Changing face of the legal market
16th Sep 2008
BHP Director of Marketing looks to the future of legal services.
Law firms across the region are preparing for sweeping changes to the legal sector in England in the next few years. Bryan Hoare, Director of Marketing at BHP Law, assesses what the impact might be.
HOW comfortable would you be selling your house at a supermarket or picking up a divorce as you do your weekly shop?
It might sound extreme, but whole scale change in the legal sector could potentially see a range of services traditionally offered by law firms being offered by retailers and other non-legal providers.
In 2011 the government is opening up the sector following recommendations by Sir David Clementi for regulatory reforms to allow alternative business structures to be established to provide legal and other related advice.
As a sign of what might be to come, it’s worth noting that Sir David also advised the Conservative government on British telecommunications and electricity privatisation.
He points to five areas that could be provided by non-qualified lawyers, including claims management, employment law representation and drafting of wills.
In a free market barriers break down. Innovation is rewarded. Thriving in this competitive new world will require a different approach.
The merits of the changes include greater choice for clients and fresh opportunities both for non-legal organisations and law firms that are forward-thinking and innovative.
Multi-disciplinary practices, such as BHP Law are at the forefront of these developments, so clients have a wider choice of services, some of which are not necessarily directly related to law. BHP, for example, has a sports management division, led by former Darlington FC manager and qualified Football Association agent David Hodgson, one of the biggest in-house town and country planning departments in the region in BHP Develop, an estate agency in BHP Home and independent financial advice through BHP Financial - none of these are services that would ordinarily be associated with a law firm.
There is no doubt that we will see increased competition as more providers vie for the same business. Law firms will have to be entrepreneurial and be flexible if they wish to maximise the opportunity to offer other professional services.
The most obvious impact could be on the high street, maybe not in the immediate future but longer term. The traditional law firm as we have come to know it could all but disappear as clients become used to accessing legal services from new, perhaps unconventional, providers leaving smaller practices unable to compete. Or they could take the opposite view and shed services to specialise in one or two areas.
The personal injury market is an example of where specialist firms have all but taken over from ‘traditional’ lawyers since advertising restrictions were lifted. The explosion in this area led to concerns, especially over the introduction fees being paid to claims management companies.
Meanwhile, consolidation in the market is inevitable as smaller, family practices merge or are taken over by bigger law firms and our towns and cities become dominated by a handful of legal giants.
There will be those clients, of course, who will continue to meet their longstanding family solicitor face to face to discuss their personal business. But many others, especially younger people who have not known this tradition, may not think twice about buying their will from a newsagent and putting their house up for sale as they fill their supermarket trolley.
The greatest impact, however, is likely to be the continuing influence of the internet. Businesses and individuals already seek legal advice online, and this is only set to grow from 2011. There has also been huge growth in legal advice telephone lines.
Naturally, there is concern about how these organisations will be regulated to ensure the public are protected.
But it won’t just be new providers of legal services that spring up online. The more innovative law firms have for some time made greater use of the internet to meet clients’ needs.
It’s why at BHP Law, for example, we are placing increasing importance on internet and web marketing as part of our overall strategic marketing activity. Qualified lawyers and legal advisers in England have earned the public’s respect for their knowledge and personal service provided to clients over many years.
Now, more than ever, they also need to be business people whose legal expertise is matched by their commercial awareness.
Author: Bryan Hoare, Director of Marketing (BryanH@bhplaw.co.uk)
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