Category: Sales

Law is a Buyers’ Market

Another great interview by Jacky Wetzels of salesmoves, this time with Jordan Furlong on his new book “Law is a Buyers’ Market”. The interview covers some of the main topics contained in Jordan’s book, including:

  • Future of Law Business
  • Law Leadership
  • Future Proof Law Business Skills
  • 3 Steps for Successful Change

Jordan outlines his thoughts on the dramatic changes coming to the legal industry. One of the main themes of the book is that law firms will look very different in 10 or 15 years than they do today. Law firms will consist of many more “non-lawyers”, including “legal process engineers” and consultants of various types. I can see more multi-disciplinary oriented firms as well in the future.

In the future, law firms will be much more client-focused and fixed fee billing will encompass 50% of total legal industry billings. Successful lawyers will receive more business skills training and will understand their clients’ businesses thoroughly. There will be a much more clearly defined division of labour where every member of the firm will fulfill a specialized role. Law firm leaders will run their firms like a business and will spend the majority of their time on management, not legal work.

See the full interview here.

 

 

 

The Inevitable Future of Law

I recently had the pleasure of being interviewed on “The Inevitable Future of Law” by Jacky Wetzels of salesmoves, a legal marketing consulting firm based in Amsterdam. The resulting article covers the gamut of how law firms arrived at where they are today and the inevitable comparisons to global multidisciplinary firms and the Big 4 accounting firms. Dedicated sales departments and sales training are also discussed as becoming more important for law firms to compete in today’s rapidly changing legal industry.

Dentons launches Uber for Law Firms

Dentons surprised many this past week with the introduction of a free global referral network for law firms. I was interviewed for this article on Dentons’ latest move in the May 16, 2016 issue of Law Times. Here are some of my  comments quoted in the article:

“You have freelancers on the net and now you have law firms available very quickly on the net through this type of network,” Cameron says. “It could speed up and make more available choices for clients. It could certainly disrupt the industry, giving access to more firms.”

Cameron says the new network could be particularly beneficial for smaller mid-level firms that could not afford to pay membership fees for a similar network. These smaller firms could potentially have access to a large global network, which will give them work they were not able to obtain before, Cameron says. It may also give the smaller firms a better chance to retain their own clients, as they would be able to refer them to a firm with higher levels of expertise in another country or specialty, he says.

“There are certainly more potential benefits for small mid-sized firms that may not have been involved in a network before because of the cost,” Cameron says.

While Cameron says the network has the potential to be a “game changer,” he has concerns about how Dentons will be able to vet what is expected to be a vast network of members for quality.

“You start to wonder how they can enforce the standards,” Cameron says. “Do you really know who you’re dealing with and how are they going to control that?”

Cameron also questions where the bar will be set to vet quality standards for such an extensive and vast network.”

Notwithstanding my concerns above, I think Dentons has made a very forward-thinking move here and I expect they will do well in this new venture. It will certainly disrupt the way that law firm referrals are handled in the future.