Good ideas for hard times

Still surprised how many firms have not seen the true benefit of digital technology against remaining paper-centric. It's not just about digital document management or time recording software where the advantages are obvious, but understanding the customer from their initial google search right through to their final bill. 10 years ago people compared car insurance quotes by calling several businesses and picking the lowest quote. The businesses not playing the price comparison game now (and there's one very famous example) are locked out of the biggest marketplace. Web comparison - either through a comparison site or by browsing a company website is what consumers crave. You get the information without the hard sell, you can browse while doing other things and come to a (fairly) informed decision before you even contact a firm. Even if that person doesn't convert into a client, their contact details remain with the firm for future marketing. If they do, the ability is there to track all their activity from that initial browsing through all their interactions with you, building a clearer understanding of what they want. This makes for a stronger relationship and more opportunities for future business going forward.

I am greatly encouraged by the initiative and the idea that the legal profession is actively looking for new ideas. However, I wonder whether it is the lack of new ideas that is the challenge or rather a resistance to change. I work quite widely with some major law firms in government and the private sector. I have watched over the years as the legal profession has moved from paper and DX to email albeit reluctantly in many cases. This transition lagged well behind other industries and professions. It is now unusual to find a law firm who is not using email. What we have noted now though is a failure to recognise that email is insecure and yet significant number of law firms are simply not interested in their exposure and the exposure to their clients in sending confidential information in clear across the internet. The reluctance to change was surprising. The world is moving fast and customer expectation moves ever faster. The customer base gets ever better services from the retail and financial industries and their expectations are high. You are dealing with a relatively tech savvy customer base. They expect the latest technology and ease of use but they also expect their suppliers and service providers to keep up. It is not just the quality of the service now, its also about how that service is delivered. You would not dream of banking online without a secure website, you would not hand your credit card over to a website that was not over an SSL (https:) connection. You would not have a computer without anti-virus! And I am sure there is not a lawyer amongst you that would advise a client to send confidential information across the internet in clear. But this is what the legal industry does every single day in vast numbers. We have tried to address this with a number of firms who simply are not interested in such improvements (doing nothing and adding a disclaimer has been good enough to date, so why change). There are those who have embraced new technology like mkryptor, pki and pgp but most do not see the need to change and modernise. If the legal industry is to deal with hard times it will not be about a change to adoption of a specific product or provision of a specific service. It will need to be about a culture change that embraces change as the norm and modernisation as a continual improvement programme and BAU. To stay in steady state until forced to change and then grab on limpet like until the next change is forced is not the way to go in hard times.