1. 16 pm | June 2016
management focus
I
n studying the changes rolling across
the global legal services market, it has
become clear to me that we are at the
beginning of what I call, The Great
Legal Reformation. A time when a
growing number of people are ques-
tioning the manner in which legal serv-
ices are delivered. The so-called, “more
for less” challenge continues to put pres-
sure on law firm pricing and has provided
fertile ground for the growth of alterna-
tive service providers (Lawyers on
Demand, Obelisk and Axiom, to name
just a few) who have normalised nomadic
lawyering for clients, and for the lawyers
who are flocking to them. While in the
background looms an often-ignored
element that has the potential to deal the
legal profession a mortal blow – the
relentless march of technology. We now
live in a world where Artificial
Intelligence is already better than
humans at legal document review (see
Kira Systems), chess (see Big Blue), Go
(AlphaGo) and legal research (ROSS). So
if AI can already begin to chip away at
work traditionally done by many associ-
ates at medium and large law firms –
what does 2020 or 2025 hold in store? If
AI is combined with document assembly
and knowledge management, is it really
hard to imagine that by 2025, a law firm
of 50 solicitors will be able to do the same
work that currently takes 200? Will
lawyer-less growth replace the current
Mitchell Kowalski believes we are seeing
the end of legal practice as we know it.
Surviving the
reformation
associate-to-partner churn? Will there be
a need for the huge waves of law students
graduating every year?
However, long before any legal tech
doomsday scenario even begins, we’re
already seeing fallout from the early days
of The Great Legal Reformation: partners
no longer have permanent tenure, associ-
ates have little chance of becoming part-
ners, and contract lawyers and paralegals
are rapidly replacing full-time lawyers.
And if that weren’t enough, firms aren’t
quite sure what to do with millennial
lawyers who have different attitudes,
motivations and expectations about
work; few are motivated by the lure of
partnership 10 or 15 years (or more!)
down the line, or by buckets of money.
If one looks critically at all of the
above, it’s hard to conclude that these
challenges are simply part of a cycle of
hard times that firms will have to weather
before sunny days reappear. The Great
Legal Reformation represents structural
change in the legal services industry and
so the challenges currently faced by law
firms never go away. They amplify.
So, law firms that wish to remain rele-
vant in 2025 and beyond, must create a
new legal service delivery strategy. A
strategy that goes beyond ‘being the best
lawyers’, and creates real, sustainable
competitive advantage. A strategy that
allows the firm to provide the same legal
services as its competitors, but in a
Would the absence of
your firm make your
clients’ worlds
gloomy? Would it
make them
irrevocably hurt and
upset?
This article originally
appeared in PM magazine.
For further details go to
www.pmforum.co.uk

2. pm | June 2016 17
management focus
completely different way.
This quest for sustainable differentia-
tion has great synergy with law firm
marketing and branding. Some time ago I
watched a documentary on the early days
of advertising and the words of one now
forgotten commentator have stayed with
me ever since: “Your goal is to be the
product that if it disappears, your
customer’s world will become gloomy.
The absence of your product will irrevo-
cably hurt and upset your customer.”
How many law firms can honestly make
that claim today? Ask yourself, would the
absence of your firm make your clients’
worlds gloomy? Would it make them
irrevocably hurt and upset? Or would
your clients simply shrug their shoulders,
lament the loss of another great firm,
then simply transfer their work some-
where else? Put bluntly, law firms should
be seeking competitive advantage that
will make a client’s world very gloomy if
the firm is taken from it; making it much
easier for clients to choose, and for
marketing personnel to sell, a law firm
that is truly different from its competi-
tors.
My research has shown that the best
way for most firms to create sustainable
competitive advantage is to shift the
firm’s service offerings away from one-
dimensional, legally-skilled persons and
toward a holistic or team-based approach
to legal service delivery. Airlines provide
a useful analogy to this approach. Highly-
skilled pilots are vital to operating an
airline, but a traveller’s experience also
depends upon the skills of a number of
people who don’t know how to fly a
plane; those involved with
ticketing/check-in/boarding process,
management, inflight service and
baggage handling, among others.
Likewise successful law firms of 2025
and beyond, will formulate the right mix
of technology, people and process to
create a unique client experience that will
clearly differentiate them from the
competition. Most law firms grossly
underutilise their non-legally trained
members. In too many cases they are
looked down upon and treated with disre-
spect because they’re not fee-earners. Yet
this diverse and creative group of team
members are often times in the best posi-
tion to liaise directly with clients to
understand service pain points and create
solutions for them. American law firm,
Seyfarth Shaw is just one example of a
firm slowly transitioning to a more team-
based approach to legal service delivery,
by recruiting scores of non-law graduates
like process managers, as well as software
engineers and developers who push out
code every week. It’s not unusual for non-
legally trained personnel to take a very
active role in client pitches as Seyfarth
continues to win new files based on its
unique service delivery experience. In
Mitchell Kowalski is a lawyer
and the principal consultant
at Cross Pollen Advisory. His
new book The Great Legal
Reformation: Notes from the
Field is published later this
year. Follow him on Twitter
@mekowalski or visit
www.kowalski.ca.
fact, several Seyfarth clients have stated
that, but for the unique mix of people,
process and technology, they would have
gone elsewhere. As one Seyfarth partner
told me, “They already know we provide
quality legal services”. However, these
clients chose the firm because of what
else Seyfarth brought to the table that
their competitors could not.
A unique client experience not only
attracts and retains clients, (as their
worlds will otherwise be gloomy) it does
the same for lawyers. This is not to say
that compensation is unimportant to
attracting legal talent, but many lawyers
are attracted by new platforms that
augment their expertise and set them
apart from their competitors. A unique
platform also makes a lawyer’s practice
less portable since she (and her clients)
will be loath to move back to a traditional
firm (where life will be gloomy); a result
that should bring a smile to the face of
many managing partners. A team-based
approach should also create new career
opportunities within the firm itself; team
leader, analytics manager or process
engineer can be very attractive career
paths for millennials and others for
whom ‘partner’ has become a dirty word.
And as word of an exciting new approach
to legal service delivery spreads to the
outside world, the firm’s pool of non-law
candidates will become broader and
deeper. People with a wide range of
terrific experience from industries, such
as banking, finance, insurance, or even
telecommunications, and who previously
would never have thought of working at a
law firm, will now bring invaluable expe-
rience and insight to the law firm envi-
ronment. And one can only imagine what
it would be like to be on the marketing
team for such a firm; to be given greater
reign to contribute as fully as possible to
the overall good of the firm.
The old way of delivering legal serv-
ices within the traditional hierarchy of
lawyer/non-lawyer may have been suffi-
cient to serve clients in an era devoid of
disruption and innovation. But as The
Great Legal Reformation rolls on, this
hierarchy will continue to erode causing
the end of the practice of law as we know
it – and that may be a very good thing.