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From Times Online

October 19, 2007

Legal profession is on the brink of fundamental change

In the first of six draft excerpts from his forthcoming book, Richard Susskind lays down a challenge to all lawyers

Richard Susskind

The title and theme of this series might appear rather self-destructive. I am a lawyer myself (of sorts). Many of my close friends are lawyers. Most of my clients are major law firms. Socially and commercially, it might seem that I am shooting myself in both feet.

However, as the question mark in the title should at least hint, I write not to bury lawyers but to investigate their future. My aim is to explore the extent to which the role of the traditional lawyer can be sustained in coming years in the face of challenging trends in the legal marketplace and new techniques for the delivery of legal services.

This is neither a lawyer-bashing polemic nor a gratuitous assault on the legal profession. Instead, it is a collection of predictions and observations about a generally honourable profession that is, I argue, on the brink of fundamental transformation.

That said, I do admit, if I may give away the ending, that these articles will point to a future in which conventional legal advisers will be much less prominent in society than today and, in some walks of life, will have no visibility at all. This, I believe, is where we will be taken by two forces: by a market pull towards commoditisation and by pervasive development and uptake of information technology. Commoditisation and IT will shape and characterise 21st century legal service.

Against this backdrop, I should be honest about one issue from the outset. I do not believe lawyers are self-evidently entitled to profit from the law. As I have said before, the law is not there to provide a livelihood for lawyers any more than ill-health exists to offer a living for doctors. Successful legal business may be a bi-product of law in society, but it is not the purpose of law. And, just as numerous other industries and sectors are having to adapt to broader change, so too should lawyers.

This series calls for the growth and the development of a legal profession not by ring-fencing certain categories of work as the exclusive preserve of lawyers; nor by encouraging cartel-like activity which discourages all but lawyers from engaging. Rather, it calls for lawyers, their professional bodies, their policy-makers, and their clients, to think more creatively, imaginatively, and entrepreneurially about the way in which lawyers can and should contribute to our rapidly changing economy and society.

More specifically, the challenge I lay down here is for all lawyers to introspect, and to ask themselves, with their hands on their hearts, what elements of their current workload could be undertaken differently — more quickly, cheaply, efficiently, or to a higher quality — using alternative methods of working. In other words, the challenge for legal readers is to identify their distinctive skills and talents, the capabilities that they possess that cannot, crudely, be replaced by advanced systems or by less costly workers supported by technology or standard processes, or by lay people armed with online self-help tools.

I will argue that the market is increasingly unlikely to tolerate expensive lawyers for tasks (guiding, advising, drafting, researching, problem-solving and more) that can equally or better be discharged, directly or indirectly, by smart systems and processes. It follows that the jobs of many traditional lawyers will be substantially eroded and often eliminated. At the same time, I foresee new law jobs emerging which may be highly rewarding, even if very different from those of today.

While I hope this will be of interest to many general readers, I believe it is relevant for all lawyers, no matter how specialist or expert they perceive themselves to be. I am often amused and always bemused when, after a presentation to a group of lawyers, I am approached by a small number who purport to be in violent agreement with what I have said. Such lawyers will say that they accept a shake-up in the legal profession is long overdue and that my ideas about the transformation of legal services apply across the board, except for one vital area of legal practice — their own. There follows a stream of rationalisations, clarifying why their corner of the legal universe is and should be immune from change.

My scepticism here should be evident. No lawyers should feel exempt from assessing whether at least some of their current workload might be undertaken differently in years to come. And no lawyers should shirk from the challenge of identifying their distinctive capabilities.

Lawyers can learn from the corporate world in this context. At the peak of the dotcom era, Jack Welch, for 20 years the CEO of General Electric (GE), set up a group of teams to analyse whether the internet could do to businesses within GE what Amazon was achieving in bookselling. In the spirit of the times, they were called “destroyyourbusiness.com” teams. Before long, however, these were re-designated “growyourbusiness” teams. They had concluded that the internet offered more opportunities than threats and so they moved from being defensive to proactive in responding to the new technology.

And so it should be with lawyers. The challenge is not to assess how commoditisation and IT might threaten the current work of lawyers, so that the traditional ways can be protected and changed avoided. It is to find and embrace better, quicker, less costly, more convenient and publicly valued ways of working.

To return to the disconcerting message of this book for much of the legal profession: for those lawyers who cannot identify or develop the distinctive capabilities to which I refer, I certainly do predict their days are numbered. The market will determine that the legal world is over-resourced, it will increasingly drive out inefficiencies and unnecessary friction and, in so doing, we will indeed witness the end of outdated legal practice and the end of outdated lawyers.

Richard Susskind is Emeritus Professor of Law at Gresham College, IT adviser to the Lord Chief Justice and consultant to leading law firms. He was awarded an OBE in 2000. This is an extract from his forthcoming book, The End of Lawyers? Rethinking the Nature of Legal Services. For more information click here

The role of lawyers will change radically when law-makers and financial services executives start tailoring their products to the technological world. One or two successful applications of this and it will spread across the board. The major difficulty will be the age old conflict of property rights and the markets. If you accept your property rights being limited then standardization can flourish and many commercial transactions will ultimately be point and click affairs.

The downside will be that those with imperfect products will find the market harder to access and he specialist legal knowledge more expensive. Also, those who wish to innovate in their deal-making will find banks harder to bring on-side. Not only property rights but the effective freedom to innovate at the micro level will be eroded by the laws and the banks. While the transaction costs will be reduced, market flexibility and innovation could be damaged.

Raymond Smith, Dublin, Ireland

Richard, maybe the analogy to draw is with the role of a surgeon in health care. Although certain diagnosis may be done on line, and paramedics and others take on more responsbilty, ultimately there will still be a need for good surgeons (albeit with the help of improved technology - allowing for greater efficiency). I believe that in an increasingly complex and international business environment the demand for creative and commercial lawyers will increase rather than decrease.

I can see that certain commoditised work will become more automated, and thus less remunerative for those law firms who have not adapted in response, but this may hurt the "mega firms" who are more dependent on volume business more than others.

Maybe I am deluding myself, but I cannot think of one deal I have worked in recent years that could have been reduced to a standardised computer programme, and with a few exceptions even documentation has been too "bespoke" to be readily standardised.

Jamie Logie, London, England

I'll tell you a definite growth business for lawyers....cleanup work for all those clients who try to do it themselves. They always end up back at the law office but with a much bigger mess to cleanup and bigger fees to pay..... As for untrained staff doing specialized legal work.... not on my malpractice liability. I'll do it myself, thanks by supervising specially trained staff. The code of ethics we practice under holds us accountable, not our staff and not someone we outsourced to in the interest of saving money....There is a way for clients to save and that is to have legal work done right the first time.

RP, phoenix, az

I began my practice in 1961 and was a business lawyer until I retired in 2004. We've seen enormous change since I started. In 1961 each lawyer had his (there were almost no women in the profession at the time) own secretary. There were no copy machines, word processors, overnight delivery services, Internet or e-mail. Subsequent new technologies have enabled fewer people to deliver a better product faster. But I don't think it has or will eliminate the need for human involvement in the process. The provision of services by third parties for a fee will remain. It's a quibble whether they are called lawyers or something else. It's hard to understand how the need for experienced, dispassionate advice and the need to provide an interface to negotiate differences between parties will be satisfied by automation. That is the view of a business lawyer, at least. Lawyers in other specialties can supply their own take.

Andrew Nichols, Boston, Massachusetts

Sorry Richard, but I think you are wrong. Like you, I have been delivering that sermon about the end of the billable hour and drastic, market-driven changes in the legal profession for more than fifteen years. I believed it then and now, as an ex-lawyer turned businessman, I can still work up those juices.

But you know what I have seen over those years. Billable hours went up 5 fold and there is more traditional legal work than ever. Our society has gotten more complex by the hour which is the lifeblood of the legal profession. Internationalization didn't bring simplicity; rather the reverse. The result is the rise of mega international law firms, most based on your side of the pond. Their salaries have gone up to unbelievable levels doing just the stuff we predicted would fade. Some things will be automated but we are a long way from the necessary simplicity that will really bring change about. You need world government for that. Don't hold your breath.

John Tredennick, Denver, Colorado, USA

Richard, I would be interested in hearing about specific existing and emerging technologies that you believe have the potential to transform aspects of the practice of law. Will you discuss these in upcoming chapters? If not, can you recommend other sources?

Karen Sewell, Chicago, Illinois

I basically agree with Richard's view of the overdue future, but appreciate there are a variety of reasons for resistance to change. Lawyers and other professional advisors however should not completely despair - there will always I think be e.g. assurance value in matters of judgement from an expert practitioner putting their (and their firm's) name and reputation on the line. Part of the point is supposed to be freeing advisors to spend more time on value-added work, is it not?

It is however difficult for someone in my position (as a client and interested observer) to assess where the line between "personalisation" and "codification" is drawn. On the basis of what I have (or rather haven't) seen in practice, I suspect that no one has yet really pushed the limits of current technology, let alone tested the boundary of imagination for the future. A little surprising, more than half a decade on from the alleged eBusiness revolution.

RBHW, Birmingham,

Hi Richard

I definately agree with you that the power of IT would completely change the outlook of legal services. Being a law student from India, i am witnessing a boom in legal services in the form of Legal Outsourcing. Legal outsourcing has become a reality these days is because of Information Technology. What Indian lawyers do at one third the cost for a a US lawyer can one day be done by Automated machines, only time will tell when that day would come.

I would like to know your take on Legal Outsourcing

Ashwin Madhavan, New Delhi, India

My wise father said to me as a little girl that ANY innovation or advance in human endeavor that is simply imagined by us, will one day become a reality. Information technology will continue to change the way we live and work...it is an inevitability. Adaptation is the key to survival. Well done for opening this debate Richard, for it is with vision and foresight that we can maximize our full potential in the future.

Pari Shams, London, United Kingdom

I think today, we are all sophisticated and will do our own research, we could handle our own cases, probably better than a lawyer as we would be subjective. Compared to a lawyer and the astonishing legal bills do it yourself will get more and more attractive.
We also question more today and do not accept things without a second opinion.

AJ, suffok, uk

Richard Hi

Having spent the last 10 years of my life in document automation what you are saying is close to my heart and correct for low-medium end work which can be turned into a commodity particularly where the output is a document.

How the â€œdetailed advice/draftingâ€ can be applied by technology alone in highly complex situations (no human interaction)I donâ€™t quite understand.

For example I have been working all day today on highly detailed revisions to a 60 page agreement to create an on-line client document drafting service for a large law firm. How do you suggest that the revisions proposed by the law firm are reviewed by a computer and changes accepted, deleted or revised?

This would require intimate knowledge which is in the heads of the (human) parties.

I know that you believe that the power of computing will be huge in the future but do you really see them being to carry out these sorts of functions?

If you do how would that actually work?

Richard Cohen, London, UK

Thanks Richard

Timing is all. In 1975 high street lawyers did all of the employment dispute resolution work that businesses did not do for themselves. By 2005 a market of over Â£300m worth of 76 suppliers had almost entirely replaced them - leaving only top level contentious work for a few specialists. Gone in one generation - and this is not even a market powered by technology.

Thankfully I hear the sound of pennies dropping daily now among lawyers - but they are hampered by their partnership structure, investment individualism and an innate tendedncy to over-engineer. There is no real sense of urgency here, and there needs to be. Clients are running away to fixed fee services - technology and commoditisation are just the chariots that carry them away faster.

David R Johnston, Hinton, Northants

I am a niche practitioner in employment law. The areas of work that can be easily commoditised are:

Drafting workplace documentation
Production of some aspects of Tribunal work like document bundles.

Where we are thriving is in adding value to the management of employers (and employees) workplace problems.

We can demonstrate that what we cost is less than what we save the employer (or gain for the employee.)Unless solicitors can demonstrate value add then why should a client pay for something that can be done cheaper and to the same standard elsewhere?

I can't see a future for practitioners doing work like conveyancing/probate work unless the lawyer can demonstrate value add. These tasks are ripe for commoditisation.

philip hyland , stamford,