There's a well-known tale in Greek mythology called Pandora's Box. Pandora opened her legendary box ( actually a jar) and let out all evils on the world except for Hope - which the Greeks considered to be as dangerous (if not more) than all the world's other evils.

Soon they discovered that without hope to compensate for their other troubles, humanity was filled with despair. So (as the tale goes) Pandora let out Hope as well.

In the myth, Hope was more potent than any of the other major evils.

Today, we don't consider Hope to be evil. It's what gets many of us through our worst days. What with lingering unemployment, repossessions, dwindling savings and businesses folding - any of these could make a person lose hope.

Fortunately, Pandora recognised the relevance of hope  as an ingredient that is essential to our very existence.

In the current business climate, hope is what keeps us from giving up. I'm an optimist. And while hope and optimism are not exactly the same, they are inherently linked. ( as an aside my family motto is "Dum Spiro Spero" - While I breathe I hope)

For example, I am confident that the economy will eventually improve, and I am also confident that we can all learn lasting lessons from the events that led to these business challenges. But I can't just wait and hope. I have to help things happen.

In doing so, I've put forward some suggestions to partners in a variety of law firms about the direction that I think the law firm of the future should go in.

None of these are new and unique and certainly not all my own ideas. I've suggested doing away with the LLP format, offering fixed price fees, more and better web based services, better customer service, improved phone-answering techniques, offering guarantees, firing bad customers, more virtualised working from home and offering staff shares in the business. 

To address the issue of access to law I've even proposed a social charter based on the German Medical profession where lawyers are required to do a certain amount of pro-bono hours per year; and yet the one word that I keep hearing is "impossible" or "..that won't happen…".  Not, "good idea" or "maybe we could make that work"…but mostly just the one word "impossible".

There is a great  inspirational book called Tough Times Never Last, but Tough People Do, which says:

"Understand the power of this word: impossible. When uttered aloud, this word is devastating in its effect. Thinking stops. Progress is halted. Doors slam shut. Research comes to a screeching halt. Further experimentation is torpedoed. Projects are abandoned. Dreams are discarded. The brightest and the best of creative brain cells turn off. In this defensive manoeuvre, the brain shelters itself against the painful sting of insulting disappointments, brutal rejections, and dashed hopes.

"But let someone utter the magic words, it's possible. Buried dreams are resurrected. Sparks of fresh enthusiasm flicker. Tabled motions are brought back to the floor. Dusty files are reopened. Lights go on again in the darkened laboratories. Telephones start ringing. Typewriters make clattering music. Budgets are revised and adopted. 'Help wanted' signs are hung out. Factories are retooled and reopened. New products appear. New markets open. The recession has ended. A great new era of adventure, experimentation, expansion and prosperity is born."

This advice, written more than 25 years ago, is just as pertinent today. In fact, when you consider the advances of the past quarter of a century, look at how the face of business has utterly changed:
Did anyone have a website in 1985? What was your mobile phone number? Were you video-conferencing with your other office with the touch of a button?

Some lawyers in 2010 are still reluctant to use e-mail, but that one innovation has completely changed the way we conduct daily business.

Never mind the legal world, what will the next 25 years hold for all of us in business?

I suspect that coming generations will use their technologies in ways we are just beginning to imagine are possible. I'm absolutely certain that future products and services will be developed that will make life easier, safer and better and like email, the internet or mobile phones, we won't know how we lived without them.

But in the legal world today we have these technologies .

I just hope that enough of us have the brainpower and the willpower to implement them; then we can even make the impossible possible.




 

Alternative Business Structures (ABS) are not a new creation.  They started life just after the second world war in Germany when lawyers and tax accountants set up in business together. 

Since that time they have become common in other European countries and have migrated to France, Canada, Australia, Hong Kong, Singapore and more recently in India and other parts of Asia.

Also known as Multidisciplinary Practices or MDP's the definition of one is; a partnership, professional corporation, or other association or entity that includes lawyers and nonlawyers and has as one, but not all, of its purposes the delivery of legal services to a client(s) other than the MDP itself or that holds itself out to the public as providing nonlegal, as well as legal, services. It includes an arrangement by which a law firm joins with one or more other professional firms to provide services, and there is a direct or indirect sharing of profits as part of the arrangement.

The most prolific academic writing in this area appears to be Professor Mary Daly who collaborated on a voluminous tome on the subject called Multidisciplinary Practice; Staying Competitive and Adapting to Change.  What's of interest to me is that she wrote two complete chapters on the legal profession's opposition to change, citing that this would be the biggest challenge of all. 

Given the recent events with The Law Society of Scotland debates, she's not wrong.  In fact, you don't need to read the whole book as the clue to what to do is in the title.

Also, the 1982 Nobel Prize winning economist George Stigler (whose son David is a lawyer) wrote about the regulation of law in a 1971 article called The Theory of Economic Regulation where he stated that "...as a rule, regulation is acquired by the industry and is designed and operated primarily for its benefit.  The actual purpose of regulations is to provide special privileges for the powerful interest groups that want to restrict competition and raise prices; so regulations hurt the public."

Interesting stuff considering that the main thrust of the opposition is that the lawyers who are against ABS have a perception that they prevent a non-lawyer from exercising undue influence over the independence of a lawyer who is representing a client and that this somehow unduly affects the protection of the client for the pursuit of profit.

In the same year Stigler won his Nobel Prize, the American Bar Association (ABA) formed the Kutak Commission to try to relax these prohibitions, but the ABA's own committee then rejected the proposals of that commission:  Here are the objections they raised:

1. The Commission proposal would permit accounting firms and others to open law firms in direct competition with traditional law firms.

2. Non-lawyer ownership of law firms would interfere with the lawyers' professional independence.

3. Non-lawyer ownership would destroy the lawyer's ability to be a professional regardless of the economic cost; and

4. The proposed change would have a fundamental but unknown effect on the legal profession.

Not dissimilar to the recent objections that we have seen from those in the anti-ABS camp in Scotland

The common denominator of these objections is that they clearly indicate the mind-set of a protected guild and not that of professionals operating in a free and competitive marketplace.  The protection of customers and the pursuit of profits are not something that are or should be at odds with one another.  You could argue that they are in fact a perfect alignment of business interest; and if not, then they most certainly should be.

But let's look at each of the objections in turn:

1. The Commission proposal would permit accounting firms and others to open law firms in direct competition with traditional law firms - Why is competition objected to?  We know that consumers benefit from competition, that is surely not in doubt and any action that restricts competition is therefore a net harm to the very consumers that the legal profession purports to protect.

2. Non-lawyer ownership of law firms would interfere with the lawyers' professional independence - Also strange since prospective non lawyer owners could be subject to rules of independence.

3. Non lawyer ownership would destroy the lawyer's ability to be a professional regardless of the economic cost - pure exaggeration as there should be no correlation between ownership rules and conducting oneself as a professional subjected to a code of ethics and principles.

4. The proposed change would have a fundamental but unknown effect on the legal profession -  Surely the strangest objection of all as it effectively states "We don't know what the effects are going to be but we oppose them anyway!" 

I work in Intellectual property and almost every new business idea is a model or an experiment.  As long as no laws are broken, private individuals and companies must be allowed to test their ideas in a free marketplace.

Imagine the argument against BT and a flotation because it would open up The Post Office to competition for their telephone services and it's effects would be unknown! A ludicrous suggestion and an unworthy argument coming from professionals who allegedly act in the interests of consumers.

ADP's should be allowed and we should leave the consumers to decide their fate. 

If they turn out to be unviable then traditional law firms will have nothing to fear. 
If on the other hand they do turn out to be a success, then it will have proved that they work and are therefore in the consumers' best interests; which is exactly why Stigler won a Nobel Prize nearly 30 years ago.

The Co-operative Group is planning a new campaign to promote its legal services to food shoppers in its 3,000 supermarkets nationwide.

The news came as the group, which aims to be one of the first alternative business structures, told the Lawyers Gazette that it believes ‘the die is cast’ for legal services reform, no matter which party is in government after the election.

The advertising campaign will see the Co-op’s legal services division promoted for nine weeks in an initiative that will include the use of in-store radio and animated till screen displays.

The group aims to increase awareness of Co-op Legal Services by 5%, matching the success of a similar campaign run last year.

Co-operative Legal Services managing director Eddie Ryan said the division had increased the number of solicitors and Institute of Legal Executives staff it employs by a third over the past 12 months, and is continuing to recruit. It currently employs 37 solicitors.