The end of lawyers? Pah! This is the time of the 'super lawyer'.
In March, Alastair Moyes stated that 'law firms need to work hard in the face of commoditised legal providers'. Last month he bravely stuck his neck out and suggested that we, today's lawyers, need to embrace radical change and reinvent customer service to avoid our industry 'becoming the nearly dead dinosaur that the US car industry became'.
I reckon Alastair makes two very poignant points. Let’s face it, the 2008-2010 global recession combined with the Legal Services Act 2007 has given us a wake-up call. Throw the enlightened consumer, digital era and recent technological advances into the mix and what have we got? Our traditional way of life under threat.
We can no longer afford to be Luddites because the transformation of how the world of legal business operates is already underway. Competition from consumer-centric major players, 'DIY free legal documents providers' via the internet and virtual law firms are already challenging our established engagement model, increasing client confidence, levels of expectation and setting new standards in customer service.
If we consider Professor Richard Susskind’s predictions in relation to the role of lawyers and law firms in the new world of consumer legal services (detailed in his provocative 2008 book The End Of Lawyers?), there is further change on the horizon.
The predictions detailed in Susskind’s 1996 book The Future of Law have already come to fruition. Perhaps we should heed his recent prediction that the market is not going to tolerate costly lawyers for jobs that can equally or better be undertaken by less-expensive workers or through smart systems and processes. Enter ‘de-lawyering’ (passing work to paralegals and legal executives), ‘disruptive’ technologies (computerised systemising, packaging or commoditising), entrepreneurial alternative providers and streamlined law firms.
It’s now 2010. What Susskind wrote about in 2008 we are witnessing. Quoting Neuromancer author William Gibson, whether we like it or not 'the future is here ... it’s just not widely distributed yet'. It begs the question, will traditional lawyers be needed? The answer, you’re no doubt pleased to hear, is that it’s not all doom and gloom.
Susskind believes that some tasks, for example those requiring deep expertise or interpersonal communication, will still require the traditional lawyer. Furthermore, as to whether law firms can survive, he believes that entrepreneurial law firms will not see threats in all of these developments and some will actually find opportunity. I would add that entrepreneurial lawyers recognise this and have already begun to act. You will identify these lawyers as bastions of light blazing a trail in customer service excellence and innovation while doing battle with colleagues who are stuck in their Dickensian ways. Inertia and resistance to change always reminds me of Einstein’s view that 'great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds'.
I passionately believe that traditional lawyers, entrepreneurial lawyers and the next generation have a wonderful opportunity in this enlightened, consumer-led digital era to become 'super lawyers'.
What do I mean by 'super lawyers'? Let’s propose that the most expensive piece of real estate is what lies between our ears ('deep expertise' as Susskind calls it – I call it 'lawyerly intellectual capital' (LIC)), and that there is LIC too complex to be commoditised (which there undoubtedly is), requiring interpersonal communication and intrapersonal communication. Accordingly, LIC is where the true value lies. Arguably, what we need to ensure is that we can effectively communicate that LIC is what the consumer needs, wants and desires of us. Enter ‘soft-skilling’ to improve our powers of persuasion, communication, relationship building, marketing, cross-selling, up-selling and selling per se.
If technology can take away as much grunt work as possible and leave the real LIC of value to the super lawyer then that should be something we welcome, right? To survive and thrive in the years to come I propose that a paradigm shift is required in the thinking, behaviour, actions, focus and expectations of both the law firm (partners/owners/directors) and the next generation of lawyers.
As both a lawyer and an entrepreneur (legal purchaser), I believe that the lawyer's role is not just about being technically proficient in the use of words (drafting and advising) – it’s much more than that. Actually being able to truly relate and care about the client and his/her business and/or predicament is fundamental to what true lawyering and LIC is all about. Extraordinary relationships and customer service will be the holy grail at the heart of the successful super lawyer. Building an enduring value relationship with the consumer, utilising 'fluffy soft-skills stuff' combined with a total consumer-centric focus is where the real value will be for the lawyer, law firm and consumer of today and the future.
All of the above may actually just give the legal industry a raison d’etre. I came to the profession in later life (working in a mid-tier established law practice for the past three years) with prior customer service exposure, experience and responsibility having worked in the new media, management consulting and leisure industries. Consequently, I can wholeheartedly agree with Alastair that the legal industry needs to embrace radical change, reinvent customer service and work hard (and smart) in light of the inevitable commoditisation of legal provision. However, I seriously question whether established law firms and ‘traditional lawyers’ are geared up, positioned and truly prepared for the competitive challenges ahead. Are we confident that we already possess the skills required to become super lawyers? If not, the godsend is that with ever-increasing availability and acceptance of the delivery of soft-skill coaching to the profession there is help at hand.
Reinventing customer service will require every lawyer to embrace and action a consumer-centric mindset and behaviour – a paradigm shift in most instances. Scary as this might seem, failure to do the same may well mean that 'the end of lawyers' could actually come to pass – for some traditional lawyers. Perhaps the most famous epitaph in the world is the one alleged to be on the tombstone of WC Fields. As an everlasting reflection of the love-hate relationship with his ‘beloved’ hometown Philadelphia, his epitaph reads 'all things considered, I’d rather be in Philadelphia'.
As I contemplate the threat of our possible extinction, all things considered, I think I’d rather be a super lawyer. Wouldn’t you?
Chrissie Lightfoot is CEO at EntrepreneurLawyer, a solicitor (non-practising) and author of
The Naked Lawyer eBook, a blueprint in how to get more sales.
Comments
Article is spot on
Brilliant article and very well observed.
This reflects a conversation I had with some contacts this morning in London. The professionals I was speaking to were surprised to learn that it is now possible to "outsource" almost anything from web-design to marketing, bookkeeping to business strategy simply by "Auctioning" the work on websites and allowing professionals from India, Thailand, USA & China to literally "bid" for the work for a $25 to $50 an hour for what would have cost $100s per hour only twelve months ago.
The client gets to select who they send the work to from profiles and feedback from satisfied as well as not-so-satisfied clients. This is easily viewed as all work is reviewed and attached to their profile. I wonder how quickly firms would be prepared to adopt such a system over here?.
The results of the work are excellent, due in part from the on-line client feedback, and you pay when you are satisfied with the work and can easily gain refunds if you are not delighted.
I think your article is demonstrating that all the professions will have to consider that there will be attacks on their work. The only survivors will be the very best or those that work in a "micromarket" of expertise.
I also agree with you that the majority of firms will just "hear the sound of the change as it goes rushing bye". We could be seeing the start of the biggest revolution in how people and business will access and pay for advice and professional services since the industrial revolution.
The gravy train is about to hit the buffers
Spot on in all respects Chrissie. You're right too to say that it's not all gloom and doom, because there are fantastic opporunities for the "super lawyer". The big question is, will there be room for the same number of super lawyers as there are 'traditional lawyers' now?
The answer of course is no, and yet the vast majority of firms are carrying on with grossly inefficient practices, charging highly qualified rates (or not charging them and making a loss) as though nothing is going to change in the legal market.
Firms that truly embrace technology (as opposed to regarding it as a nice to have/use optional extra), ensure that all work is undertaken at the appropriate skill level and not above it, and who therefore carve out space for the LIC term that Chrissie has coined will thrive. This requires radical and urgent action and those that fail to do so are heading for a crash.
It will take 15 years
Chrissie,
Good article and what you say WILL come to pass...but it will take about 15 years to fully take effect.
That's how long it will take the Luddites to retire out of the system and clear the way. That's how long it will take for the Universities to stop churning out too many law graduates and that's how long it will take for legislation to deliver a suitable framework for a mechanism to allow "social lawyers" to thrive and make a living.
Social lawyers will be a branch of law that will deal with the people who presently have no access to law for economic reasons.
Exiting times lie ahead and I'm really looking forward to it.
Predictions...
I think I was the first to draw the analogy between the car industry (eg my talk for the Legal Reform Group inaugural meeting a year or two pre-Clementi), but in a different context. 100 years ago a car was built by specialised and highly trained craftsmen, in very small numbers and was inordinately expensive (seven or eight year's average earnings) and by modern standards were rubbish. Then, aA car was regarded as a very 'intelligent' item, taking great skill to produce. The parallel with much law work is obvious....and the car industry was TINY. However, the application of technology means that the car is now commonplace and the industry in HUGE.
I think law firms has largely have failed to understand the opportunities this can bring them to make their money by adding value rather than doing what is (in value-added terms) low value work.
However, there is one big reason why the analogy doesn't work, and why I am not surprised that (in my view) so many of the predicted changes have not happened. It is that law is in reality a number of different businesses - you just can't equate M&A work with PI, for example. The individual markets themsleves are relatively small. And we have just elected another batch of people to change it - regularly. It is the combination of regular change + liability issues + relatively small market which would have me, wearing one of my company director hats (because that is what I do) , run a mile from trying to develop 'smart' software to apply to legal processes: there are just so many easier ways of making a profit.
The LSA presents a really good opportunity for businesspeople who want to make money out of providing legal and other services. How many of those end up being members of the Law Society remains to be seen, but they do start in 'the catbird seat'.
This is a frequent topic for discussion in the Law Management and Marketing Newsletter (subscribe free at lmm@bestpracticeonline.com) .
Get your internal organisation, decision-making (which in many cases is far too longwinded) and processes right, understand your costs and profit streams, get your marketing strategy right and you are in a very good industry to be in: this is what competition is about.
Joe Reevy
www.words4business.
www.legalrss.co.uk
Who will be controlling the sources of work?
Certainly a very good article but I do have two observations. The speed at which we reach the future, or as William Gibson might say, the speed at which the future reaches us, is far from certain. Remember it was just a few years ago when expert commentators like Prof. Stephen Mayson were predicting a reduction in the number of firms from 9000 to 6000. In fact we've actually seen an increase of solicitors firms in England and Wales from 9000 to 11,000 in the same period. I suspect that many existing small and medium sized law firms will indeed vanish, but at the same time we may see a continuing explosion in small or niche firms - often with very low overheads. Secondly don't underestimate the importance of controlling the sources of work - by what Roger Camrass and Martin Farncombe describe in their book "Atomic" as "the navigation layer" or "smart customer managers". The legal market in the UK is still £22bn. Yes -- clients may indeed change their purchasing habits for legal services -- but who will be controlling the sources of work? I would suggest the jury is still out on that one.
It's coming. . .
The one issue is how much lawyers are willing to embrace new things. The first issue is that many lawyers are stuck in the past - whatever past it is for them (be it typewriters or be it 1999).
It is hard to convince lawyers to use new technologies. And I wonder why that is. New technologies drive business and we are in business.
Even lawyers that are using social media are probably not using it to their fullest potential because we are unsure if we really should.
But Chrissie is right - changes in business are here. Those changes have happened and we should join in.
Excellent Article
Chrissie, your comments apply right across the professions, and not just to lawyers. I am a tax adviser working in the accountancy profession, and dare I say that a large number of us are perhaps a little further around the curve on this than our legal cousins. This is because ANYBODY can set themselves up as an accountant, even if they have no qualifications at all. Witness the number of "Tax Shops" on any high street these days.
So, we have been facing what you now face for many years. The way we have dealt with it in my firm is to focus very clearly on precisely what the client wants. If they merely want a straightforward accounts and tax return preparing service, then a high street "accountant" is probably fine - the bad ones don't tend to last for long anyway once their clients start to experience a welter of HMRC enquiries.
Where we win is by recognising that entrepreneurial clients' needs have become far more sophisticated over the years, and the donkey work of accounts preparation is, in their eyes, a necessary evil which is merely peripheral to their true needs - a business partner who fully understands their business, empathises with their problems, provides practical, pragmatic solutions, and adds value through every step of the relationship. It is working for us, and our clients constantly tell us so, and are quick to recommend us.
Increasingly they are purchasing value added relationships delivered by an empathic personality, and this is what the professions need to embrace.
Absolutely Agree
I quite agree with both Chrissie's article and Nick's comments.
The internet is empowering us as consumers to be more self sufficient with acquiring skills and knowledge that was previously the preserve of qualified Lawyers/Accountants/Financial Planners. Therefore to survive as Lawyers/Accountants/Financial Planners we need to differentiate our services and practices to demonstrate value we provide.
If I am a client engaging with a professional be he/she a Lawyer, Accountant or Financial Planner I want to know exactly what it will cost me and what I will get in return. If there is any lack of clarity the internet allows me to find a competitor who can meet my needs (or in certain situations DIY). The Financial Advice profession is only just starting to wake up to this fact and many within in it are still not accepting the need to change. It is these dinosaurs that will ultimately fail.
Professionals need to get into the customer centric mindset because it is the best way to acquire new clients through word of mouth marketing.
Super Lawyers ... already here
Chrissie,
fantastic article.
The issues which you raise are part of the reason that I think people like myself and Nancy (who came to law later in life armed with a myriad of skills gained in industries other than law) make great Super Lawyers.
Because of the time that we have spent outside law we already know how business works, we can relate to business people as customers (albeit external ones as opposed to internal ones) and we can see what they want from their lawyer in order to achieve their goals. We already think outside the law box and we "get" customer service much easier than fresh faced straight out of law school lawyers. Not to suggest that younger lawyers aren't great, they are, but they have to spend time gaining some of the skills that us “more mature” candidates already arrive at law firms armed with.
I guess what I am saying is that Super Lawyers have always been here, we just might not have been heard above all the "Professional" noise.
One thing is for sure, exciting times are ahead for those of us both willing and brave enough to embrace the benefits of change.
Anyway, I've got 5000 words to write on patents and cloned animals so I'm off to do some reading.
Bye all
Jane
Super Lawyer
Great article Chrissie.
With so much negative press about the 'threat' to law firms it is easy to forget the size of the 'opportunity.'
Ultimately, for a firm, it is not about Tesco Law, LSA , ABS or who is or is not going to invest in your firm. It is ultimately about business. It is ultimately about one fundamental question..."how do I reduce the cost to serve yet still maintain my quality standard?"
How do you do that? In exactly the same way every other industry has done it by going multi-dimensional in how you offer your services. Your model is one dimensional, face to face in the main. Yes you can gloss that up all you like in some swanky office, even a shop these days, but it is effectively the same thing.
Law firms need to be more creative and consider the cost reduction quality and maintenance of online delivery, (if you have just dismissed that instantly that may just be your strategic mistake). It does not mean the end of face to face, just enhances it, because you can migrate between the two.
As I have commented, blogged, Tweeted and presented on before...do not delude yourself that as a law firm you are in control of this process of change. This is going to be a client, market driven situation.
The good news is the bit you are in charge of. You have the opportunity to present this choice and get to market before your competitors, (who are law firms btw), do. There are consequences to ignoring this advice below,
http://directlawuk.wordpress.com/2010/05/03/law-firm-a-versus-law-firm-b/
The smart cookies will be the ones who tune in to what the customers ACTUALLY want not what you THINK they want...big difference.
The future is not about being big, it is not even about being small...it is very much about being smart.
Jon
'Fluffy soft skills......'
Well written article Chrissie.
The market conditions we are experiencing means that this sector will have to adopt a client care driven approach that focuses on the needs of the individual, not just from a solution point of view but from a relationship management perspective.
I had to giggle at your comment relating to 'fluffy soft skills'.
It is 'soft skills' that will 'toughen up' legal practitioners to meet the modern demands of a highly competitive market place and provide customers with the 'value' that is required to satisfy their requirements as a user of this type of service.
Brilliant Post
Chrissie,
"Extraordinary relationships and customer service will be the holy grail at the heart of the successful super lawyer. Building an enduring value relationship with the consumer, utilising 'fluffy soft-skills stuff' combined with a total consumer-centric focus is where the real value will be for the lawyer, law firm and consumer of today and the future."
Well said. Love it! :-)
I would add: not only extraordinary relationships with the clients, but also with other lawyers!
I keep reminding OBA members, this is the greatest opportunity in our modern legal profession. Don't let it pass you by! Some will. But those that take this opportunity will have a quality of life never imagined by the industrial era model of legal services.
Thanks,
Jorge
www.theonlinebar.com
Twitter:@theonlinebar
Inevitability
What you are essentially saying is that volume work will go offshore and a tiny elite will undertake niche work. These latter people are to be the super lawyers. You have received huge praise for this idea but I see no joy in this academic construct nor any chance of this model succeeding, given the fact that the SRA and LSB are completely unrepresentative and will never introduce the changes to make this system work.The brutal truth is that the last government did all they could to impoverish the high street and they have largely succeeded. Susskind is saying this trend is inevitable. If so, why are we the only country in the world where lawyers earn less than policemen?
The Need to Be More
I see how I have had to be just as much a businesswoman as a lawyer in order to build my book of business. As a lawyer, we are expected to know everything, and if we know a bit more than everything(!), we stand out.
Great article Chrissie.
Suzanne Deliscar
Lawyer-Linguist
Chrissie, Great foresight in
Chrissie,
Great foresight in terms of the future for the legal profession. I would add that everything you have stated is equally applicable to the accounting and fiduciary advisory professions.
Fantastic future for those who embrace change.
Chrissie, open your eyes to the real pain out there
Chrissie.
Before we take any of this seriously perhaps you would like to give us a break down of your earnings as a model, an entrepreneur and as a lawyer. This will help us decide if you merit the very very 1970s title of “Super Lawyer”, as opposed to “Super Model”. I am willing to hazard a guess that your earnings as a model far outstrip your earnings as a lawyer and entrepreneur..
In the 1950s and 1960s, when high street solicitors really earned good money, there was no need for niches or silly catchphrases. High street solicitors had real money and opened lines of real credit that kept many of them going for 50 to 60 years. Now, thanks to the efforts of the late and unlamented government and their collaborators in the Law Society , in opening up legal work to the large non -legal corporates , and people like Susskind, who have peddled tosh about the end of lawyers, the banks have finally woken up to the fact that high street solicitors may be an endangered species and they are very gradually pulling the rug from under people and firms.
Yesterday, I heard that a major firm in our area is to close because of this. Today I visited a former partner of another firm in hospital. He has had a stroke and has nothing to show for his life but mammoth debts.
This is the legacy of the last thirteen years. Talk about super lawyers is an insult to such people and such firms.
As for clearing them out in fifteen years. There will be a huge clearance long before that but spare a thought for those who cannot fall back on a modelling career.
I saw the writing on the wall a long time ago and have left the profession. You have diversified into modelling but a lot of people are stuck and reading your article must make them scream in agony.
Your little congratulatory clique of cheerleaders, who have contributed to this blog, seem insufferably smug when set against the real suffering in the profession as a whole.
Super Lawyer re-claims the law
Here is another direction to go as a "super lawyer": re-claim some of the work lost by lawyers to others. For example, assisting clients sell their property encompasses a double-whammy of lost work to "relatively new" competitors: conveyancers & real estate agents (lawyers did that work first).
My prime example of a "super lawyer" is Peter Mericka from Melbourne, Australia. He has gone way beyond just relying on 'lawyerly intellectual capital' to really innovate. As he said at the Sinch Online Legal Services Conference in Sydney in March 2010, he was "sick and tired of feeding on the crumbs that fall from the Estate Agents table, .. and tired of going into bat for clients against Estate Agents who had done the wrong thing, and then having Estates Agents turning around and telling me they ...would be actively dissuading clients from coming to him".
His efforts are supported by IT, incorporating cloud computing, Twitter (PeterMericka & LawyersRealEst), a blog and a compelling site with video etc. See http://www.lawyersrealestate.com.au/
Systematising, and getting Legal Best Practice certification enabled him to go so far as to franchise his firm; a world-first. For Australian lawyers, it might well be, as Jorge says above, "the greatest opportunity in our modern legal profession". You can hear his talk here: http://bit.ly/a64R4O
Simon Lewis
Twitter: SinchLegal
Superlawyer
I have to agree with your conclusions Chrissie that the traditional paradigm of law practice really needs to change to face the challenges of our times. Actually, it needed to change a long time ago and most of us knew it when we started to practice, but many of us had our spirits crushed by the "system."
I say, "viva the revolution."
The end of lawyers? Pah! This is the time of the 'super lawyer
Hi Chrissie and what a wonderful article.
I have been reading all the comments with great interest, as also your article and would like to comment from a different direction all together.
I am not a university qualified lawyer, and have spent most of my working life in the art of procurement and I have found to my horror that there is a great lacking in the procurement profession in general, in that the profession has become, what I refer to as the pencil pusher buyers, in large corporates today. Many of the incumbents of these positions today have no real idea as to the intricacies regarding the procurement discipline.
In my early years I soon discovered that to be a procurement professional, one needs to be rather proficient in the following disciplines and that you need to have really good acumen in, finance, commercial, technological and legal.
I started very early developing my skills in these fields and studying law and the engineering technological aspects so I could understand the requirements of the company's direction, especially regarding major capital/investment requirements.
This has allowed me to be involved in all the major projects over the last 40 years and I have made it my business to research all the technological issues and then I have continued to study the very principles of law ,via research in to its history, and also modern contracts and the legalese in said documents, and I have had to do this across a number of countries with whom we were contracting. Also with the financial and commercial knowledge I have accumulated over years, I soon found myself in the position to sit in on all the negotiations, be they the technological scope definitions, commercial, financial or legal, and understand those elements so am able to determine risk factors, so as we proceed to the financial and the commercial and contractual negotiation I am in the position to be able to weigh all the elements together.
Once the final decisions are taken I am in the position to construct the contract of purchase, which usually included not only the physical equipment but also the services that go alongside in such a project. So I am the best one to draft the contract and pull all these elements into simple and readable English as also ensure that all these elements mesh together to make a practical, simple and workable contract where all parties know their inputs and obligations whilst also ensuring that all are aware of the consequences should a party default.
In the beginning, my company insisted these drafts were sent to the lawyers for sign off and I have spent many enjoyable hours discussing same with the lawyers and being able to explain what actually will happen on the ground and so persuading them to modify there legal clauses, that would really have no impact, unless related to the facts of the entire operation. Of course this was a very expensive exercise for the company, and it did not take to many years until I would do all this work and the contract sent to the lawyers with the brief to comment only on any significant legal issue that they could have an issue with, and of course over time the comments were less and less which saved the company a great deal of money.
So now after boring you with this background I come to my point, in that I now own my own consulting company and consult in contractual work for many large companies, as they have seen that I can indeed do this in a simple manner with my processes I have developed, and in the end before I left my employer's we did not have these contracts signed off by the lawyers at all, unless I felt it was needed but I had already consulted the lawyers with any tricky points of law I was not sure of at that time.
It is terribly sad that I have to admit to being a sort of strange breed now, but I am now training procurement people in to the correct manner in handling professional procurement and also writing a book on Procurement which entails all of these aspects and I hope soon to see the day when procurement professionals will use the information and understand the needs to have the knowledge and acumen regarding the various elements I have set out above.
This is certainly allowing companies to (as I notice the commenters DIY content) DIY themselves in house so to speak.
I really believe there will always be the need for academically qualified lawyers but they will become specialised in certain niche fields and so be of great assistance to companies.
I agree with many commentators here that the super lawyers do have a place but will have also to do, in a way, what I have done, and become involved in the real world of operations and not standard acedemic legal matters as this seldom jells with life in general.
I have had an occasion, where I was on leave, and a contract was drawn up between the two company's lawyers and this contract was very flawed and the essence of the requirements were sadly lacking, and I was able to stop the signature of same in time for it to be corrected. It was not really the fault of the lawyers since the two companies involved, to a greater extent on one side and a lesser on the other, did not know how to brief their lawyers correctly and place the necessary information in the lawyers hands and so the contract ended up practically flawed.
So In closing, yes I agree altogether with Chrissie, but also with others in that it is not all gloom, and I have a long way to go to train and change the face of the procurement professional to adopt the correct philosophy regarding the art of procurement and stop being pencil pushers. I am hoping my book, when eventually completed, will address some of the lacking issues within procurement.
Just as a final comment I have studied the South African, German, Austrian, Law of England and Wales, American (but the many US states and separate statutes complicate this) and some delving into Russian legal principles, over the time I worked for the group I was employed by, and in all this research have found if you go back to the historical origins of the legal principles they all eventually apply in most law and it is really a matter of codification complication one needs to be careful about.
I still today spend much time reading up on the old legal principles and access the laws of various countries, as I need to be prepared to negotiate with the foreign company's legal representatives so as to reach an amicable resolution and finalize and good solid contract.
Thanks again Chrissie for this subject, it has been a real eye opener for me to see the legal profession starting to see the times are a changing.
My best regards
Gary Johnston-Webber
The End of Lawyers
Chrissie
Another awesome post and thanks. I think that lawyers need to start thinking more like their clients and adopt individual buyer personas for their clients.
If lawyers want to differentiate themselves then now is the time to embrace social media – both to reinforce their personal brand and the firm’s offering.
Best wishes
Julian
I agree that change is coming
Hi All
I agree with Chrissie that times are changing and we need, as a profession, to change to keep our heads above the water. I completely understand the frustrations of many practitioners that pay can be low and the hours very long.
What I would say is that most newly qualified lawyers do not, currently, have many of the 'soft fluffy' skills required to move ahead and a) understand the needs of their commercial clients and b) have the ability to network effectively. This is because these skills are not taught either at University or Law School. Maybe they can't be learnt from a book, I don't know, but I think they certainly need to be learnt before the next generation can expect to try and keep up with the changes and become succesful.
I have to say though, I am excited to be in the profession at the minute as I do genuinely think there will be opportunities for the entrepreneur lawyers of now and the future.
There seems to be an
There seems to be an extraordinary number of "Legal Marketing Consultants" that spend their time fawning over self-serving articles that other said consultants have written in The Gazette.
Pass me the sick-bucket, Alice...
Partial agreement
The articles I don't mind: the comments often seem a little too much like adverts and SEO spam.
So what are you doing to make your business better?
It's easy to write unpleasant comments. If you are a practicing solicitor, what are you doing to make your business better? I don't want to here, "it's all the Law Soc/governments fault" or blaming others. What are your suggestions for developing the profession and how have you successfully implemented them?
And another thing! I feel sure the real Marshall Hall KC, the pseudonim you have adopted, would find your appraoch to these public comments distasteful and juvenile. Where's the evidence for your arguement?
Wakey Wakey
Nothing terribly new here. I’m not a lawyer. I have worked with law firms, I have worked for law firms, I have been an employee of one of the biggest global law firms (at partner level) and have used their services as a client at the commercial level (£1 million+).
It's not the End of Lawyers it’s the End of Law Firms as we know them. They just don't know that yet.
What most people and businesses want is less law not more law. The law and legal services has stifled development of the UK economy and is now seen as a problem not a solution. £22bn is an embarrassment. The growth of Solicitor firms from 9000 to 11000 is a mark of abject failure not success. That's what you as lawyers need to worry about; not the brave new world of Susskind (although he is largely right) but the appalling legacy and largesse of the old and how this is informing the thinking of your client base. On the one hand we have lawyers upgrading from Porsches to Ferraris on the backs of hard working folks and at the other end of the scale you have principled hard working lawyers who make a pittance. What makes a good lawyer? The size of their wad? I use that as a measure of failure. A good lawyer is one who increases the size of my wad in disproportion to their own. If they can't achieve that then why bother let’s go for the cheapest if we have to use the law. Tesco will do, we can go Michelin star when we need to add value.
Super "service providers" have been here forever they just couldn’t use their super powers effectively given the prevailing flawed business models they worked with. That’s the key change; the business models are shifting.
What you as lawyers can hang onto, if you don’t have a clue what’s coming, is that it’s not coming fast. This is largely due to the ignorance of the vast majority of your £22bn client base. But they are waking up! Oh boy are they waking up!
Oh! One more thing. Super lawyer won't mean super rewards; it will mean you have a super job. We are entering the era of the Super Clients!
Solve Problems Profitably - That's all there is to it.
It is incredibly difficult to be a successful lawyer/owner/entrepreneur
and that's what most law firms are run by. Sole practitioners -
responsible for everything.
In reality these owners find it hard to know what to do. Because they
are in the thick of things on a daily basis. This is no different from any industry..
except the onerous and unfair restraints put on solicitors by regulation.
(People aren't afraid of change, they
just don't like to be changed).
Where law firms should focus is on providing solutions
and not just advice. Advice is seen as expensive and ubiquitous.
People will pay any price for solutions.
If you create a system that provides solutions profitably
and it is not reliant on time billed or geography
then you have something very valuable.
It is almost immune to any threats because it is so valuable to clients
and prospects will find you with good marketing.
The system is;
Find what people want = solutions to their problems.
Make sure there are enough of them = market.
Devise a way of delivering it = profitably.
Communicate it to them you have the solution = marketing.
Rinse and repeat with new solutions when you find out
more niches.
The beauty of this is that you also have something you can sell
when you retire or when you want to. Because it's similar to a franchise.
(See Gerber's E-Myth Revisited book).
The answer is always the same in business.
Great marketing gives you more money.
You can invest more in the solution.
You get more clients because of it.
Which you re-invest in marketing.
Apple Mac anyone?
The end of lawyers
Chrissie, this was a fantastic read! I think that lawyers will never become extinct. However, the notion that lawyers are somehow superior to others merely by virtue of their education or status must forever change.
We are people who happen to have a gift and a power that can be used for the good of the public. That being said, we can best serve the public by providing the best quality service while, at the same time, recognizing the profound importance that this service provides. Once it becomes clear that we give a hoot and at all times try our best, people will regain faith in our possession
Once this is solved, we can move to politicians and doctors.
The end of lawyers - Entropy
SUPER LAWYER
A Plague of Black Debt is Sweeping Europe – Emerging markets here we come!
European debt is at a stage of critical mass - the end is nigh for the welfare continent and the UK. A plague of black debt is attacking Europe (and shortly, America). Entropy — The World as We Know It is Falling Apart
Reading the comments of two anonymous commenting entities (“Hmm...” and “Chrissie open your eyes”...) among the vast majority of positive contributions to Ms Lightfoot’s Super Lawyer article, I found good reason to accept her kind request to transfer my humble opinions regarding (the need for) Super Lawyers from LinkedIn to the Law Society Gazette.
As for Ms Lightfoot’s modelling experience, I admit, as a magistrate to personally appreciating the presence of bright and agreeable looking advocates. The overriding issue is of course what is relevant to a case – not appearance. I will lean however toward a specialist-lawyer rather than a general one. As a result I’d like to address Ms Lightfoot’s statements as a professional and then in terms of Entropy, rather than in terms of [her] pleasing looks.
Entropy is being witnessed today in both the USA and the EU. The concept of entropy is one of the most useful terms for understanding the demise of just about everything on earth – following which there is always a brave new world somewhere else - in my book such a world is an emerging commercial world, or market if you prefer, or the life hereafter if you wish.
For what it is worth: I used to help restructure economies in Eastern Europe under the flag of the European Commission / European Investment Bank. Of late I assist businesses with market development. My first degree is in engineering, my second in economics – both encompass the science of entropy... The thing is that if you build something, sooner or later it’ll come down. But entropy also offers a clear chance for entrepreneurial (legal) activities as indeed Alastair Moyes put it; “lawyers, need to embrace radical change and reinvent customer service... I don’t know Mr. Moyes, but I believe we eat from the same trough.
Early 1992 I participated in a seminar about emerging markets in Eastern Europe with among others Dr. Frans Nooteboom, Dean of the Law Faculty of the University of Groningen. He introduced me to another law brain, a gentleman by the name of Max Moscovitz, arguably the most famous corporate and criminal lawyer in the Netherlands at that time.
They urged me to "take point" because they said, they knew nothing about the legal aspects and business structures in the eastern hub of Europe and I had been representing Dutch authorities there. Hmm, maybe so – but they knew that we were facing change and a new kind of market. Through them I came to embrace a brave new world of entrepreneurial, financial and legal trapdoors - they dared to go beyond the everyday routine of faculty and legal hassle. I followed my Masters and the result was exorbitantly rewarding – in my eyes they were the first super lawyers.
To become a super lawyer, or super accountant, or super economist is to create a market entry strategy and a project-management system that allows the specialist in us to recognise entropy of what exits and the birth of new potential.
Personally, I can design and draw an entire chemical factory or oil platform if needed, but for me to become a super engineer I have to get off my butt and start finding customers to buy these things.
Lawyer intellectual capital (LIC) is like engineering intellectual capital or economic intellectual capital...it means you have a skill and you dare to use it toward gaining knowledge of a market and become entrepreneurial.
Somewhere between restructuring the industrial heartland of Russia, the Baltic States, Bosnia, Macedonia and Croatia and creating strategic business alliances via Europartinariat in the Middle and Far East, I was bestowed with the honour of speaking in the Houses of Parliament during RIA’s 75th anniversary dinner. I addressed them on the subject of legal and financial handholding as a necessary instrument for achieving success in new emerging markets – nothing happened, few were interested and fewer still brave enough to embrace change.
We needed lawyers and investment bankers. Nobody bothered. They didn’t even request assessment reports covering details of new market potential in a new Europe. Worse they didn't obtain details of the highly lucrative EC funded investment projects running into the billions of Euro. Moyes is right - embrace change! Look at Europe and at the USA now.
We need the market oriented super lawyer as he is deemed best suited to play a role in the rise and fall, or entropy of markets – super lawyers can make the client aware of where politics influence markets and help to counter balance negative aspects with appropriate (legal) care. If you sat me down with a super lawyer and super investment banker you’ll witness the founding of a Super Troika.
Consumers in emerging markets are now the dominant consumer group in the world, surpassing the US. Entropy again - no one stays on top forever. Recently, the mighty US and EU consumer lost its top seed. There is a brave new world emerging, and it needs the super lawyer to protect and help it to progress.
The Economist: The emerging world is enjoying the most spectacular growth in history. Some of the growth rates are just blistering. Thailand grew 15% in the fourth quarter. Taiwan grew 18%. “Multinationals expect about 70% of the world’s growth over the next few years to come from emerging markets, with 40% coming from China and India.
It’s a great time to become a super lawyer as we witness a history-making shift in global markets that will create great opportunities. For instance: Coca-Cola reported a 20% increase in first-quarter profits despite declining sales in North America.
There is a slew of iconic companies generating more sales overseas than in the US. It’s still early days and the super lawyer must get over there now – let’s not repeat what we did in Eastern Europe in the nineties...showing how lazy and scared we are to embrace an opportunity.
The next big consumer market to open up is Indonesia – I speak the tongue and I have every reason to be there. It has the world’s fourth largest population with 240 million people. Ford just opened a dealership there. Honda can’t make motorcycles fast enough and Heinz reports that it is why its Asia sales rose 41% last year.
The long-awaited emergence of the new consumer market is at hand – what are we going to do? Deliberate commoditisation of legal services, the end of lawyers and LIC or are we getting off our butts and make some impact there as British Super Specialists in law, engineering, economics and investment banking?
The emerging markets are a source for innovative ideas. Fortune 500 companies set up brain-shops. As an engineer-economist it hurts to see that they already have 98 R&D facilities in China and 63 in India.
GE has a R&D facility in Bangalore, its biggest in the world. Cisco is spending $1 billion on a second HQ in Bangalore. Accenture has a quarter of its work force in India. Microsoft’s biggest R&D centre, outside the US is in Beijing.
And they are all enjoying tremendous success.
GE’s Bangalore laboratory invented a new hand-held electrocardiogram selling at $800, instead of the usual $2,000 - the cost is now only $1 per patient.
Emerging markets have become a fizzing cocktail of creativity. A Tata company created a water purifier using rice husks at $24, filter replacements cost $4.
Mindray, makes a lithium battery for $12. Bharti Airtel (Indian) has the lowest cell phone fees in the world — 2 cents/min and nationwide coverage.
Devi Shetty is applying Henry Ford assembly-line techniques to hospitals - his family-owned hospital group reports a 7.7% profit after taxes, compared with 6.9% in US private hospitals.
Conclusion:
There are opportunities for the Super Lawyer. I believe the biggest opportunities and the biggest rewards are with local companies. As in rugby, odds favour the home team, with knowledge of local markets and customs. Join the Indian lawyer with respect and expect (s)he knows better than you... It doesn’t matter if you don’t know the ins and outs. Learn to become a super lawyer by teaming up with the home team, the same way we did in Eastern Europe 2 decades ago.
Mittal as recently as 1990 was an unknown steel maker in India. Today, it’s the world’s largest steel company. China’s Lenovo didn’t exist in 1990 and today it is the world’s fourth largest PC maker. There are many more examples from Brazil’s Embraer to China’s battery maker BYD.
The above is just a snippet of the mind-bending changes taking place right now.
As Marco Polo once said, “I have not told the half of what I saw.”
I haven’t got the space, Dear Chrissie, I haven’t got the space…or I could tell you all.
Lawyers must change
We have recently set up our new business
http://www.maintenanceassist.co.uk
and we recognise the Dickensian lawyers you are talking about who exist in the family law area.
On the other hand we have first hand experience of dealing on a businesslike basis with some of the newer competitors such as
http://www.divorce-online.co.uk/
who readily embraced what we are offering.
You are absolutely right to highlight the need to look at new business models and particularly within family law.
Well done, Chrissie.
It is a measure of the
It is a measure of the parlous state of the profession that of the 39 pages in this week's Gazette, 7 are devoted to Risk and Compliance and Disciplinary and Interventions whereas only 5 are devoted to recruitment.
Has it really come to this? I suspect that worse is yet to come too.
What is worrying
What is a bit worrying is that a lot of people seem tho think this thinking is actually new, rather than what the more successful firms have been doing for the last couple of decades.
I grew my practice and helped other practcies to grow (and other businesses) using these principles for more than 20 years.
If there's a message for law firms, it is to understand how valuable the relationships you have. Your bweb of relationships is money in the bank if you look after it. Keeping clients 'glued in' is somethign that legal profession has traditionally been really terrible at: get that right and creatign more work and growing your sphere of influence is easy.