How Law Firms Should Respond to Disruption in the Legal Industry Today

Some interesting ideas on how law firms should respond to significant disruptions affecting the legal industry today:

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.