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I am a Lexcel consultant and assessor who gets to visit a variety of practices in connection with my work. ABSs have been with us for a while now and I have to say that I find that the repeated comments about their presence 'trashing' the profession is wearing a bit thin.

Marketing legal services is the same as marketing any other service/product. It's about giving people what they want. I visit non-ABS law firms who have come up with some truly remarkable ways of adding value to core legal services. I have to preserve their confidentiality but would love to be able to share the real innovation that is out there and setting some practices apart - and their innovation is not based around 'pile it high and sell it cheap' philosophies or taking on armies of unqualified staff.

A practice that truly has the ability to be critical of its current business model and innovate will force itself to be successful. Those continuing to sit in dowdy offices unable to contemplate cultural change will wither and die because they did not provide services their clients wanted.