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The practice of law is changing very rapidly, mainly due to a combination of technology and globalization. Traditional Law Firms and Law Schools are being left behind rapidly. Lawyers have enjoyed being part of a relatively protected and exclusive community, with few price pressures, little transparency over cost structures, billing by the hour, rather than offering fixed price deals, and a mystique that until now has meant they faced few challenges from their clients in the way they worked. The future will be far less comfortable. Successful Law Firms will require far stronger customer focus: under promising and over delivering, exceeding expectations every time. It means deep insight into what it actually feels like to be a customer, with an intuitive understanding of what really matters. Here are 10 key legal trends which relate to each other to differing degrees, depending on where you are in the world: 1. Deregulation – eg in UK, with approval of the so-called Tesco Law, allowing corporations to offer a wide range of legal services. Traditional Law Firms are now able to raise capital in the market through public share listings, and rapidly expand, in competition with any company who wishes to enter the same market. Expect changes in the way that legal services are marketed. 2. Outsourcing – Forrester estimates that outsourcing of legal services to emerging markets could be an industry worth more than $4 billion by 2015. Many tens of thousands of legal jobs have already moved offshore – mostly lower grade roles for tasks such as document preparation. Some of this is outsourcing to Law Firms in the same nation, the rest is offshoring, particularly to India, where hourly cost may be only 10-20% of a US or European equivalent. Legal Process Outsourcing will continue to grow rapidly as corporations become more confident that issues relating to confidentiality and security are being dealt with. As part of this shift, we are also seeing huge growth of new legal graduates in nations like India – over 20,000 a year. 3. Globalisation – as legal requirements of multinational clients grow more complex, many Law Firms have globalized to keep pace, offering specialist advice in many different countries, as well as centers of excellence in specialty areas. 4. Virtual Law Firms – in the past, many of the best-known Firms drew most of their talent from a small geographic area, often in competition with other leading Firms. Most staff sat in traditional offices, where they saw clients, and worked full time. Virtual Law Firms are growing very fast in numbers. They may have a very small physical office, with team members working from home or various other locations, maybe part-time. They benefit from the fact that it is unusual these days for people to go and see a lawyer. More often, the lawyer will visit them – especially the case in corporate legal practice. Team members often work on a freelance basis, earni
Citation preview
Dr Patrick Dixon Chairman Global Change Ltd
Future Law Firms - 10 Key Trends
http://www.globalchange.com
If you started with a blank sheet of paper to create a third millennial law firm or
legal department for corpora9on, what would it
look like?
Related Ideas
Issues Agile 4
• Click to edit Master text styles
$40bn a month
•
£1 trillion debt 33% bought back
Text
The future is about
EMOTION
Speed will ma+er
even more
21
80% lost in 10 seconds
Mul2-‐channel
Lawyer Chat – Social Media
De-‐regula2ng law firms
100 applica9ons to beAlterna9ve Business Structures
• 1 in 3 top 40 firms looking at non-legal practice merger in 2 years
• 2 firms “likely” to seek finance and public lis=ng =<£50m
• 6 firms “possible” with non-‐legal firm in next 2 years =<£20m
• Parabis Group -‐ £50m investment from Duke Street Capital, to acquire other law firms in insurance • Quindell PorColio, outsourcing company, paying £19.3m for firm that specialises in personal injury• Slater & Gordon, law firm publicly traded in Australia, buys Russell Jones & Walker for £53.8m.
Mergers and Globalisa2on
Consolida9on• 75% law firms in early discussions
• US Law Firm mergers up 80% 2011
Virtual Firms Smaller Offices
Virtual Law Firms – 451k artwicles
Life is too short to visit lawyers
• No need for big offices
Axiom Legal
Mul9na9onals run into the Cloud
• 25% large corpora9ons plan par9al migra9on in 2 years• 11% in 12 months• 30% global market in UK –Financial services
• $56bn / year (Gartner)• $150bn by 2013 • SoXware as a service• Infrastructure as a service• PlaZorm as a service• 90% MicrosoX R&D
OutsourcingLegal Processes
1 billion children à cities
�
4 couples needed to produce just
one great-grandchild
India Legal Jobs à US
Infosys alone = 25,000 IT graduates each year
• India 22,000 Law gradua=ons pa <20% labour cost Legal process $650m to India pa: $4bn 2015 (Forrester)
Commodi2sedLower Fees
Fixed Fees for Defined Service
• Legalzoom• Cyberse.le• Completecase.com• Google scholar
Access to legal advice for $49
£50
Legal SearchCommunity Knowledge
• Zettabyte = 1024 ExabytesExabyte = 1024 PetabytesPetabyte = 1024 TerabytesTerabytes = 1024 Gigabytes That's a data explosion of 44x in
Data
Why Searchhad to change
social networks just in time
More LawsRush to new regula9ons
Global Warming -‐ facts
Why Biofuels Are No Answer
USA
Beyond Compliance
Advice on Behaviour
-‐ Insider dealing was thought smart –-‐ Bribes were set against corpora>on tax -‐
Compliance is Dead except as a defensive strategy
•Faster•Mul=channel•Deregulated•Merged / global•Virtual
•Outsourced•Commodi=sed•Automated•More complex•Beyond compliance
If you started with a blank sheet of paper to create a third millennial law firm or
legal department for corpora9on, what would it
look like?
Dr Patrick Dixon Chairman Global Change Ltd
Slides and Videos - globalchange.com
13.5 million unique visitors - 4 million video views
http://www.globalchange.com
