers include:

• Opportunities for business development.
• Efficient, faster process for responding to RFPs.
• Transparency and feedback in selection process.
• Data insights and competitive intelligence.
• Scope certainty with AFAs to plan and allocate resources effectively.

Logging In

When a client sends your firm a request to submit information or a proposal on the PERSUIT platform, the invitee(s) at your firm receive the following email. See this article for more information on invitation emails.

Please note that simply forwarding this email to colleagues will not give them access. You will need to share the request with them from inside the platform.

Click View Request to access the PERSUIT login page. Pro tip: bookmark https://app.persuit.com for future reference.

If you have been sent a PERSUIT request previously, an account will have been made for you automatically; no further steps are required from PERSUIT to activate your account.

If needed, click Forgot Password on the login page to reset it.

Law Firm Profile

When logging in for the first time, you will be prompted to update your contact information in your profile. This helps client users identify the right people to invite to future requests, so a nice complete profile improves your opportunity to win business.

If you have Manager access, you can visit Settings in the left sidebar menu to update your group's name and any Diversity certifications.

Please contact support@persuit.com to indicate which users from your firm should be a Designated Contact, and receive all PERSUIT RFPs from either an individual client, or all clients.

Accessing the RFP

On your homepage, you will see the Requests section at the top half of the page and the Performance section at the bottom half.

In the Requests section, you will find the following:

• Requests requiring action tab that shows requests with upcoming deadlines, auctions or requests that have been reopen for your firm
• the Requests tab that lists all past requests that you have been invited to directly, as well as those your colleagues have shared with you
• the Proposals tab that list all of the proposals you’ve submitted or your team has submitted that you have access to

In the Performance section, you will find:

• High level performance metrics, including a breakdown of invites by client 

If you have Manager access, you'll also be able to view a separate Performance page. Please view this article with more information on what you can view in the Performance page. 

Clearing Conflicts

Clients can toggle on or off a Conflict Check for each request. When toggled on, this prevents you from seeing the full scope of the RFP until you have cleared conflicts:

Accepting an Invitation and Stating Participation

Once your firm has cleared conflicts (or if the Conflicts Check was turned off), you will see the full request. Here, you can review the details, scope of work, and timelines before either accepting or declining the invitation to participate.

You cannot start drafting a proposal response until you have submitted your intention to participate. Clients will be be notified of your participation status.

Read/Print RFP

Once you have confirmed your intention to participate, you can download or print the RFP.  Please note any deadlines the client has provided.

Share with Colleagues

To collaborate on your proposal draft with a colleague, use the Share button.

The system will first show the colleagues that already have access. Add more colleagues to a request or proposal by clicking the dropdown or by entering their email addresses. This will trigger an invitation email to each colleague.

Create a Proposal

After you clear conflicts and agree participation, you will see the Create a Proposal button in the Proposals section.

Clicking on this takes you directly to the proposal drafting screen.

The first field is the TITLE of your proposal which defaults to RE:[Client title of RFP].  This can be customized.

Proposal summary

This default field is for introducing your proposal. You can also attach files, but please note the client's preferences on the format of your response.

Pricing section

This is where you provide a total fee for the project (if enabled by the client) as well as fees at the phase or activity level. Phase-level fees are called Items in PERSUIT. Activities within each phase are called Sub-items. For the total price, items, and sub-items, firms will see the client's preferred pricing preference (i.e. fixed fee, capped fee, budget estimate, etc.). Firms can choose to deviate from the client's preference by clicking on the Pricing dropdown menu.

You can also provide your assumptions for each item in the comment box below.

If a firm does not wish to provide pricing for an item for any reason, they can use the Excluded from Scope toggle.  Further, if the firm believes additional sub-items will be required, they can click Add Sub-item and describe the activity and the fee that would be assessed to each sub-item. The Hours field is not required when submitting a proposal, but some clients may ask that you fill it in.

Questions section

Alongside Pricing, this is how clients can evaluate a firm's suitability for the matter, for example experience, expertise, or strategy.

There are various question answer types available, which determine the format or character limit of your answer.

Submit Proposal

First, we highly recommend using the Preview, which includes the option to export your proposal to PDF. 

When ready to send to the client, click Submit.

Revise/Withdraw Proposal

As long as the RFP is in the Open to Proposals status (green status bar), firms can revise their proposals after submission. 

Firms can also Withdraw their proposal. Note: clients can still access their withdrawn proposals in their archive.

Reverse Auction Settings

Clients can choose between different auction types and whether firms will be able to see: 1) current rank only; 2) current rank and price of all competing firms; or 3) current rank and lowest bid only. 

The Rank is based solely on the firm’s total or comparison price. Clients may score proposals according to many qualitative factors, but the price rank is provided solely to give firms feedback to improve the competitiveness of their pricing.

Note: even where the price is visible, firm names and answers to questions are always anonymous.

Messaging

Law firms can ask questions and communicate with clients through Messaging Channels. These channels are private between each firm and the client – no other firms participating in the request have access to another firm's messages.

Additionally, clients may choose to make their answers to questions visible to law firms via a Clarification which is posted to the RFP and triggers an email notification to firms.

Note: The messaging channels are specific to each request - there is not an overall messaging channel with the client that is agnostic of specific requests.

Firms also have an internal messaging channel for private discussion with internal colleagues only within each request.