The unbundling of traditional legal offerings -- which is an emerging trend central to Richard Susskind's recent book The End of Lawyers -- has been a hot topic in these parts lately.
The idea of different legal services becoming available in new venues and formats is one that we're seeing manifest itself in a number of ways from web-based companies offering legal forms, legal facts, entreprenuerial start-up guidance, copyright filing, and more.
And it's happening in both the U.S. and the U.K.
In fact, the U.K.'s Legal Services Act 2007 is a national initiative providing a legislative framework to actually reform the way legal services in England and Wales are regulated and delivered.
The Act specifically allows legal services "to be provided under new business structures" with a stated goal of promoting "competition and innovation".
The BBC recently reported on this, highlighting that "future providers, including large retail brands, could seek a license to offer legal services."
The article includes opposing views, including an attorney who says the move "demonstrates utter contempt for the consumer of legal services. The solicitor profession faces being all but wiped out by a government seemingly intent on robbing the public of access to good quality, local legal advice."
Ah, but here is something to keep in mind: As we talk about the fragmenting of legal offerings, it's important to be consistent in distinguishing between legal information and legal advice.
In fact, it could be argued that the BBC's reporting fails to do this. Or, at the least, it allows for the interchanging of the terms.
The American Bar Association distinguishes between legal information and legal advice. Legal information is general, non case specific, and can be provided by anyone. Legal advice, on the other hand, is "provided by a trained lawyer who uses his or her knowledge of the law to tell you how the law applies to your specific circumstances."
When listening to all the voices on both sides of the conversation, it's important to keep the distinction in mind and remember that legal advice isn't going anywhere.
Legal experience, insight, and strategy aimed at an outcome will always be in demand. What is evolving, and will continue to evolve, is how the more rudimentary and "commoditizable" aspects of the law will be unbundled and delivered.
Showing posts with label Legalzoom. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Legalzoom. Show all posts
Saturday, June 06, 2009
Thursday, April 16, 2009
The Commoditization of Legal Services
Every now and then an idea or meme seems to catch fire and become ubiquitous in a very short time. In the past couple weeks, discussions and examples of the growing commoditization of legal services has come from a number of fronts.
Marketing pushes from consumer-targeted, off-the-shelf legal forms companies like LegalZoom, LawDepot, and USLegalForms are examples of legal products replacing services. Similarly, companies targeting the small business market, like Direct Incorporation and Business in a Box, are attempting to carve out their own niches.
One interesting element of the trend is the actual language being used to describe it. Language that Robert J. Ambrogi nails in a recent post at Legal Blog Watch.
"Legal services are evolving from a highly bespoke, highly customized product toward becoming a commodity. As part of this evolution, legal work will be unbundled into its constituent tasks and many of those tasks will be standardized and systematized."
From the perspective of an LPO (which provides actual services, rather than off-the-shelf products), the key word in that passage is "unbundled". Because the value in legal process outsourcing is identifying which legal tasks can be efficiently unbundled and outsourced for significantly lower costs.
This idea of unbundling is also prominent in Richard Suskinds new book, "The End of Lawyers? Rethinking the Nature of Legal Services". This description from Oxford University Press cuts right to the chase:
"It is argued 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, the book claims, that the jobs of many traditional lawyers will be substantially eroded and often eliminated. This is where the legal profession will be taken, it is argued, by two forces: by a market pull towards commoditisation and by pervasive development and uptake of information technology. At the same time, the book foresees new law jobs emerging which may be highly rewarding, even if very different from those of today. "
For another of the many voices discussing the commoditization of legal work, the Chicago Lawyer has an excellent overview.
Marketing pushes from consumer-targeted, off-the-shelf legal forms companies like LegalZoom, LawDepot, and USLegalForms are examples of legal products replacing services. Similarly, companies targeting the small business market, like Direct Incorporation and Business in a Box, are attempting to carve out their own niches.
One interesting element of the trend is the actual language being used to describe it. Language that Robert J. Ambrogi nails in a recent post at Legal Blog Watch.
"Legal services are evolving from a highly bespoke, highly customized product toward becoming a commodity. As part of this evolution, legal work will be unbundled into its constituent tasks and many of those tasks will be standardized and systematized."
From the perspective of an LPO (which provides actual services, rather than off-the-shelf products), the key word in that passage is "unbundled". Because the value in legal process outsourcing is identifying which legal tasks can be efficiently unbundled and outsourced for significantly lower costs.
This idea of unbundling is also prominent in Richard Suskinds new book, "The End of Lawyers? Rethinking the Nature of Legal Services". This description from Oxford University Press cuts right to the chase:
"It is argued 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, the book claims, that the jobs of many traditional lawyers will be substantially eroded and often eliminated. This is where the legal profession will be taken, it is argued, by two forces: by a market pull towards commoditisation and by pervasive development and uptake of information technology. At the same time, the book foresees new law jobs emerging which may be highly rewarding, even if very different from those of today. "
For another of the many voices discussing the commoditization of legal work, the Chicago Lawyer has an excellent overview.
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