I'm in the Spotlight

Friend and colleague JoAnna Forshee interviewed me for InsideLegal's "Legal Innovators Spotlight" a few weeks ago.  The interview is up here, and is mostly about LexThink and the services I offer the legal industry.

However, there's one question (along with my answer) that I wanted to share here:

What do you see as the biggest challenge facing the legal industry now and in the upcoming year?

Most lawyers are focused on returning their practices to profitability -- which is a near term problem for many of us.  However, I think a far greater challenge is looming in the distance, and that is irrelevance. 

For far too long, lawyers have taken their clients and customers for granted.  Quietly, real alternatives are emerging that are making lawyers less necessary to clients.  In just the last five years, we’ve seen more and more consumers turn first to the web as they draft their will, start their LLC, etc.  This is a trend that will only continue, and lawyers must begin thinking about a day when the least valuable thing they have to offer their clients is advice.

I'd love your feedback here.

Comments

[George Wilkinson]

True this side of the Atlantic as well: although lawyers here have also to come to terms with the impact of the Legal Services Act. The challenge is that near term problems are always the ones that lawyers will deal with (after all that is what most of us are trained to do): it is when we get into the realm of strategy and "vision" that we seem to get lost!

[Matthew Homann]

It isn't just about "forms" any longer. Consumers can go online and learn about their legal issues (in language far clearer than most attorneys use) and then answer a series of questions that will ultimately generate -- and in some cases file -- high quality legal documents.

The online experience is often better, cheaper and more satisfying than using a lawyer. And this is only the beginning.

That's what I meant by "irrelevance." Lawyers will never be irrelevant to everyone, but they are becoming so for more and more of the general public.

[twitter.com/VBalasubramani]

Jay's comment is a good one. People talk a lot about portions of the legal function being outsourced. Areas of law where consumer self-help replaces work previously done by lawyers. "Less and less work is being done by lawyers" we hear and "more of it by other specialists."

I welcome this as a lawyer. It allows me to (often) not deal with things that I don't enjoy anyway, and focus on things like advice and advocacy. In this vein, I'm more than happy to out-source work to the client.

Client has someone who is infringing content. I give them the lay of the land, tell them to send a take-down notice, and depending on what happens, get in touch. If they are open to it, I just point them in the direction of the notice, give the instructions on how to fill it out, and offer to look it over. Client has the tools to be able to deal with the problem preliminarily. If it becomes an issue that needs to be escalated, I'm happy to help.

There's a separate issue of people overall using lawyers less and less. I think this sort of ebbs and flows, and is driven by a variety of factors. There's always room for good advocates/counselors who solve problems for clients!

[Ted A Waggoner]

I agree with Jay and think the problem has been that many lawyers have confused forms and the output of form books with what our clients most want from us - honest and helpful advice.

Maybe our efforts as young lawyers to get too deep too fast leads us to count on forms instead of experience. Probably having no experience at 24 when I was a new lawyer, the forms were the best advice I could offer.

Continued study, reading and getting involved in business made my obtaining the needed experience a slow but sure process.

Advice is so rare it has great value.

[Joshua Kubicki]

I would argue that it is actually a combination of both what of Matt and Jay argue. That is that the some advice will certainly become less costly (valuable) but that there will always be a need for other types of advice.

The advice Matt points to I would argue is really basic advice that though valuable will become prolific and free. This advice will be unbound and thus the law itself - often relegated to only those that can afford it or know where to turn - will become far more accessible. This I would state is a good thing. How many folks does one person know that could be aided by some type of basic legal advice? Quick questions, get pointed in the right direction, definitions of certain instruments or phrases, etc. This may all become relatively free and immediately accessible.

Jay argues for bespoke advice - and this will always be the domain of lawyers and the practice.

Think of it this way. Some folks use TurboTax and others use accountants. We had accountant before TurboTax and we still have them (and they are still doing what they did before). TurboTax just allowed a greater population to file with some help that hiring an accountant for would have been prohibitive and unnecessary.

[Susan Cartier Liebel, Esq.]

Matt, I happen to agree with the above commenter, Jay. When we realize what we have to market of real value is the 'knowledge' and not the forms, the relationship of advisor and not templates, the ideas, not necessarily the execution of those ideas, that's when we will be able to truly compete with the web and these highly disclaimed, 'we're not giving legal advice' sites. I can give someone a fully equipped car, but if they don't know how to drive, can't maneuver around obstacles, they are going to crash and most certainly not get to their destination with any confidence.

[Jay Parkhill]

I think it is the opposite. The least valuable thing lawyers can offer is their forms; the advice that gets to the right forms is where lawyers add value.

I routinely talk to clients about whether to form a new corporation or LLC. Many of them opt to have me do the work. Others want to do it themselves online, and to those I say "No problem. Make sure to ask the filing service about X, Y and Z, be sure you send me copies of the documents and let's talk again when you have that part complete and you need to allocate founder equity, develop a customer agreement, etc."

I also spend a bunch of time fixing things that people did themselves and didn't get quite right. Again here, the advice and planning are the principal value; sometimes I execute the plan as well and sometimes clients can do it elsewhere as well for lower cost.