- Recent years have seen vast diversification within the legal sector, both in terms of the career choices available to practitioners, and the expectations of their clients.
- This trend looks set to increase as technological innovations continue to revolutionise the sector.
I began my legal career 25 years ago and, in many ways, I hardly recognise the legal sector of today. But then again, I now run a ‘new law’ business and don’t practise law anymore—so I might just be blinkered and work in an echo chamber! However, over my working life, I have witnessed an extraordinary diversification of the legal world, and in my view that can only be a positive thing as it has hugely increased the choices available to both lawyers and their clients.
Freedom of choice
Despite the difficulties of the last two years, it feels like we are living through an exciting time of opportunity for those wanting a legal career. Gone is the binary choice of solicitor or barrister; there are now many more options for how you practise—as a barrister in a (remote or not) chambers or on a direct access basis, as a freelance solicitor for a corporate law firm, or as a consultant solicitor with your own clients on a platform like nexa law (the so-called ‘dispersed’ or ‘new model’).
The traditional chambers, law firm or in-house route is looking increasingly old-fashioned to the next generation of lawyers, who place more value on the personal autonomy and democracy of alternative structures. People can choose where they work—basically anywhere with an internet connection—and when they work: full-time, part-time, on a project-by-project basis, or hybrid (part in, part out of the office).
This freedom is something we can all appreciate. The pandemic created many converts to homeworking from those who, without COVID, might otherwise have remained sceptical. There is an increasing acceptance that wellbeing and work-life balance really do matter. Now that the genie is out of the bottle, it seems unlikely that there will be a return to the rigid hours and culture of presenteeism that was so common in many traditional law firms (certainly in my day).
The flipside of these changes is the impact on clients. Diversification of the legal sector gives them more choice about how they access and buy their services. Of course, not every type of structure can deliver for every type of client—the needs of an individual are likely to be very different from a large corporate or start-up, so it’s important to help clients find the right match.
Just a few years ago, it would have been unusual not to meet your clients at the office at least once but, increasingly, clients are choosing to work entirely remotely with their advisers. Some of this is likely to be down to younger clients who have grown up with a virtual, online culture as the norm, but across all age groups, people now value the convenience of this sort of service model.
Legal advice now may not come direct from a legal firm at all; it may come packaged with other services such as accountancy, management consultancy or risk management, or it may be purchased entirely online and involve some DIY on the part of the client.
This broad choice is enabled by technology and, as for all service sectors, speed and convenience are very important—if the link on your web page is broken or your app doesn’t load up quickly enough, it’s likely your potential client will look somewhere else.
Tech revolution
Technological innovation is the key to further change in the legal market. Artificial intelligence has long been spoken about as a future change-maker and it’s easy to see why, as a number of tasks that make up the entire legal service can and should be done by tech and not by humans. I love legal tech and again I think we’re close to a tipping point. We will surely see tech adoption accelerate exponentially over the next five to ten years—I certainly hope so anyway. Certain process-driven areas of law like conveyancing and probate are surely ripe for disruption, because they are currently far too slow and too expensive.
The legal recruitment market is even more competitive than usual right now, so reducing reliance on solicitors and using technology to wade through documents and data may become a necessity rather than a choice in the future. The upside is that this will free up lawyers to do the really skilled work that they are trained for, and add real value by giving practical, business-focused advice to their clients.
There has already been a lot of change in the legal sector over the last 20 years, but I think the pace of that change will continue to accelerate. Some consolidation within tech, alternative structures/providers and traditional law firms is inevitable, but the availability of a diverse range of options for both lawyers and clients can only be a good thing for the industry and society as a whole.
Nigel Clark, CEO of new model law firm nexa law (www.nexa.law).
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