Ok, Ok, this is a book recommendation. But bear with me as there's more to it than that.

Since talking about making Smart Decisions in a Confusing World at a recent legal conference, the interesting thing is that more people have clicked on the link on my Recommendations page for this book than for any other. Why would that be?


I think the answer is confirmation on another subject that I blogged about a while back; lawyers like to give advice and they don't like to be seen to be taking it!


The point of the talk was two-fold.  


The first is that as perceived experts, lawyers exist to perform a vital and valuable function in life. Yet this "expert status" is being eroded, and in some cases, blown away by customers who challenge everything they hear from their lawyer; customers who "research" their particular circumstances and in many cases dispense with a lawyer altogether and construct their own contracts simply because their 30 minutes of internet based research suddenly puts them on a par with their 7-year studied and 3+ year practised lawyer...and why spend money when you can do it yourself?  This erodes law firm revenue and profist.  The evidence for that can bee seen by downloading law firm accounts from Companies House.

Secondly, lawyers and law firms who have taken a decision to invest in their future and who do their own research into contracting with helpful collaborators, coaches or mentors need to be able to see through the information overload and spot the snake oil salesmen from the real deal.  They need to make better informed decisions for the sake of their future.  And also to justify their decisions to their partners. (Probably the biggest single reason! )


I won't bore you with the full 40-minute transcript here but the gist of the event is summed up in the above two paragraphs and the final bit of wisdom taken from Hertz's book;


1. You make a better decision with a full stomach and a full bladder (The Wise Old Woman, the Jewish Mother and the sages' of the past were right after all doh!)


2. Always have someone to hand who tells you what you don't want to hear!


I've always been happy to tell lawyers and law firms what they don't particularly want to hear (check out some of the columns from a few years back!)  Some shrug their shoulders, some you never hear from again (the majority) and some decide that they should check it out and do something about it (fewer than I would like) but until I set up the links and directed people to them, I never had any statistical evidence that.


I do now.

Let’s be honest about this, most people will want to


try and avoid lawyers. They are in the same


category as the police; you don’t want one until you


need one.  Which is probably why a lot of their 


marketing comes to nothing.  It’s very much a “distressed” purchase for most people


unless of course you are in business.  


In that case, you will need lawyers at some stage.

Through my connection with Angels Den, I deal with a lot of new businesses and start-ups and there’s plenty of anecdotal evidence and articles written about how lawyers ruin deals at the due diligence stage or even how they can stall innovation.

But while individual lawyers might be seen as obstacles, the legal profession and the legal industry in general still represent great opportunity. This sector, which historically has been ignored by entrepreneurs and investors, is starting to experience a start-up invasion.

In his book The End of Lawyers? Richard Susskind suggested disruptive technologies would be the key to massive change in the legal sector.

Here are six key facts that make the legal industry ripe for disruption and innovation.

1. The UK Legal Services Market is worth £26 billion a year.  The Business to Business (B2B) section of that is worth 89% or £23 Billion. The largest 3% of firms, that’s under 900 firms, generate 55%  or nearly £13 Billion of that.

That means that there are almost 29,000 “firms” chasing the remainder. And since 2006 there has only been a  compound annual growth rate of 2%

You can get the full UK Legal Services Sector report here: http://tinyurl.com/cvnwkt4

2. Technology is Still in its Infancy. New tools and platforms that have reached many other sectors are only now beginning to enter the legal marketplace. For example, data analytics – while massive in other commercial markets – is barely existent in the legal sector. Data is abundant in the legal profession – everything from a company’s entire email archive to the information that exists in all the filings and briefs that lawyers create. Lawyers work with and create data every day. Currently, the vast majority of this data sits idle, untapped and unused. What resides in this data is the potential for creating products that predict outcomes in cases, quantify and qualify lawyer performance, and create transparency within the legal process itself. For some examples, see LexMachina,( https://lexmachina.com/)  a company putting analytics to work in the IP realm. Also www.Trademarken.co.uk and UK & Ireland companies House information for free at www.duedil.com

There is an abundance of technology available, but it’s the reluctance of the sector to use it.

3. There is a definite supply and talent problem. Whilst roughly 15,000-20,000 students  will graduate with a law degree every year (this may be declining in coming years), in England and Wales approximately 6,000 will go on to seek a training contract with a firm, in Scotland there will be approximately 600 doing the same.  A law degree is only the starting point to becoming a lawyer. Graduates still need to gain a one-year Diploma place and then a traineeship.

Those lucky enough to gain employment with a law firm must rely on the firm to train them to actually be of any use in a commercial environment; a practice that yields anything but consistent and comprehensive training.  Outside of firms, these new graduates will need to find alternate paths to becoming competent , and their choices are severely limited. This creates a unique over-supply, limited-talent phenomenon where the available lawyers are not adequately trained to actually be lawyers. Start-up opportunity here lies within edtech and scalable instruction. Is there a Khan Academy or Udemy model for new lawyers?

4. Access to lawyers is historically a problematic and costly effort. UK individuals who actually need lawyers still tend to try and avoid lawyers because they don’t want to pay high fees, nor do they really know how to find a reputable and trustworthy lawyer. Many legal needs are going unmet due to this phenomenon. By lowering cost structures, lawyers would be able to serve this immense market. Through a combination of technology, tools, and processes, platforms are being built to do just that. But the market is in its infancy. Even though http://www.wigster.com/  or http://www.justanswer.co.uk/ or https://www.rocketlawyer.co.uk/   and  in the US http://www.legalzoom.com/ have a head start, they have only scratched the surface.

5. Lawyers used to be the gateways to protected information and knowledge. They were the conduit through which clients accessed legal information and guidance. With the advent of technology, this information is now more accessible than ever before. The general public is able to locate relevant and helpful information without the assistance of lawyers (or at least without paying fees to lawyers). There are still many resources that lawyers do have control over, but these are diminishing greatly. PlainSite and LawGives are two recent plays in this space.

6. Finally, and most importantly, the world is getting more complex, not simpler. Corporations are burdened with greater oversight and compliance obligations. Some companies even use the legal process (and all its costs and distractions) as a way to punish or hurt competitors (see patent trolls).

Consumers and the public are also more aware of their legal rights and obligations. In our “lawsuit happy” nation, neighbours and friends will sue each other in an effort to gain – rightfully or not. Creating alternate paths to litigation, or avoiding problems altogether, are huge opportunities. There are ways to bypass lawyers and the court system entirely. For example, a former executive at eBay has built Modria as a platform for dispute resolution that involves no lawyers at all.

There are many other facts and reasons why the legal industry represents real and significant opportunity for start-ups.  For a profession and industry that literally impacts every single person in dozens of ways, it would seem that the need and urge to innovate would be palpable. Start-ups need to stop looking at lawyers as a pain, and see them as an opportunity. If you cannot avoid them, disrupt them.





This article was in turn inspired by a great article at: http://tech.co/legal-industry-startup-invasion-2013-03
Mostly about the US legal market. This has been updated and changed to reflect the UK legal market


Great book to read: Mitch Kowalski ; Avoiding Extinction; Re-imagining Legal Services for the 21st Century

Despite all the negative press, the "lawyer" jokes and the uncertainty about where the legal profession is going - you won't be aware of this right now - but you have made one of the best decisions in your life so far; you have decided to become a solicitor.


Before we look at why that is so wonderful, let's just take stock of what you've achieved so far.


School's out
You have worked hard at school and secured the grades to get yourself a place at a decent university.  You have managed to slog your way through 3 or 4 years in that university, sending in coursework, attending lectures and tutorials and passing law exams. No doubt overcoming all sorts of obstacles from frozen computers (frozen flats !) lack of paper, loss of files, missed buses, hangovers, personal issues and maybe even personal tragedies. Despite all that, you not only passed but you must have got a decent pass because you were one of the few to secure a place on the Diploma course, which you must have also passed and then, joy of joys, you got a traineeship.


So to take stock of your life at this point, let me play with some figures to put this into some kind of perspective.


From 100 of your friends and peers who started secondary school, not all would have completed their final year.  Less still would have sat exams and even then, not all would pass.

So maybe 65 would still be in the running for a place at Uni.

Depending on when you applied, either all 65 or maybe 12 would get a place. But let's stick with 65 for now.

Not all would take up their offered place because they got a job, went on a gap year and fell in love or decided to carry on travelling or go for a Phd or some other degree.  There will be some who go on to collect degrees and do nothing else.


University Life

So 43 start their first year at Uni.

Some fall out with their tutors, their parents, their boyfriend/girlfriend or themselves and decide that Uni wasn't for them after all. And a few more fail to turn up for lectures or tutorials and are told that Uni is not for them after all.

There are 28 left.

Year two claims a couple more and year 3 another bunch fall by the wayside for one or all of the reasons above.

22 of you sit final exams.

8 fail.

14 pass but only a small number pass with a sufficiently high mark to get the offer of a place on the Diploma.

You and 3 others managed that.

But only 1 got offered a traineeship…and that's you that is.


Obstacles
But now as you prepare to start your traineeship, none of the above matters to your new employer because you still have some more obstacles to get over.

Your new employer chose you over a very large group of others who applied, so they liked what they saw on paper.

That just gets you in the door.

Now is the time to impress by demonstrating through action, that they made the right choice.


Add Value

You may have heard the phrase "Add value" before in many different contexts but what it means for you, now as you sit waiting on your first batch of work is this:

Adding value means going beyond the basic and obvious parts of being an employee.

Some employees that I have hired feel that by turning up on time they are doing me a favour.

Turning up on time, appropriately dressed, sober with all your domestic and personal problems left behind is the minimum required of any employee. So to rise above the masses here's what to do:

Don't ever bring your employer problems – bring them solutions to problems.

Saying things like "That's not my job", is the equivalent of saying "I don't want to work here"


Depending on the size of the firm you are working for, there will be different levels or strata where people operate.

Level 1 – Is for rank and file work such as data input, routine and secretarial work.

Level 2 – Is people who make sure that Level 1 work gets done; so they are supervisors, or junior lawyers.

Level 3 – Is comprised of jobs that create the work that Levels 1 and 2 do, such as directors , middle managers and associate lawyers..

Level 4 – Are higher level supervisory jobs to make sure that those at level 3 actually create the work and that the work they create is useful such as senior partners.

Level 5 – You have people who manage the supervisors of the work creators or the Chief Executive Officers and Managing Partners.

Underlying these levels is the time that each worker spends thinking about work.  The lower the level, the shorter the time.


Level 1 workers think in terms of one day to the next, whereas level 3 think in terms of months and Levels 4 and 5 think in terms of years.

This has been studied extensively and it was discovered that people are hardwired to think in differing time spans.  Most feel comfortable looking forward only a day or two.  Some can look months ahead.  But those who can see years into the future are very few indeed.

How far ahead do you look?

The further you look, the more value you can add.


Why is the Law the Best Choice of Profession?
Going back to what I said earlier, I said that deciding to become a solicitor was one of the best choices you've made.  I should also point out that I have met a lot of young solicitors who had no say in the matter; their parents/ Grandparents or significant other in their life decided for them.  If that's the case, you should probably take long hard look at what you really want to do….but for now let's concentrate on the benefits of being a solicitor and how this make you a better trainee.


The law impacts every area of life.  If you decide that on completion of your traineeship that you don't want to be a lawyer or you don't get offered a job as a lawyer, a whole new range of opportunities opens up to you.  You will have many more choices in the job market than other graduates or trained professionals. So as you deal with clients and interact with their information, make a point of getting to know their business as if you were to work for them.  It will enable you to see through the legal problems and make suggestions.


The law allows you to help people.  Simply knowing how to access the law, decisions and legislation puts you at a huge advantage as you go through life.  You will get lots of requests from friends to help them with their legal challenges.  Help them because the experience will help you.


The law is going through massive change.  The impact of the Legal Services Act, the recession and technology are opening up the law and the way it will be delivered in the future.  You are right at the cusp of the old way and the new way.  Respect the old way, but learn about the changes and above all consider how what you do affects the people you serve; your employer and your employers clients.


As long as your mission is to deliver new and better services to your employer and their clients, then you can't go wrong.


Finally
The fact that you've read this far is a credit to you.  Going forward, there will be lots more obstacles in the next two years for you to overcome.  There will be office politics (avoid), there will be bad employees that you come across (don't associate with them), there will be great jokes to e-mail to friends ( delete them). There is no one right way to complete a traineeship but there are many ways to screw it up.  Of the 100 of your friends who started this journey in 1st year at secondary school, you are the one with no history of screwing it up…so don't start now.  

All the best.