This is a follow up from an initial blog (Dawning of a new era) but relates to a similar theme as a recent visit to my old home town brought back memories that cemented my thoughts on the changes taking place in the legal profession.

1. Andrew Weaver
CEO at www.lawyerfair.co.uk
The legal procurement & comparison
service for business owners

2. Commercial Expectations about legal lawyer
services and competition among lawyers
This is a follow up from an initial blog (Dawning of a new era) but
relates to a similar theme as a recent visit to my old home town
brought back memories that cemented my thoughts on the changes
taking place in the legal profession.

3. Short story
Let me take you back. I was brought up in a small cornish town and I
can tell you, not a day goes by when I don’t think about eating a
pasty.
But of more relevance to this article is that in my small town there
were 3 pillars of authority, respectability and awe: the policeman,
the doctor and the lawyer.
Well, the policeman soon eloped with the doctor, leaving our
parents a full 2/3rds short of the community role models they
needed to keep us in line, but the lawyer remained in place.
Memories of father’s lawyer Office
Memories of my father’s trips to the lawyer’s office remain vivid and
it ticked all the traditional boxes you might hope for;
 Dusty and forbidding premises (designed in alignment with
town’s banking ghetto)
 Wood panelled office festooned with cartoons of corpulent
golfers
 Fearsome gatekeeper and her barely touched but rapidly
fading cigarette
 Deep pin stripes of his suit, with more than a hint of ‘eau du
stout’
It created within me a sense of deep trepidation and that legacy
lived on as I spent years doffing my hat in grateful deference to the
legal profession.
It must be why I accepted many of their working practices, the open
ended hourly rates, failed deadlines, endless chasing for updates and

4. a general lack of transparency and clarity about their abilities (or
failings).
Gradually I became less awestruck and more baffled by the legal
professions approach to commercial realities and their inertia to
change. We’re deep into 2013 and my man from small town
cornwall still exists in many corners of the UK.
For example, where in the commercial world is an open ended hourly
rate still acceptable? I once paid someone by the hour to sort out my
garden and ended up with the most expensive gravel path in West
London.
Most requests for legal advice are relatively standard and likely to
have been handled many times by said lawyer or firm. They should
be able to form a quick view on likely cost and complications and
provide a fixed fee. Yet there is often resistance and concern on the
basis that ….”every instruction is different”.
And so, the traditionalists suck their teeth at change and stick to
their own agenda and meter. In their eyes, the legal world is and
should remain supply led.
But the market is beginning to see who they are.
Commercial Expectations about legal
lawyer services
Commercial expectations have changed and the world is spinning
faster. The legal services space is shifting from supply led to demand
led and with that, so too is the balance of power between user and
supplier.
This shouldn’t be a threat to good lawyers. It should be grabbed
with both hands. This is an era of great opportunity where the

5. platform of raised expectations, transparency and access enable the
best lawyers to provide clear evidence of market value and
expertise.
Competition among lawyers
Competition is not all about cut price law, it’s about a shift in the
balance of power and with that an alignment of process and practice
that works for the user. It’s about creating a more efficient process
that clips costs, outsources non-critical functions, streamlines
delivery and drives forward value added services.
The lawyer that delivers expertise in a form and at a cost that works
for the modern user of legal services, will thrive.
I’m no longer in awe of law but I am in awe of great lawyers.
The market will find out who they are.