A riposte to Professor Richard Susskind
I attended last week a meeting in Dublin of the chief executives of bars and law societies from around the world – well, from Europe, and common law jurisdictions beyond Europe (Africa, North America and the Asia Pacific region).
I learned some funny things, such as that the most popular T-shirt in Iceland is decorated with the face of Gordon Brown with the words ‘is the colour of poo’ after it, since the Icelanders have still not forgotten that they were cast by the UK government as terrorists last year at the height of the financial crisis. And I also learned serious things, of which more below.
Among the guest speakers was Professor Richard Susskind, who has made a name for himself predicting the future of legal services. His latest book, The End of Lawyers? Rethinking the Nature of Legal Services, published in 2008 by Oxford University Press, is based on the premise that, unless lawyers rethink the way that they offer services, and in particular through the use of new technologies, they may go the way of tallow chandlers, cordwainers and wheelwrights, all of whom have disappeared, even though we continue to use the goods that they once made.
He spoke 80% about money, 20% about knowledge, and 0% about justice. (I was actually disappointed when one of his slides was headed ‘Access to justice’ right at the end, because it was his first and only mention of justice, and spoiled the perfect point I would have otherwise made - but the mention lasted just a few seconds.) His view of a lawyer was of a person who undertook an economic function, to be judged by economic factors. The value added was through the use of the lawyer’s specialist knowledge alone. But what about the lawyer’s role as an advocate for justice?
I agreed with much of what he said. New technology is shifting the ground under which we all stand, and we have to keep pace with it. Commoditisation is inevitable in those parts of the legal services market which can be commoditised. Once the Legal Services Act is fully implemented and alternative business structures are available, there will be fierce competition from businesses which will not provide legal services in the old bespoke way.
But where I disagree is the implication that the lawyer’s role in justice can be dispensed with, as if it does not exist. All of Professor Susskind’s examples came from the area of corporate and commercial law. The firms he cited were the large ones in the City of London.
But bars around the world are sending letters every week to governments protesting about the murder of, or threats to, brave lawyers who stand up for their clients at great personal cost, sometimes when they know that their lives are at risk. This is not just something that applies abroad. Rosemary Nelson, a solicitor, was killed 10 years ago by a car bomb in Northern Ireland because of her defence work, after receiving death threats. Alastair Logan, a Guildford solicitor, heroically continued the defence of alleged Irish terrorists in circumstances which brought him no material benefits.
I mentioned these examples to Richard Susskind. He said: ‘But how many lawyers are involved in such work?’ Yet that is not the point. A lawyer’s training and a lawyer’s code of ethics must ensure that any lawyer would do the same in the same circumstances. No commercial enterprise, faced with loss of profit and death threats to its staff, would continue with such work. No commoditisation, no new technology, can replace the commitment of a determined lawyer, faced with everything that a hostile government or powerful grouping can throw, to do justice for a client. That is at the very heart of being a lawyer, and applies as much to a corporate lawyer refusing to commit an illegality for a client who brings in a good deal of money for the firm. Such determination should come from the very identity of being a lawyer in the first place.
So please, Professor Susskind, take account of this factor in the next book you write.
Jonathan Goldsmith is the Secretary General of the Council of Bars and Law Societies of Europe (CCBE), which represents over 700,000 European lawyers through its member bars and law societies
Comments
It's not just the money
"Solicitors can not live on justice alone" is to badly mangle the similar biblical phrase.
The noble lawyers mentioed above must have made a living somehow.
Prof. Susskind's book also mentions the huge latent market for legal services in the UK. Outside the areas of criminal activity; assess to justice, that is the protection of the weak against the powerful, will be helped if legal services are opened up by technology and new suppliers. People, tenants and small business can then use affordable, accessable, accountable legal services to ensure they protect their positions. Prevension is better that litigation!
Tick this box
Susskind is the latest in a long line of people who essentially believe that the law is a conspiracy against the laity. If you could only sweep away the cobwebs of olde worlde language and tradition, you would have an essentially simple set of rules that could be stuck on a computer and be available to all of us.
He is the sort of bloke who as a young man probably dismantled a Mini in his front room and then tried to put it back together again, without the benefit of a Haynes Manual. Or rather he probably didn’t do this, because if he had then he would understand that some things are more complex than they seem.
The law is one of them. It would take over 400 years to read the law if this land and there will always be a place for learning and application over and above the tick box approach so beloved by Susskind and his ilk.
The will to buy a will
Firsty, as someone who has head the pleasure of reading Mr Susskind's book in its entirety I was left with a number of overlwheming thoughts:
1. There is no doubt that IT generally will have an important role to play in the future of all law firms. My personal belief is that this is best served in better information systems for firms allowing better management of their businesses and better communication tools for dealings with clients, remarketing to them and probably "sourcing" them. In fact Susskind talks about these things at length but they are not the headline grabbers.
2. Susskind has little actual consumer research in his book. Online DIY kits have been around for many years as have "write your own will" kits in WH Smiths. Research, even that for Clementi, suggests that people actualy want to speak to an expert for any significant legal issue they face. Commoditised services do not always sit easily with rule 2.02 - client care - and acting in the best interests of your client
Clemeti focused on accessibility to the law. Breaking down consumer preconceptions and fear factors and making your firm easily accessible is important. That can be helped with systemised business processes.
The other problem with commoditisation and self-usage is the desire for an easy life and a lack of understanding of what to do in an unusual scenario - masses of people used endowment claims companies, paying them to deal with their endowment mis-selling even though they could have done this themselves - why?
3. What Susskind fails to address adequately is the first rule of marketing - identify the needs of your clients and meet them profitably - he focuses too much on profitably and not understanding needs. Many legal needs are highly emotive and personal to the clients. Many clients want personal care and attention. Many clients are not used to buying legal services regualrly and want and need expert personal attention. Fundamentally though not all people are the same and there is NO one size fits all solution.
Oh and while I'm blogging - wills - how many times do we hear the 70% of people don't have a will. Guess what - maybe most of them don't want one or don't need one?
I know firms who have given away free wills and still had little uptake. People often don't want to think about it, can't be bothered, have no assets to worry about or know it will go to their spouse anyway.
In my opinion there are opportunites here but it needs sensible thought. If you know your clients and they are moving house, getting married, having first child or getting divorced THEN you have an opportunity to cross sell them a will as there is a life changing event that may precipitate the will for a will.
At long last
A very good post and debate. Susskind does misunderstand what a lawyer more often than not does. Law in limited circumstances can be broken down by electronic questionnaire and produce an accurate answer, but only in very limited circumstances. It is a complex beast and requires thought, reflection, flair and at times risk. Susskind also ignores the fact that clients are often on a journey, and it is the lawyer who takes them from where they are to where they want/ought to be. That requires a measure of charm/bluntness/understanding/coaxing etc - all of which need finely tuning to the client and situation. A machine or template cannot do that. The risks are vastly overstated. We will lose some conveyor belt work, the kind of work that was not in recent times done by lawyers in any event - but done by unqualified paralegals in 'factories' - good riddance to it, keep the law for the lawyers unencumbered by "consumers" who think everything can be boxed and sold cheaply. You cannot compete with fly by night cowboys peddling poor service, so let us not demean ourselves by trying. The consumer will soon reap the consequences of this ill-thought out grand vision and come back begging for good old fashioned legal services. The sad thing is that the consumer will suffer not the politicians who devised it.
Life changing event opportunities
I do love the list of opportunities for marketing a Will. (Divorce, kids, house, major illness, Alzheimers, etc)
Seems to match up with 70% of people going through this type
of life changing event at some time or another ;-)
Does anyone ever share successes on here? I'd love
to know (and contribute to) what does work.
I have had some recent success advertising in the
Births, Deaths and Marriages section of the local newspaper.
It seemed to be a good environment, where major life
changes were being pondered , (theatre of the mind).
Anyone else?
Tone, please
Pretty sure we should not be having smileys relating to people going through life events like Alzheimers, divorce or major illness.
Let's try to stay on the general 'commoditisation' topic and get off obsessing about wills, please.
Re: At long last
I largely agree with Andrew Keogh's comments but have one major concern. If we "keep the law for the lawyers unencumbered by "consumers"" then how do the "proper" lawyers get at the "proper" legal work.
A managing partner of a large city firm with a small private client department once said to me "I'd love more private client work but I only want high net worth individuals who will pay our fees" - would't we all.
If current expectations of brand entrants only focusing on a few volume areas such as conveyaning and PI are true then they may not touch other "proper" legal work. But they will be proactively marketing "legal services" and will therefore undoubtedly generate a lot of enquiries for "proper" legal work.
Do you think they are going to say "sorry we can't help you" for long or are they going to find some other way to look after those clients?
Most consumers of legal
Most consumers of legal services are not sophisticated in legal matters and are unable to tell a good legal service from a bad one until after the event. Commoditisation of conveyancing has resulted in very poor experiences for many people, but if they are buying on price they are often prepared to overlook lack of communication and call centres, that is never speaking to the same person twice. Negligene in property matters may take years to come to light so a purchaser has no way of knowing if the job has been done well or not.
It is correct that the high standards aspired to by lawyers is to give advice to the client whether he wants to hear it or not, to hand hold and counsel. Not to put too fine a point on it - to care!! All litigation lawyers will have been involved in caes where they have gone above and beyond the call of duty - and probably not been paid for it. Most will have had threats of physical violence made to them. In my experience family cases are the wrost for this.
Most purchasers of High Street legal services have an immediate need. They are in a stressful situation where pennies count. If they buy on price from a remote supplier, who may be open 24/7 but they never see, they will not get this service. This is what 'lawyering' is really about. It is caring for people not about fine points of law. A divorce is about heart break and shattered lives, not Matrimonial Homes Act.
The baby is going out with the bath water. In fact if you made a conveyer belt and put babies on one end and sprayed water and soap at them and had people at the other end to catch babies as they came off the belt and..............................
Smileys
Rupert, the smiley is for the opportunity presented by life-changing events i.e. for people to buy legal services, not because I think it's funny to go through those events.
And wills are a commodity product. So rather than obsessing, they are a good example of a product being targeted by supermarket legal services providers.
On the whole no-one should ever compete on price alone.
Because someone will always find a cheaper way of doing things.
And if you can create an experience, a service and make it impossible for prospects to compare apples with pears (i.e. change the rules of the game) you will prosper over the long term.
A commodity product is often one that has been made easier to buy and this is a good thing. Making it easier to buy legal services from solicitors doesn't mean it has to be cheap, just easier to see the value.
The Future
Let's make sure that all the concerns about access to justice, regulation and the professional activity of lawyers are properly addressed, debated and agreed so that the changes Susskind presages and the changes the LSA will bring can be accommodated - for the benefit of all.
However, many lawyers and, from my own personal experience, nearly all the Bar are not even doing that. Clinging onto the past in a Luddite and antedeluvian fashion will not get us very far. The rebirth of the Bar is imminent, unfortunately many at the Bar don't even know that they're pregnant.