Recent socioeconomic trends have significantly accelerated the pace of need for change for the legal industry and the law firm business model. One of the big themes that our firm’s well credited visitors have pointed out is technology.
In the past, the legal sector enjoyed great comfort in the linear nature of progression. Students attended law school for 3 years, then articled, then became associates, then made partner and went down the path of success until retirement, but that seems to have changed now. There was an understanding between the law firms and their clients that good work costs money, and there was no surprise that billing rates were expected to rise, but that’s no longer the case either. One common indicator that projects the future of this industry is the emergence of technology, and firms which adapt to the changes are ahead of the game and will be industry leaders.
We’re a profession that I would suggest in the last 100 years has not done anything differently than how it has always done, and we are the only industry that is proud of that fact. The legal industry by definition looks to the past for finding ways of the future and that in my opinion needs to change. The comfort that comes with predictability and precedent is perhaps the main factor in postponing the realization of need for change for the industry as a whole.
For us as a profession not to embrace change and innovation, we are setting ourselves up for failure.
3 Comments
Well put.
Technology and new ways of delivering legal services will be key to our profession’s ability to provide access to legal services in an affordable way. Also important, will be delivering services in ways which resonate with clients who themselves are familiar with the technologies which surround us today. Of the technologies that have come on line in your lifetime, which had the most profound impact on you and how might they be harnessed to help the law?
After putting some thought into this, I figure the technologies that could be utilized in order to make access to justice [whether that’d be retaining a lawyer or appealing a decision in small claim courts] more attainable, already exist and we all use them in our daily lives, like when we want to know what shows are on at the nearest movie theatre, or buy a flight ticket for the next holiday break. These advancements despite their recent presence, have become so typical in our lives that we don’t even notice them or remember how we used to do things before the apps on our smartphones. So, I guess what I am saying is that the legal industry, needs to make use of such technologies in a manner in which perhaps in a few years we wouldn’t remember the steps that had to be taken in order to draft a simple employment contracts. (check out clausehound.com)
Great post Houtan!
I agree with what you are saying. Change needs to happen. The biggest challenge, I think, is convincing lawyers to change their ways. Many who don’t witness the negative effects of this archaic model, go without realizing the need for change because they are comfortable. Also, as soon as someone mentions changing the billing structure, people stop listening entirely. I don’t know the answer, but I am impressed with the innovative thinkers out there trying to find a solution. Perhaps bringing these issues to the attention of law students, like L21C does, is the first step in shifting the ideologies ingrained in the generations ahead.