Tag Archives: ABS

General Legal IT, Legal

Tomorrow’s Lawyers – still waiting for tomorrow!

4 Comments

This last week I’ve just started reading “Tomorrow’s Lawyers: An Introduction to Your Future” by Richard Susskind. It’ll take me a while as I tend to have a few books on the go at once and this one will only get a look in on my commute in between reading the Metro and re-watching the WestWing on my phone! But as I’ve just finished part one I thought I’d write up some thoughts.

For those that are unfamiliar with Richard Susskinds works, he basically points to radical changes in the legal market and has been future gazing in this way for some years. In fact I recently bought his 1996 book “The Future of Law” off eBay, this was the year I started in Legal IT and I’m intrigued to look back to what he predicted then and compare it to the journey I’ve been through within Legal IT over the last 17 years, but that’s a post for another day.

The first part of this latest book really sets the scene of what is to come in the later two parts. The first five chapters that make up part one are as follows:

  • Three drivers of change
  • Strategies for success
  • Commoditizing the law
  • Working differently
  • Disruptive legal technologies

The “three drivers of change” are the drive to cut costs, the changing legal model (ABS etc) and IT. It’s hard to argue against any of these, it’s just what will be the rate of change and how big a change will it be. The second chapter I thought was very interesting, low costs and alternative fees were discussed as “no brainers” and the chapter moved to how firms will need to work very differently. The final three chapters expand on what he sees as the options; to build an efficiency and collaboration strategy, the only viable strategies that he sees for law firms to remain competitive.

It’s interesting reading the first part how far from this vision a lot of law firms are, seemingly concentrating on cost cutting and alternative fees alone as they strive to keep profits high (example, “Eversheds set to cut up to 166 jobs in latest redundancy round“).

Although I don’t necessarily agree with everything Richard Susskind predicts for law firms, I do agree that the winds of change are blowing through the industry. And the more stories like the front page on today’s Metro paper (see below) hit the mainstream media, the more outsiders will see a huge opportunity to deliver legal services in new, customer benefiting ways!

Metro Front Page - Thu 28 Feb 2013
Metro Front Page – Thu 28 Feb 2013
Click picture to enlarge

 Metro newspaper

Share
General Legal IT

ABS on ABS (or another blummin’ story on alternative business structures!)

Leave a comment

The move in the legal world to alternative business structures has generated a great deal of interest over the past few years. For a while it’s seemed a lot of talk and little action, but it now seems there are some interesting developments happening. Following Irwin Mitchell, Hill Dickinson and Kennedys are the latest UK Top 50 to confirm plans to move to ABS. And then this week Australia’s Slater & Gordon, the world’s first publicly listed law firm, moves for Russell Jones & Walker.

I’ve been a little sceptical of how revolutionary “Tesco Law” will be. Sure I can see it in the personal injury and clinical negligence arena, for example, where there is a lot of standardised legal work. But outside that, I’m not sure. For existing businesses I can’t see beyond the move being like an IPO for the partners, what’s the incentive to grow that business after the “float”? Most entrepreneurs after an IPO of their business leave with their money and start again. In a law firm though the product of the business is the lawyer (unless it’s standardised legal work where processes and standard documents have been be created, but then we’re back to my first point!).

However, I read with interest the story of Liverpool’s Silverbeck Rymer which is set to be acquired by software and outsourcing firm Quindell Portfolio. As a Legal IT professional this move kind of excites me, a company with the technology and the processes taking over a law firm to get the legal expertise? The business process and IT systems being front and centre in building and growing that business!

The other interesting possible development could be for new entrants to gain the access to capital from investors. This could allow those partners from big firms to setup new firms or maybe entrepreneurs who see the opportunities that then work with some young lawyers to build the next generation of law firm?

It’s an interesting time to be in legal and could lead to some very exciting opportunities in legal IT. Maybe I’ll try and persuade a couple of friends who work in the IT dept of one of the aforementioned UK Top 50 to guest blog post in a years time on what changes ABS has brought to their dept!

 

If you want some further reading on “Tesco Law” there’s a good in depth commentary on Legal Week entitled “Reverberations and revolutions – change grips the market as ‘Tesco law’ finally launches”

Share