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Is this venture a good or bad thing conceptually?
Answering that question will achieve very little of any value.
Conceptually anything looks good or bad depending on which side of the bed you fell out of this morning.
How will the concept of gathering up the broken mirror shards into a full looking glass actually work in reality?
This is the real question.
Indeed, this is the debate going on here and Simon Goldhill’s Wayne’s World 2 outlook of “If we put on a rock concert the bands will come” does not answer the legitimate concerns of the wider profession.
Change, innovation, greater use of technology to improve efficiency: these are not frightening concepts to a greater majority of solicitors sat in caves clapping rocks together as they wait for a technological messiah to show them a wheel; rather, these are widely acknowledged to be unassailable truths to be embraced if the profession is to best serve its customers in a manner that yields a fair profit.
The legitimate concern here is that these concepts are being trotted out in a Gordon Gecko format with a Gordon Gecko cynicism for the impact this will have on the existing service providers and their customers.
This Gordon Gecko outlook will clearly manifest as a “nick ‘em and strip ‘em” tactic of snapping up the choice morsels of firms which face a succession crisis and hiving off those elements requiring continuing investment (staff, premises, paper based communication) to the scrap heap.
Will this benefit consumers?
No.
The fees will stay at the £200 per hour model but the client will be provided with an Emperor’s New Clothes package of bytes and pass codes managed by drinking bird operators in call centres.
Progress indeed or should I say, metamorphosis?