However, despite the current financial situation, surely the premise that clients hire based on who they know, like and trust has not been completely abandoned. Of course there are those who will hire purely on cost, but those are rarely great clients anyway.

As a large firm with institutional clients, I would be concerned about the loss of relationship building with future decision makers if junior lawyers are overly commoditized. From my big law days, I recall the really successful associates were the ones who formed relationships with the more junior decision makers at the client. Both the associate and the junior decision maker would grow together and the relationship between the firm and the institution would continue into the next generation. If the junior decision maker moved, that was just another opportunity for the associate to form a relationship with the junior decision maker’s new company.

Presumably if you are an independant contractor, you may make that relationship but there is no guarantee that you will use it to benefit a particular law firm.

I think the key is what you have been talking about for a while. Firms have to change how they bill. Paying $250 per hour to have a 1st year lawyer fill in some basic corporate filing is just annoying and makes the client feel stupid. Paying an annual “membership fee” to have all your corporate records carefully maintained and reviewed by a reputable law firm makes the client feel like they are taking care of their business. There is even more value added when the firm agrees to provide a certain number of “free advice” calls for the cost of the membership.

The smart big firms, I think, will continue to build relationships between people. It’s what they sell and how they sell it that has to evolve.

These shifts can be very painful, and there is a risk over quality. But the reality is that much of the work carried out by highly qualified (and paid) specialists could be done be much less expensive methods.

Ian

Speaking from an outsider’s perspective (from the management consultancy industry) – the “fundamental changes” – such as abandoning lockstep compensation – seem like tiny tweaks to be frank.

Surely a fundamental change would be an examination of whether legally qualified staff (who are inevitably going to be relatively well rewarded under any scheme because of their huge investment in education and training and the fact they are selected from the upper echelons of the education system).

In the consulting industry, more fundamental shifts have happened through the shifting of work to para-professionals, offshore, and to clients themselves. All made easier and faster in consulting by the lack of necessity of formal qualifications and accreditation. But surely inevitable in law also over time.

Ian