Page 21 - 2019 - Leaders in Legal Business (n)
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lawyers are mediocre salespeople at best, and that asking legal subject experts to also be
accomplished rainmakers is a distracting and discouraging exercise for all but the most
preternaturally gifted practitioners. Faced with far more discerning and demanding clients, as well
as substantially more aggressive competitors, law firms will begin employing salespeople to
develop and eventually manage the law firm sales process, relegating lawyers to their proper role
of subject-matter authorities and skilled legal practitioners. Bonuses and even commissions for
salespeople will become a reality in law firms, and regulators will reluctantly but inevitably change
ethics codes as a result. It will happen sooner than you might think.
Technologists
Any tool or process that increases the quality, efficiency, or effectiveness of a lawyer’s
work is “technology.” The typewriter was technology, as were the photocopier, the fax machine,
and dial-up modems that accessed the “information superhighway,” but each of these new tools
faced higher hurdles to acceptance in law firms than in other businesses. That resistance probably
won’t disappear entirely, so long as lawyers constitute the bulk of law firm workers, but it has
already decreased substantially and will continue to do so.
The next stage in technology’s infiltration of law firms is the role of technologists
themselves. This broad term encompasses a range of technical and professional experts. Some will
be programmers who design both internal systems for the creation and delivery of client services
and external systems for standalone access by clients to the firm’s distilled and productized
expertise. Others will be artificial intelligence engineers who advise firms about the potential for
machine-learning and cognitive-reasoning systems to improve the quality of legal advice (say,
predictive analytics for litigation groups) or create new offerings altogether. And others will be
data-collecting bloodhounds who derive insights from the firm’s own vast storehouses of
unstructured information and who team up with library and knowledge professionals to turn that
data into value for the firm and its clients. “Every company is going to become a tech company in
some capacity,” said Marcie Borgal Shunk, founder of the Tilt Institute. “That ultimately is going
to be true of professional service firms and law firms as well.”
Process Analysts
The last frontier in the professionalization of law firms is the reinvention of workflow and
operations. Traditionally, it didn’t really matter how a law firm went about its work, so long as a
top-quality product or service emerged at the end and so long as the lawyers who rendered the
service were compensated for their hours of effort. In a cost-plus business model, efficiency was
not only not especially valuable, it arguably was also counterproductive to the goal of higher
revenue. But as clients began pushing their law firms harder for fixed-fee arrangements and more
competitive prices, inefficiency gradually came to be seen as a liability to law firm profitability.
Inevitably, law firms slowly began turning to process analysts to help them re-engineer their
approach to service delivery.
In some respects, “systems” are the new technology. Process improvement initiatives are
gaining traction in select law firms — from legal project management, which places structured
frameworks of timelines, budgets, and reporting responsibilities around legal work, to legal
process mapping, which involves the step-by-step breakdown and efficiency analysis of the stages
involved in frequently undertaken tasks. It’s not enough for law firms to offer the best “product”
6
accomplished rainmakers is a distracting and discouraging exercise for all but the most
preternaturally gifted practitioners. Faced with far more discerning and demanding clients, as well
as substantially more aggressive competitors, law firms will begin employing salespeople to
develop and eventually manage the law firm sales process, relegating lawyers to their proper role
of subject-matter authorities and skilled legal practitioners. Bonuses and even commissions for
salespeople will become a reality in law firms, and regulators will reluctantly but inevitably change
ethics codes as a result. It will happen sooner than you might think.
Technologists
Any tool or process that increases the quality, efficiency, or effectiveness of a lawyer’s
work is “technology.” The typewriter was technology, as were the photocopier, the fax machine,
and dial-up modems that accessed the “information superhighway,” but each of these new tools
faced higher hurdles to acceptance in law firms than in other businesses. That resistance probably
won’t disappear entirely, so long as lawyers constitute the bulk of law firm workers, but it has
already decreased substantially and will continue to do so.
The next stage in technology’s infiltration of law firms is the role of technologists
themselves. This broad term encompasses a range of technical and professional experts. Some will
be programmers who design both internal systems for the creation and delivery of client services
and external systems for standalone access by clients to the firm’s distilled and productized
expertise. Others will be artificial intelligence engineers who advise firms about the potential for
machine-learning and cognitive-reasoning systems to improve the quality of legal advice (say,
predictive analytics for litigation groups) or create new offerings altogether. And others will be
data-collecting bloodhounds who derive insights from the firm’s own vast storehouses of
unstructured information and who team up with library and knowledge professionals to turn that
data into value for the firm and its clients. “Every company is going to become a tech company in
some capacity,” said Marcie Borgal Shunk, founder of the Tilt Institute. “That ultimately is going
to be true of professional service firms and law firms as well.”
Process Analysts
The last frontier in the professionalization of law firms is the reinvention of workflow and
operations. Traditionally, it didn’t really matter how a law firm went about its work, so long as a
top-quality product or service emerged at the end and so long as the lawyers who rendered the
service were compensated for their hours of effort. In a cost-plus business model, efficiency was
not only not especially valuable, it arguably was also counterproductive to the goal of higher
revenue. But as clients began pushing their law firms harder for fixed-fee arrangements and more
competitive prices, inefficiency gradually came to be seen as a liability to law firm profitability.
Inevitably, law firms slowly began turning to process analysts to help them re-engineer their
approach to service delivery.
In some respects, “systems” are the new technology. Process improvement initiatives are
gaining traction in select law firms — from legal project management, which places structured
frameworks of timelines, budgets, and reporting responsibilities around legal work, to legal
process mapping, which involves the step-by-step breakdown and efficiency analysis of the stages
involved in frequently undertaken tasks. It’s not enough for law firms to offer the best “product”
6
