British manufacturing was in decline well before the recession of the 1990s.

Our manufacturing companies became typified by obsolete premises and plants.

An inadequately trained workforce pursued outmoded methods of production.

Some of these factors may explain why British industry lost the battle for quality products against, for example, the Japanese.

The truth may be, however, that declining competitiveness was accelerated rather than halted by management intervention.Lawyers may work in the service sector, but some of th e misjudgments made by British manufacturers could be replicated by professional partnerships.

The partnership structure makes it harder, not easier, to make necessary changes.

However, there are rewards for those firms that adapt to the changing world around them.One lesson to be learned from the recession is that persistent attempts to reduce costs, curtail investment and ruthlessly attack overheads do not help.

Whilst these factors should not be ignored, competition arose not only from those offering cheap labour but also from high wage, high productivity countries.

Cutting margins by continually reducing prices proved to be unsustainable.

Competitive advantage ultimately depended on quality.Perhaps the fiercest competition to solicitors has come from accountants, who are rapidly diversifying their product base and who invest up to eight times more than solicitors in training their staff.

In firms of accountants, the numbers of non fee-earners who work in training, marketing, quality assurance, information technology and management have grown on the understanding that this represents not an overhead but an investment in client service.

The move towards quality in services, like that in products, is a response to an increasingly sophisticated customer base.The customer has continual contact with a wide range of service providers.

In the provision of utilities, for instance, the customer is not concerned about the quality of gas or electricity provided, but about the quality with which it is provided.

As services become more technical, even sophisticated customers find it difficult to evaluate the quality of, for example, legal advice.

However, it is possible to measure other indicators of comparative quality in the delivery of this service.

Speed of response, provision of information and keeping to time all become simple quality yardsticks by which clients measure legal services.British industry under-invested in new technology -- not because of a reluctance to invest but because of a lack of will to embrace the changes which new technology demanded.

Most of these changes were process changes -- radical revisions of traditional working methods.

Very often existing methods were taken for granted.

Solicitors must ask themselves whether this fault is replicated in legal practice.

A few simple questions might help.

How much time is spent by partners on tasks that can only be done by a person of that level of qualification and experience? How many times do solicitors re-invent the wheel rather than retrieving and re-using previous work products? What use is made of standard software packages to manage larger projects, keep diaries and checklists, compile simple databases and prepare standard documents?Former chairman of ICI John Harvey-Jones claims that no IT company uses more than 60% of the available technology within its own organisation.

This figure must be much lower in the average law firm.

Yet lawyers have far more need for information systems than IT firms.

Many firms now employ precisely the same technology in their offices as their competitors.

A competitive advantage lies in the use to which firms put that technology.

In a sector which has traditionally charged for the time spent undertaking a task, there are direct rewards for firms achieving productivity from computer-assisted working methods.Manufacturers were slow in adopting changes to enhance competitiveness and quality, planning only for the short term.

Even where investment was made, quick fixes displaced long term strategic objectives.

Partnership structur es also dictate that success is seen in bottom-line terms.

Investment programmes in training, marketing, IT etc are seen as money taken out of partners' pay packets.

Short-term stringency for long-term benefit is not easy as the partnership population changes.

Older partners try to squeeze out income prior to retirement as younger partners grow impatient with the firm's decline.The problem of British industry may have been its inability to adapt to change, but change entails opportunity.

As traditional heavy industry declined, new horizons appeared for high-tech industries and for the services sectors.

Those quickest to react gained greatest reward.

Society's pace of change is unremitting.

Lawyers serve the needs of that society.

What will matter in the years ahead will be the capacity to react to change and to exploit the openings which it presents.

Those firms which will react to change best will be those that show a capacity to change themselves.