totallylegal

A new.era for top-level domain names

By Chris Hoole 

Chris is a trainee solicitor at Walker Morris in Leeds.Before joining Walker Morris Chris studied English Law and European Law at University where he focused on cyberlaw and cybercrime as part of his dissertation. Since University, Chris has worked both in Dubai and Hong Kong.

Anyone with £120,000 to spare can now submit their application for a new top-level domain name (TLD), known as a generic top-level domain (gTLD) to the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). This generalisation of domain names will inevitably bring with it, not only a new .era for corporations and organisations - testing consumer confidence and scepticism - but, importantly, a new realm of legal issues including trade mark infringement, cybersquatting, brand protection, fraud and enforcement - all on a global scale. 

Join NetLaw Media at their Partners Club Networking Event

The Partner’s Club is the UK’s leading networking Group for legal professionals open to CEOs and Partners. In addition, membership is also open to QCs, Heads of Chambers, Chambers Directors, Barristers, Corporate Presidents & Vice Presidents, Corporate Counsels and Directors of Legal Affairs & Legal Departments within Corporates & Governments. Amongst this year’s VIPs is NetLaw Media’s Guest of Honour, HH Prince Mohsin Ali Khan of Hyderabad who will be addressing the audience at 7.00pm.

Entertainment for the Evening will include: 

• Partners Club Grand Prix: Partners Club will be conducting a ’Grand Prix’ competition on a state-of-the-art 6 lane ‘Scalextric Track’ from 19:30. All members are encouraged to join in the fun with a range of great prizes offered for the 1^st / 2^nd / 3^rd place winners of the evenings ‘Knock Out’ competition and the fastest lap in the Club Grand Prix. 

• Whisky Tasting: All members are invited to taste a range of gaelic and peat delights at the ‘Whisky Tasting’ stand which is being operated by Currency Solutions.

There will also be prizes such as a rough cut diamond, an iPad2, Amazon Kindle, Gift Hamper and more to be won. During the early part of the evening, Partners Club members will offered the chance to enter the prize draws below (prizes will be drawn at 20:00 on the evening). 

• Diamond in the Rough: Upon arrival, all members will be presented with a glass of champagne and gift bag which contains a Cubic Zirconia. However, one lucky member will be holding a real diamond which will be verified at the ‘Cogence Search’ stand by the Hatton Garden diamond trader ‘Diamond Factory Ltd’. All members will be invited to take part in the ‘Diamond in the Rough’ promotion which is kindly being organised by the club’s Event Partner ‘Cogence Search’.

• iPad 2 and an Amazon Kindle: All members on the evening will be invited to enter the draw to win ether an iPad 2 or an Amazon Kindle, kindly donated by ‘Wesleyan for Lawyers’.

• Gift Hamper and a Case of Wine: On the evening, enter the draw to win a Gift Hamper or a Case of Wine, kindly donated by ‘Thames Water Property Searches’.

• CXinLaw – Customer Experience Revolution White Paper for the Legal Sector: All members on the evening will be eligible to receive the new 90 page ‘CXinLaw – Customer Experience Revolution – Bringing Secret Shopping Insights to the Legal Sector’ – Market Value £250 + vat. In addition, CXinLaw will be offering all Partners Club members the opportunity to arrange a free ‘Multi-Point Service Check and Assessment’ for their firm, chambers or corporate team.

• 15% Discount on Litigation Support Services: Legastat Ltd is also offering all Partners Club members a 15% saving against standard pricing for their litigation support services. This makes the cost of utilising some of the most powerful and feature-packed document processing & review solutions even better. For more information, please contact Casian Sala at Legastat Ltd on 020 7242 9581 or email him at: casian.sala@legastat.co.uk.

 

The evening will begin at 18:00 and will run until 21:45. If you have not registered to attend, or have others within your firm, chambers or corporate department who would like to join us on the evening, please register as soon as possible as we will reach full capacity before the event. Below is a reminder of the event details:

 

Date: 2^nd February 2011

Venue: Haberdashers’ Hall, West Smithfield, London, EC1A 9HQ

Time: 18:00 – 21:45

Nearest Tube: Chancery Lane / Farringdon / Barbican

Master of Ceremonies: Fay Gillott – CEO, 7 Bedford Row

Key Address: HH Prince Mohsin Ali Khan of Hyderabad

Click here to register for this event  

 

This event is sponsored by Cogence Search, Currency Solutions, Thames Water Property Searches and Myddleton Communications, Ogier, Wesleyan for Lawyers,  Lloyds TSB Commercial, Totally Legal, Conscious Solutions, Legastat, Brand Remedy and our Club Partner LawWorks

 

Images © Netlaw Media

Advice for Candidates and Clients from Michael Page Legal

By Kate Tregoning, Managing Director, Michael Page Legal, Policy & Offshore

Kate is a specialist in recruitment services having worked in the industry for more than 20 years covering legal, accounting, finance and secretarial disciplines. In her current role, Kate is responsible for recruiting partners into US and UK law firms, as well as running the Legal, Policy and Offshore businesses for Michael Page International.

Advice for candidates

The legal jobs market is similar to others in that a number of candidates are cautious about changing jobs at the expense of job security. But we are seeing quality legal professionals enter the market, driven by a personal ambition to achieve career progression or invaluable experience at a global firm.

Laurence Simons Legal Market Survey

As a recognised leader in the legal recruitment market for over 20 years, Laurence Simons has built up one of the most comprehensive networks of clients and candidates in the legal world. Towards the end of 2011 we used this network to carry out an extensive research project into the salaries and benefits received by lawyers in key markets around the globe.

We received an overwhelming response from over 1,200 legal professionals and, together with our global database of lawyers, the material gathered provides the basis of this report, which we hope will be a valuable resource, whether you are looking for a new role or are looking to strengthen your team. 

Insight into the legal jobs market

By Kate Tregoning,  

Managing Director, Michael Page Legal, Policy & Offshore

Kate is a specialist in recruitment services having worked in the industry for more than 20 years covering legal, accounting, finance and secretarial disciplines. In her current role, Kate is responsible for recruiting partners into US and UK law firms, as well as running the Legal, Policy and Offshore businesses for Michael Page International. Managing Director, Michael Page Legal, Policy & Offshore 

While incremental hiring will be thin on the ground for many organisations, there is staff turnover in some sectors of the legal market which will drive some consistent recruitment activity in the Canary Wharf area.

Overview of the legal jobs market can be divided into the following three key areas:

Private practice

The buoyancy of the legal recruitment market for private practice roles continues to be dependant on sector. We are noticing a consistent demand for quality candidates in areas such as intellectual property, information technology, pension funds, asset finance, capital markets and international projects. Demand for real estate, on the other hand, remains stagnant. 

Canary Wharf is a business hub for many large firms offering specialists roles in areas experiencing buoyancy so recruitment prospects are optimistic. Another trend we are seeing is that many firms in the area have the fiscal capacity to grow into larger offices giving them advantage over their smaller competitors. 

Financial services

Asset managers and insurance companies are offsetting much of the downturn by implementing long-term strategies to recruit the highest quality candidates for the future. The impact on Canary Wharf is that recruitment into the larger banks has slowed in the second half of 2011 and much of the recruitment into asset management firms is taking place in Mayfair and the City.

Industry and commerce

In challenging times the industry and commerce market has proven itself to be the most resilient and stable. In 2009, many companies in this area took a long-term view of market, avoiding boom and bust strategies to recruitment and supporting staff retention in their legal divisions. As a result we are likely to see recruitment demand based on natural attrition. When these roles become available, the most attractive candidates will be those with direct sector experience and/or strong commercial intellectual property, and information technology experience. 

Unlike the other sectors, industry and commerce does not have a central industry hub with many of its large businesses establishing themselves outside London, particularly towards the North and West. However, Canary Wharf is home to a number of large businesses who have teams present in the area including energy and commodity markets so we should see some movement in this sector.

Cross-selling strategies for Private Client Lawyers

By  Douglas McPherson, 

Douglas is Director at Size 10 ½ Boots, a business development agency that works solely with professional service firms.Tenandahalf help their clients grow by winning more new clients and by generating higher fees from their existing clients. Due to their innovative methods, the marketing of private client services is now an area in which Tenandahalf lead the market.

Unlike targeting commercial clients, picking out individuals who need particular legal services is a tough task.  Therefore the simplest way to start growing a private client practice is to increase the emphasis you place on cross-selling. 

One partner at a leading Suffolk firm described cross-selling to me as ‘not as much finding change down the back of the sofa as finding a £20 note in an old suit jacket”.  He is absolutely right but more often than not, the response from law firms tends to be “we know it’s something we need to do but it’s something we never get round to”.  However the client data you have holds all of those forgotten twenties and more … and it’s waiting to be used. 

Why “Brand You” will always trump “Brand Firm.”

By Chrissie Lightfoot 

Chrissie Lightfoot is CEO of EntrepreneurLawyer Limited where she advises professional service firms (and their individual people) globally on marketing, personal branding, sales, social media, social networking and innovation. The (London) Times newspaper recently reported Chrissie as one of the Top Ten Best Legal Tweeters. She is a non-practising solicitor, an entrepreneur, international keynote speaker and author, best noted for her groundbreaking book The Naked Lawyer: RIP to XXX – How to Market, Brand and Sell YOU!   

Three years ago I was sat at my desk staring at the office door, glancing every now and again at my email inbox, the telephone and my mobile phone when I  realised that the new legal world order had actually kicked in. Things were not going to be the way they used to; we were in a new enlightened digital consumer age where clients weren't going to walk through the door anymore. So what does a lawyer to do when clients are opting for more?’,  I thought. What is more? Why do clients go elsewhere? Who do they go to? Where, when, why? What do clients really want? I began to ask myself.

For some of us, it will come as no surprise, for others it may be rather enlightening...

I read a recent survey (research report published October 2011) by Peppermint Technology entitled What Clients Really Want from a Legal Service Provider ; a fully comprehensive research into the role of the customer experience in legal services, post the Legal Services Act. The survey report asked a series of questions to law firms, consumers and businesses. Here’s one example, I think, that will help us understand what our clients would like in 2012, and beyond.

The emerging move in legal

By Naveen Tulli

Global Managing Director, Laurence Simons International Legal Recruitment. With over 20 years experience within the global in-house market at Laurence Simons, Naveen has gained unrivalled expertise and experience working with some of the world’s best known multinationals. 

Recent times have been uncertain and challenging but there are many reasons to be optimistic. Latin America, Russia, Africa, Asia and the Middle East continue to experience a steady increase in demand for legal talent and in North America and Europe, there has been a consistent demand for legal staff in industry sectors such as Life Sciences, Oil and Gas, Technology and Telecommunications, as well as within specific practice areas such as Corporate, Funds, Competition and Regulatory.

Whilst there are presently mixed messages in the market and most organisations have adopted a cautionary approach to hiring in 2012, thankfully, only a small number of law firms, multinationals or financial institutions have installed blanket hiring freezes, with many organisations looking to emerging markets for their future growth. You may be wondering what sort of opportunities this provide for lawyers in the UK and particularly for you? 

Trials, Tribulations and Training Contract Success

By Chris Hoole 

Chris is a trainee solicitor at Walker Morris in Leeds.Before joining Walker Morris Chris studied English Law and European Law at University where he focused on cyberlaw and cybercrime as part of his dissertation. Since University, Chris has worked both in Dubai and Hong Kong.

Whether you're a second year law undergraduate, GDL student or postgraduate in business and French, if you' ve chosen a career in law, at some point you will have to face the daunting task of training contract applications and interviews. Having graduated from the University of Leeds, before securing my training contract at Walker Morris, I endured my fair share of application forms, interviews and assessment days.

Legal support market update from DMJ Legal

By Caroline Rhodes

Caroline is a consultant at DMJ Legal, part of DMJ Recruitment. Caroline began her career at DMJ Legal in 2010 and her team focuses on placing legal secretaries and other support candidates into some of the top UK and US law firms. Prior to joining DMJ Recruitment, Caroline spent four years working in both financial and legal recruitment.  

 

Competitive market for legal secretaries

The market for legal secretaries remains very competitive and it's not uncommon for firms to receive in excess of twenty suitable CVs for each position. Firms though, are being increasingly selective about who they employ which is evident from the popularity of lengthier recruitment processes. We are seeing firms opting for three or four interview rounds with an added emphasis on testing candidates typing and IT skills. Employers are increasingly keen to ensure that they hire the candidate who not only has the relevant experience but who is also a correct  fit for the business.

For a legal secretary to stand out at the applications stage, it's important to ensure that your CV is tailored for the position and that demonstrate how your skills and experienceare are a good fit for the firm, and how they can add real value.

Functions of the regulatory environment

By Nico Jansen 

Nico A. Jansen graduated in private law at the University of Utrecht in the Netherlands and has a Masters of Business Administration (MBA) from Edinburgh Business School/ Heriot Watt University in Scotland. He holds the professional qualifications in marketing (A and B) of  the Dutch Institute of Marketing (NIMA) and the Diploma in Marketing of the British Chartered Institute of Marketing of which he is a Member and admitted as a Chartered Marketer. In his capacity as managing consultant of www.legalmarketing.nl he operates as an interim lawyer and marketer and holds a lecturing position in (European) Business Law at the Faculty of Economics and Business Administration of the VU University in Amsterdam. In 2011 he published ‘Law & Self-Regulation. A legal and business perspective’.

Introduction

To identify the functions of the regulatory environment for business we started off with a simple business planning model. The next table identifies the main business and legal concepts per planning phase and identifies the function of the regulatory environment in each phase.

 

The table resulted in the identification of four functions of the regulatory environment for companies: strategic input, testing and contributing, reputation management and risk management.

Can Copyright owners ever win online?

By Chris Hoole

Chris is a trainee solicitor at Walker Morris in Leeds.

Before joining Walker Morris Chris studied English Law and European Law at University where he focused on cyberlaw and cybercrime as part of his dissertation. Since University, Chris has worked both in Dubai and Hong Kong.

In July this year, the High Court witnessed a landmark ruling for TV and film producers. In the first of what may be many cases, the High Court granted an order requiring one of the UK’s largest internet services providers, BT, to block and prevent its users from accessing the website Newzbin2, which, through its Usenet forums, allows its paying customers to access copied TV and film. On the face of it, this ruling is a significant victory for copyright owners and a step towards self-regulation of copyright infringement online; however, BT is far from the only internet service provider on the net, and the question remains – can copyright owners ever win online? 

Raise your game, legal professionals

Raise your game!

Your image and the way you dress is a powerful tool

By Lisa Gillbe

Lisa Gillbe is a trained colour and style analyst and runs Lisa Gillbe Style Consultancy. She provides personal styling, wardrobe management and personal shopping services for successful women and men who demand a personal service and want to look effortlessly stylish and professional.

Some may dismiss dressing and style as unimportant, frivolous and perhaps a bit shallow. This is not so. Studies show that our first impressions of other people are made within 7 seconds of meeting them. 

Also, our initial perceptions of people influence our interpretation of their later behaviour because of our - possibly misguided - expectations. First impressions are hard to change.

 

You can't really market a Private Client, or can you? - Part II

By  Douglas McPherson, 

Douglas is Director at Size 10 ½ Boots, a business development agency that works solely with professional service firms.Tenandahalf help their clients grow by winning more new clients and by generating higher fees from their existing clients. Due to their innovative methods, the marketing of private client services is now an area in which Tenandahalf lead the market.

Having concluded part 1 by agreeing you really can market private client law, it’s time to look at ‘how’. 

As with all good marketing, success is dependent on knowing who you are marketing to and what you’re offering them. If you want to put any meaningful marketing together (or at least marketing that’ll generate a meaningful response) the first questions you need to ask internally are around who do you want to attract as a client.

What do they look like? What’s their social standing? What roughly is their annual (combined household) income? How old are they? What do they do? Where do they go?  And, most importantly, how do you meet them?

Without access to this picture profile it’s very difficult to work out how to grab their attention.  At Tenandahalf one of the methods we use to work out client profiles is to employ ‘brand cameos’; small portable pictures of what the clients we want actually look like. These aren’t based on the clients we want, they’re based on the client we have. This means our planning starts from existing knowledge not from theory or possibility.

For example, we work with regional and national law firms.  We work predominantly with managing partners but also with marketing and business development directors. We work all over the country.  More and more we’re working with private client groups but we also still do a lot of work with the commercial side.  We also work with niche firms, specialist firms and patent and trademark attorneys.  If you were to enter all of that data into the profiling computer the results would look more Picasso than cameo!

So what we do is look at who we currently enjoy working with and those firms become our cameos. We want to work with more Firm As, more Firm Bs and more Firm Cs. Then we work out, knowing what we know about those firms, how we can use what we have (whether that’s contacts, connections, collateral or something more creative) to get in front of them.  From that advanced starting point we can devise a (cost-) effective marketing mix that will deliver.

Marketing private client law is exactly the same.  Picture who you want to work with and all of a sudden it becomes much easier to work out how you get in front of them – whether that’s through events, networking, direct mail, the internet or through good old fashioned referrals. Your marketing now has focus and as a result will be more productive and more cost-effective.

The other advantage of applying focus is it’ll make less demands on your time.  You have enough to worry about with financial targets, billable hours and doing the work itself to waste time on ineffectual BD activities you don’t enjoy. Refine, focus and gain a better return from the time you invest.

One other small point to remember.The whole client profiling process doesn’t just let you work out who you do want to work with; it also lets you work out who you don’t want to work with and that alone will improve your working life!

 

What are your thoughts? 

Share your perspective below. 

What a ban on refererral fees could mean for personal injury

By Beth King 

Beth is a partner and head of personal injury at Marsons Solicitors LLP.  She is a member of APIL and the Law Society’s Personal Injury panel. In addition to her PI and professional negligence work, Beth also specialises in solicitors’ costs and sits as a High Court Costs Assessor.

Beth King from Marsons Solicitors returned from the APIL conference last week with Champagne “food for thought” about personal injury law…. She shares her reflections on the impact of a ban on referral fees, with Totallylegal.

The key message from the APIL Business Conference last week was that your business model is doomed if it relies on paying for your cases, given the current talk of banning referral fees.

We have now seen the proposed amendments to the Legal Aid and Punishment of Offenders Bill which have been added to bring about the ban.  In reality, it isn’t much of a ban because breaching the rules won’t give rise to a criminal offence or even a civil remedy.  While the amendments will make the contract between the solicitor and the referrer unenforceable, it’s not a big deal if both parties want the arrangement to work.  The SRA are supposed to monitor and enforce the rules but they don’t see the need for a ban anyway.

The biggest hole seems to be that the “ban” won’t apply to unregulated people.  So, if you’re not a CMC or a solicitor, you can still cold call and send annoying texts – just so long as you don’t admit that to the CMC you flog the leads to.  The CMC can then provide “marketing” and “case vetting” services to the solicitor – or whatever description they can come up with – and then it’s not a referral fee at all unless it exceeds a limit which has not yet been fixed. 

In the end, referral fees will probably still be with us in some guise or other.  We all know arrangements existed between legal expense insurers and their panel firms for years before the old ban on referral fees was lifted by the Law Society.  Similar arrangements will be formed whatever “ban” the government comes up with, and some CMCs will become ABSs to stay in the game.

Without doubt, some firms will lose business and close down or at least stop doing personal injury work but bigger players will do their own marketing instead of paying CMCs to do it for them. 

But the biggest threat to most firms is downward pressure on fees – if the insurers get their way, there will be little or no reward for running RTA cases in the portal, and even if we charge success fees to clients they will be limited to 25% of only part of their damages.  How many of us will still be able to afford to fight for the rights of victims of personal injury  by the time the 2013 APIL Business Conference comes round?

“I have seen huge change in the industry in the last 25 years and I am confident we will adapt to the coming changes as we have always done.  But we all need to recognise that, in order to continue to serve our clients properly, we have to be profitable businesses.”

Lawyers head for the Cloud

By Warren Wander 

Warren Wander is the founder and Managing Director of LawWare Ltd and more recently has become CEO of LawCloud Ltd. Warren has spent all his working life in the software development field and the last 15 years creating, developing & growing LawWare into one of Scotland's most modern suppliers of Practice, Case & Risk management software. 

As a total Cloud fanatic, I’m amazed and energised at the transition that is currently happening in both the business and technical worlds. 

The transition to the Cloud is growing at a tremendous rate and as the technology becomes more available, robust and affordable, the opportunities continue to grow. We all know that Cloud is a rebrand of hosting, which has been around for many years; however, the difference is that The Cloud has become more about business transformation than technology.

Recently, a traditionally very conservative Law society of Scotland has taken the lead by stimulating a very interesting discussion with a view to publishing there Cloud Services Procurement Guidelines for the Legal Profession in Scotland in anticipation of their forthcoming Law Society Cloud Event in Edinburgh on the 9^th of November 2011.

To see all of this grow from the days I started writing games on the ZX81 and Sinclair Spectrum  is fascinating.

Now, many years on, as a specialist in the legal field offering Cloud for Law firms  and through products like LawCloud, we at the forefront of transforming the way that lawyers in the UK work, and LawWare Ltd is leading in the legal cloud.

Times have never been more challenging for law firms than today.  With the recent introduction of Alternative Business Structures alongside legal aid reforms, increasing paperwork for compliance, the need to be more efficient and competitive has never been more important.

Cloud computing presents the opportunity for small to medium sized firms to have best of breed software (traditionally reserved for the bigger firms) delivered directly to their doorstep at a low fixed monthly cost and with little or no capital expenditure. This very premise is creating vast modernisation and cultural changes in what was a profession grown out of very traditional roots.

Out of the box, The Cloud offers lawyers a new way of working that have never been so easy to reach before, including…

• Flexible working [from anywhere - office, home, court, holiday even]
• Peace of mind (All data is managed, backed up, no need to maintain a big expensive server)
• Cost savings (monthly subscriptions on a utility type basis)
• Simplified technology (Latest Management software, always kept updated by the Cloud provider, easily scalable)

Microsoft is leading the way with their online services with Office 365 and with new licensing models, Microsoft Office 2010, hosted emails and shared diaries should be an integral part of any serious Cloud system.

The Secret to Cloud Success is really still about relationships and knowing your Cloud provider. You are entrusting your crown jewels to a provider for the long term and you need to do your due diligence well. Nobody is perfect and whilst I am sure your experience will be a huge success, you should also plan your backup just in case things go wrong as they sometimes do. So, know where your data is and be sure you can get all of your data back when you need it and in a meaningful format.

Good luck with your journey to the Cloud. We are living in challenging yet incredible times.

As the infamous Benjamin Disraeli said “The secret of success in life is for a man to be ready for his opportunity when it comes.”…

 

LawWare have established a strong reputation for an innovative and forward looking approach to the business of running a Law Firm and take the view that a 'big picture' approach toward all the staff within a firm is the surest route towards achieving both effective firm management and high level client care. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The iCyborg Lawyer Is Near?

By Chrissie Lightfoot 

Chrissie Lightfoot is CEO of EntrepreneurLawyer Limited where she advises professional service firms (and their individual people) globally on marketing, personal branding, sales, social media, social networking and innovation. The (London) Times newspaper recently reported Chrissie as one of the Top Ten Best Legal Tweeters. She is a non-practising solicitor, an entrepreneur, international keynote speaker and author, best noted for her groundbreaking book The Naked Lawyer: RIP to XXX – How to Market, Brand and Sell YOU!   

My tribute to Steve Jobs (1955-2011)…

Albeit the world is full of great visionaries and innovators, only a special handful of human beings through time truly touch the people of the world and become extraordinary change masters. Steve Jobs is a legend and one of such masters. His legacy, genius and brilliance will live on as we move toward singularity…

Steve Jobs: the greatest innovator of my generation, an extraordinary change master and a human being with exceptional IQ and unrivalled EQ. You will be sorely missed not only by the techy world but by the business world and the legal world too…

Artificial intelligence (AI); nanotechnology; genetics; social networking; web 2.0 > 10.0; global economic effects; emerging economies; population time-bomb; employment time-bomb; working patterns and lifestyles; consumer sovereignty. Just a few things to consider for those of you who may wish to join me in playing ‘join the dots’.  When you do, my prediction that the iCyborg lawyer is near may not seem so ridiculous…

 

The Two Faces of The Law - Part IV

(Continued...)

By Chrissie Lightfoot 

Chrissie Lightfoot is CEO of EntrepreneurLawyer Limited where she advises professional service firms (and their individual people) globally on marketing, personal branding, sales, social media, social networking and innovation. The (London) Times newspaper recently reported Chrissie as one of the Top Ten Best Legal Tweeters. She is a non-practising solicitor, an entrepreneur, international keynote speaker and author, best noted for her groundbreaking book The Naked Lawyer: RIP to XXX – How to Market, Brand and Sell YOU!   

Professional evolution

When it comes to the paradigm shift and getting your head around this model and potential opportunity think of it this way. As Mike O’Hara says it:

"Even though you went to law school and have spent your career so far practicing law, the truth is, you actually run your own small business—regardless of the size of your firm. And while you may like to think of your practice as a runs-itself enterprise, your long-term success depends on your ability to think and act as an entrepreneur (in between practicing law, that is)."

You may now be questioning yourself as to whether or not you are an entrepreneur, or could become an entrepreneurial lawyer. Let me help you. I’ve just read ‘Are You an Entrepreneurial Attorney’ blog post by Mike. In the post I found the following definition of an entrepreneur and an interesting quick quiz:

An entrepreneur:

‘… an innovator who establishes a new business … strong beliefs about market opportunities … willingly accepts a high level of personal, professional and financial risk.’

Based on information from The Entrepreneurs Guild, if you take this quiz you can assess your own entrepreneurial tendencies and entrepreneurial comfort level. Albeit there will obviously be shades of grey, for the purpose of this exercise just see if you mostly ‘agree’ or ‘disagree’ with the following statements:

• I’m great at and enjoy networking 
• I’m optimistic about positive, successful results 
• I need to do it my way
• Results derive primarily from my own behaviour and actions
• I thrive on innovation
• The most important thing is achieving the goal
• I have a plan, and work my plan
• I’m comfortable with change, ambiguity and uncertainty
• I’m self-motivated
• I’m a risk-taker

If you mostly ‘agree’ and presently think, feel and act in a way in relation to the above statements then you’re already well on your way to becoming an entrepreneurial lawyer and the face2face solicitors legal franchise business model could be for you.

I wrote a blog post a year ago entitled ‘Frustrated Lawyers R Us. Plan ‘B’ Mutiny?’. If it resonated with you and you’re maybe feeling a little disenfranchised right now, maybe consider a franchise.

As the legal profession and our industry continues to re-invent itself, transform and transit ever more so toward two faces of the law - Face to Face and Interface – I have no doubt there will be a plethora of new business models which spring up under the two dominant umbrella models to compete feverishly in this plump, innovative, new and increasingly fragmented and diverse global legal market.

The way I see it, it’s a wonderful and exciting time of opportunity for both personal re-invention and professional evolution for us lawyers and I welcome the 'humanisation' of lawyers (and no doubt many customers and lawyers do too) in the face-off between Face To Face and Interface.

Whether we like it or not, agree with it or not, welcome it or not, to quote the ubiquitous ‘future’ statement by Neuromancer author William Gibson, "the future is here... it’s just not evenly distributed yet".  You bet. It probably never will be.

Accordingly, "the great excitement of the future is that we can shape it" (Charles Handy).

 

Chrissie Lightfoot

The Entrepreneur Lawyer
(of the naked kind)
Author of The Naked Lawyer: RIP to XXX – How To Market, Brand & Sell YOU!

 

 

 

 

The Two Faces of The Law - Part III

(Continued...)

By Chrissie Lightfoot 

Chrissie Lightfoot is CEO of EntrepreneurLawyer Limited where she advises professional service firms (and their individual people) globally on marketing, personal branding, sales, social media, social networking and innovation. The (London) Times newspaper recently reported Chrissie as one of the Top Ten Best Legal Tweeters. She is a non-practising solicitor, an entrepreneur, international keynote speaker and author, best noted for her groundbreaking book The Naked Lawyer: RIP to XXX – How to Market, Brand and Sell YOU!   

A new concept

 Law providers, both existing and start-up, operating in the alternative business structures landscape - and global legal market place for that matter - will require a different type of approach to their business:  even more client-focused but with a far lower cost-base to enable them to meet the challenges and exploit the opportunities that lie ahead.

face2face solicitors appears to be a new concept in legal provision operation, designed for small-to-medium sized firms and/or frustrated entrepreneurial lawyers who want to take control of their future in the newly competitive world. It appears to have been designed specifically to counter the growing number of web and call centre based, low-cost providers of ‘face-less’ legal services.

The way I understand it, it’s pretty much a 'law business in a box' where franchisees will be able to start up their business without the ‘this is the way we’ve always done things around here’ mentality and the ‘baggage’. I’m a firm believer and eternal optimist that the future is bright for progressive entrepreneurial lawyers and small firms who love the law but recognise the need to deliver it in a new innovative whilst personal (human) way.

What I particularly like about this model is that the franchisees at face2face solicitors will be vetted for their drive and passion in delivering extraordinary customer service in a new way to their clients. All franchisees are fully supported and receive continual training and mentoring to help them to develop and build their own successful business in the law, an essential part of which is the development of personal brands – the 'Brand, Me' – something which is dear to my heart.

A cool option

As I understand it, what will be attractive for potential franchisees is as follows:

• Accessing a host of 'best of breed' I.T. and services – including Virtual Practices legal accounting, case and practice management from SOS;
• Compliance and Risk Management embracing latest Outcome Focused Regulations;
• Bags of help and advice for marketing – something we lawyers would definitely welcome no doubt;
• On-going Mentoring on a monthly basis – business savvy support;
• On-going CPD training in management / marketing / sales / team motivation;
• Being part of a network of likeminded people;
• Being part of a strong national brand;
• Preferential PII arrangements;
• Lower start up costs;
• Franchise financing - to be offered; and
• Creating and building value for their practice for subsequent retirement/exit.

I guess if you’re looking to be a player in the new legal market place and would prefer to straddle Face to Face and the Interface, and you’re considering grappling with the challenges of taking the best of the old and integrating the best of the new, face2face solicitors looks like a pretty cool option. I can’t see how one could put a complete legal start-up business together for anything like the alternative capital and cash-flow outlay or loss of control and reduced equity alternative, as would be the case if one chooses to go down the external funding (venture capital; business angel; listing) route when Legal Service Act 2007 takes full effect.

This franchise model is worthy of further investigation, I reckon.

Part 4 coming soon...

Chrissie Lightfoot
The Entrepreneur Lawyer
(of the naked kind)
Author of The Naked Lawyer: RIP to XXX – How To Market, Brand & Sell YOU!

 

 

The Two Faces of The Law - Part II

(Continued...)

By Chrissie Lightfoot 

Chrissie Lightfoot is CEO of EntrepreneurLawyer Limited where she advises professional service firms (and their individual people) globally on marketing, personal branding, sales, social media, social networking and innovation. The (London) Times newspaper recently reported Chrissie as one of the Top Ten Best Legal Tweeters. She is a non-practising solicitor, an entrepreneur, international keynote speaker and author, best noted for her groundbreaking book The Naked Lawyer: RIP to XXX – How to Market, Brand and Sell YOU!   

The new legal marketplace 

Clearly, the transformation and arguably the re-invention of legal service provision,  is well and truly underway. As legal commentator Jordan Furlong puts it, "we’ve begun crossing over from the old legal marketplace to the new one."

In reading Jordan’s thought provoking ‘Goodbye to all that’  blog post, there were three statements that really struck me:

"The new providers and new technologies are not going to replace lawyers... but they are going to marginalize us and render law firms mostly irrelevant".

"Lawyers still have outstanding value to offer in certain quarters, but we need to concentrate our market offerings around that value, and we need better platforms for our services than traditional law firms provide."

"Lawyers are smart, knowledgeable, creative and trustworthy professionals who, unfortunately, suffer from poor business acumen, terrible management skills, wildly disproportionate aversion to risk, outsized revenue expectations, and a business model about 25 years out of date. The market won’t abandon them — they have unique and sometimes extraordinarily valuable skills and characteristics — but it will find the best use for them: expert specialists with limited influence over the larger process."

I agree.  As we lawyers become marginalized, our role and value - both Face to Face and at the Interface - will be in extolling our expert niche specialism with exceptional emotional intelligence whilst delivering extraordinary customer service (humanisation – naked – something AI and computers will never be... or will they?).