The efficiency landscape and why it matters for law firms.

I started talking last week about the efficiency landscape. What do I mean by this?

My thinking stems from David Cushman’s piece last year about the 21st century organisation which I advise you read. David’s point is

The role of the 21st century organisation will be to become a platform. A platform to enable people to find each other, talk together, act together and change the world together, niche by niche…and if you aren’t in the business of starting fires, then pretty soon you aren’t going to be a 21st century organisation.

The ‘platform’ should not, in my view, be seen as solely online. Your physical office is part of the platform. You and your colleagues are part of the platform.Your clients/customers are part of the platform. The latter are very powerful if you can get them to peer-to-peer market for you with the info-ray AKA social media, (yep that’s right social media exists for them to ‘work it’ for you not for you to ‘work it’ at them).

For me a solely online offering for many industries, and here I am interested in law firms, is as restrictive as one that offers face to face only. People, (clients and solicitors), come together as required and that could be online, telephone or face to face or a combination of up to all three.

Best option is to offer a combination of all to suit the need of the client and the solicitor. Efficient/convenient for both parties. It will be up to the individuals, client/solicitor, to determine where this engagement starts, is conducted and is concluded and each of those stages could be at different parts of the platform.

We all are aware of the theories of the Professors Susskind and Mayson about how technology will be delivered into this sector to increase efficiency and that law firms need to start to think more about the distribution chain than they perhaps have been up to now.

Quite right too but how can that actually, as in day to day reality, be done?

Online delivers an array of opportunity from the aggregation of firms via panels such as Quality Solicitors, search sites, which I think we will see more of, and the deployment of technology like DirectLaw that effectively takes the strain and plugs into the buying styles or patterns of the market.

The shaping of the legal services market is going to speed up, lots of entrants will come in, some good, some not so good. The landscape will change as we all contribute and shape it. We will all, in our way, contribute to its efficiency.

I have talked before about integration specifically around your website. Over the next year or two law firm websites will start to come into their own because of such integration and functionality.

Today law firms are starting to create their own efficiency landscape.

For a law firm this presents huge opportunity because if you invest some time in planning you can start to create an efficient landscape for your target market. Don’t forget, targeted markets love an efficient landscape.

The smart firms are waking up to this potential first and grabbing market share before the “me-too’s” arrive. They are investing their time well.

This will be valuable time spent internally optimising (forming/norming) then externally optimising (performing) because when we are talking about that word ‘online’, if properly deployed, it has the ability to grow a business exponentially. The news for late starters is that they may gain momentum but they may find it tougher to catch up with the early adopters.

Some in the legal profession are dismissive of online engagement. All the boxes that they put an ‘x’ in I can probably put a tick in…but that is a separate discussion. My big point is that it is surely wise to go where your market goes. Talk the language that your market talks. Then let the tech take the strain and deliver those clients to you in a way that you want.

As ever, I would welcome and value your thoughts.