More Competition for Lawyers? Not a Problem for Those with a Good Story to Tell

In the past year, at least three state bar associations – in Arizona, California and Utah – have proposed some form of relaxation to ethical rules that would purportedly increase competition and drive down costs. What the proposals have in common is that they would enable technology providers, paraprofessionals and others to provide specified types of legal service, and/or allow some capital investors to own shares in law firms.

This development is years behind the licensing and creation of Alternative Business Structure (“ABS”) law firms in the U.K. Across the pond, ABS firms already have non-lawyer owners, investors and boards that focus more on technology, innovation, management and process improvement than traditional law firms do.

The jury is out on whether the new competition will arrive here, and whether it will be dominant and disruptive.  But one international Deloitte study has already claimed that more than half of clients surveyed are comfortable with buying services from non-traditional providers. Furthermore, non-traditional providers already compete with law firms in automated document review, economic damages modeling, and other fields. So the forces of disruption have been unleashed, and it is unlikely they will be put back in the box.

For law firms that already embrace professional management styles, work on service innovations, adopt new technologies, and use process improvement principles for perpetual improvement, there will be much less disruption and downside as competition from all angles intensifies.

Furthermore, there is a huge opportunity for leading-edge firms to claim more clients now by communicating to the marketplace about their forward-looking service attitudes, innovative approaches to practice, and client satisfaction results.