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Leaders in Legal Business
customers, who are themselves members of the ecosystem … [along with] suppliers, lead producers, competitors,
and other stakeholders.”
In this market, the customers are lawyers and law firms. So who are the members of the “community” —
the suppliers of value in the modern legal ecosystem? As the legal market generally and the legal profession in
particular undergo rapid and extensive change, what does the future hold for all these suppliers? Here are my
thoughts on six select members of the present legal support ecosystem, and what each must do to maintain and
increase its relevance and value to lawyers.
Publishers
The oldest supplier of services to law firms, legal publishers originally collected, edited, and packaged
legal authority (legislation, regulations, and case law) for lawyers’ reference. The “law book” is still one the
primordial symbols (and backdrop elements) of a lawyer’s office. There are limits, however, to the profitability
of organizing freely available information, especially now that not only primary knowledge sources, but also
secondary analyses and commentaries, are available in countless law firm newsletters and across the blogosphere
worldwide. Legal publishers are suffering the same experience that newspapers and record companies have
already gone through: the market revelation that their stock in trade is widely available and easily reproduced, and
therefore fundamentally susceptible to commoditization.
Some publishers have already begun to abandon their longtime calling and started becoming online law
practice management support platforms, but that’s no easier a road, especially given these companies’ massive
overhead costs in an area already dominated by nimble, low-cost, Net-native providers. More importantly,
however, there’s still a real need for curated legal knowledge in this profession. Whereas legal publishing used to
be mass-produced, in the future it will be customized to each specific legal service provider, like personalized
medicine. Designing, delivering, and constantly adjusting high-quality custom legal information is a service line
waiting to be filled by an outside provider. Legal publishers are still best placed to do it.
Strategic Consultants
Lawyers will not hesitate to tell you that they did not go to law school to become businesspeople; the
haphazard development and amateurish business practices of many traditional law firms testify to the truth of that.
Strategic consulting flourished in the past few decades along with many firms’ burgeoning awareness that they
needed directional guidance and tactical advice to maximize their productivity and profitability, in everything
from internal infrastructure and compensation systems to external business development and merger
considerations. The professionalization of law firm management in that time is due in no small part to the
leadership of the strategic consulting community.
With the increasing professionalization of law firms in recent years, however, a growing amount of
traditional strategic and tactical consulting capacity has been brought in-house. Accordingly, strategic consulting
in future is likely to develop in two general directions: growth (including standalone sales functions, leadership
training, and new product development) and operations (including project management, pricing, and profitability
assessments). Lawyers and law firms will still require big-picture perspectives and authoritative analyses of their
businesses against market leaders, and this is as likely a value proposition as any for tomorrow’s strategic
consultants.
Law Firm Networks
Individual lawyers have long had entities like the American Bar Association to help organize, connect,
and inform them, but not until the arrival of Lex Mundi and its many descendants did law firms have access to the
same services. Founded in the days before easy international travel and even easier online connections, such
networks offered overseas connections, business-building opportunities, and global perspectives unavailable to
3
customers, who are themselves members of the ecosystem … [along with] suppliers, lead producers, competitors,
and other stakeholders.”
In this market, the customers are lawyers and law firms. So who are the members of the “community” —
the suppliers of value in the modern legal ecosystem? As the legal market generally and the legal profession in
particular undergo rapid and extensive change, what does the future hold for all these suppliers? Here are my
thoughts on six select members of the present legal support ecosystem, and what each must do to maintain and
increase its relevance and value to lawyers.
Publishers
The oldest supplier of services to law firms, legal publishers originally collected, edited, and packaged
legal authority (legislation, regulations, and case law) for lawyers’ reference. The “law book” is still one the
primordial symbols (and backdrop elements) of a lawyer’s office. There are limits, however, to the profitability
of organizing freely available information, especially now that not only primary knowledge sources, but also
secondary analyses and commentaries, are available in countless law firm newsletters and across the blogosphere
worldwide. Legal publishers are suffering the same experience that newspapers and record companies have
already gone through: the market revelation that their stock in trade is widely available and easily reproduced, and
therefore fundamentally susceptible to commoditization.
Some publishers have already begun to abandon their longtime calling and started becoming online law
practice management support platforms, but that’s no easier a road, especially given these companies’ massive
overhead costs in an area already dominated by nimble, low-cost, Net-native providers. More importantly,
however, there’s still a real need for curated legal knowledge in this profession. Whereas legal publishing used to
be mass-produced, in the future it will be customized to each specific legal service provider, like personalized
medicine. Designing, delivering, and constantly adjusting high-quality custom legal information is a service line
waiting to be filled by an outside provider. Legal publishers are still best placed to do it.
Strategic Consultants
Lawyers will not hesitate to tell you that they did not go to law school to become businesspeople; the
haphazard development and amateurish business practices of many traditional law firms testify to the truth of that.
Strategic consulting flourished in the past few decades along with many firms’ burgeoning awareness that they
needed directional guidance and tactical advice to maximize their productivity and profitability, in everything
from internal infrastructure and compensation systems to external business development and merger
considerations. The professionalization of law firm management in that time is due in no small part to the
leadership of the strategic consulting community.
With the increasing professionalization of law firms in recent years, however, a growing amount of
traditional strategic and tactical consulting capacity has been brought in-house. Accordingly, strategic consulting
in future is likely to develop in two general directions: growth (including standalone sales functions, leadership
training, and new product development) and operations (including project management, pricing, and profitability
assessments). Lawyers and law firms will still require big-picture perspectives and authoritative analyses of their
businesses against market leaders, and this is as likely a value proposition as any for tomorrow’s strategic
consultants.
Law Firm Networks
Individual lawyers have long had entities like the American Bar Association to help organize, connect,
and inform them, but not until the arrival of Lex Mundi and its many descendants did law firms have access to the
same services. Founded in the days before easy international travel and even easier online connections, such
networks offered overseas connections, business-building opportunities, and global perspectives unavailable to
3
