The End of Lawyers?
I read a very interesting book last year called “The End of Lawyers” by Richard Susskind. My main takeway from it, was that new entrants (e.g. supermarkets, financial services businesses) to the legal profession permitted by the so called “Tesco Law” would mean major changes to the legal sector, but that great opportunities would open up for the entrepreneurial and forward thinking practices out there. Certainly very thought provoking stuff and judging by the high number of visitors at the IRIS stand at the Legal IT show this week, the legal profession is really starting to wake up to the challenges they face and how technology can help them respond and thrive in a new more automated world.
As I’ve said before, this recession has been and will be a Darwinian experience for many businesses, where it really will be “survival of the fittest”. The winners will be those who use technology and other innovations to do things quicker and more cost effectively than their competitors, whilst significantly improving the overall customer experience.
In the past, the firm or practice’s business strategy, if there was one, has not always been underpinned by a sound IT strategy, if there was one. They need to be integrated, not dislocated and certainly not just delegated to IT. They also need to be commercially and strategically driven from the top.
The UK’s Legal profession provides an excellent illustrative example of the challenges facing many sectors of the economy.
During the boom years, many practices expanded rapidly, fuelled largely by conveyancing. Then, without warning, the music stopped. Practices which had never made redundancies before, suddenly had to do so.
Smart practices such as Morecrofts in Merseyside and MH Legal in Mansfield are recognizing it is no longer viable for practices to have disparate systems with multiple databases and highly labour intensive work practices. Chargeable hours realization is their “life blood”. The winners will be the ones who focus on their core competencies, recognize the benefits of integrated systems, remote access, automated workflow, dashboard KPIs, CRM and in a 24×7 world, client access to key documents via the web. Client service will be even more of a differentiator than ever before and added value will need to be demonstrated and measured.
We’ve written a range of White Papers to help the legal profession with these new challenges, downloadable at: http://legal-software.iris.co.uk/files/online_brochure/iris_software_solutions_guide_2010/index.html.
So, what do you see as the biggest changes the legal profession will need to make over the next 5 years to survive and flourish?
Posted: February 12th, 2010 under Martin Leuw.
Comment from Sue Cohen
Time February 12, 2010 at 10:19 am
I think the integration required of their IT systems is symptomatic of the integration required of their people. If people collaborated more at work, they would drive the IT to do so as well and serve them better. When they implement integrated systems, it is likely people will need to collaborate in a way they have not done so before. One would assume this new spirit of collaboration would carry on after implementation … but it doesn’t always.