Be it is any type of client service business; the torchbearers of the future will be the one who best response to the changing needs of clients. Clients have long been frustrated with the overheads of legal full service delivery and many have reacted by taking more burden in-house, complements by bringing separate lawyers in through ‘lawyer on demand’ providers. Their motto is efficiency. At the same time, they want an all-inclusive global service, easier and more digestible output; providers with deeper knowledge of their business, and procedures to which their in-house teams can actively contribute. We believe now is the time for change, is your law firm ready for this?
One of the foremost challenges for law firms in London will be ascertaining what the preferred global strategy is for their firm in order to meet the needs of global clients. Defining which geographic markets are worthy of new investment and which recognized markets should continue to be supported/invested in is a strategic priority for all. The full-service law firm of tomorrow will be more varied in terms of business model by bringing in offerings such as consulting, forensics, risk to support their overall offering. Innovative firms will think not only about making current offerings more efficient, but how technology can enable them to come up with new services that incorporate their expertise in a different way.
These law firms in London are required to embrace best in class technology into all of their legal processes, and will need to continuously invent as better software tools are produced. Work will still be led by people but they will be augmented by technology, including Artificial Intelligence. Data will also be playing a huge part in the successful law firms’ future. Firms will be able to take control over their shapeless data and this will enable them to develop an expressive understanding of their client’s businesses and their legal risks. Decisions and actions will not only be handled by experience, but by data too.
The new option of providing legal services will rely on a range of professionals, not only lawyers and so having multi-disciplinary teams will be key tomorrow. Law firms will need to come up with enticing career paths for these people in order to invite and retain them. Offering different career/work options so that it can recall access to the best talent while benefitting from a more flexible staffing model will also be necessary. Finally, the law firm of the future may not be a partnership of lawyers, but rather be a multi-disciplinary partnership, a public company or a financial investor-backed private company. The transformation needed to sustain in the new order will be expensive and firms will look to alternative sources of money to pay for it.
Clients will work with less law firms globally and relationships will be long-term and intensely entrenched. Clients will put firms through challenging procurement processes before selecting them for their global legal panels or for exclusive provider status for specific domains of legal service. Associations between law firms and clients for ‘business as usual’ law will look more like outsourcing contracts – designed to meet long-term needs. Law firms will have logical vision across the breadth of their clients’ activities which will make them more worthy to clients and spread relationships beyond the legal settings.
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