The end of lawyers? Richard Susskind

I have just finished writing a review of Richard’s book “The end of lawyers? Rethinking the nature of legal services” (it will be published in Professional Marketing magazine later on this year).

The review provides a summary of the book – which I feel should be essential reading for those involved with the management and marketing of ALL professional services. It provides a thorough analysis of the changes affecting the production and delivery of legal services with particular emphasis on the impact of information technology and a number of particularly disruptive technologies. If you consider the further changes in the market bought about by the Legal Services Act and increasing consumer and commercial client power then you will certainly feel sparked into action.

But here I wanted to provide my personal response to his latest work. For me, there are three important implications for those supporting lawyers and the other professions in their strategic business development.

The first is how, as managers in the professions, we need to work much harder at keeping up to date with the numerous and fast developments on the technology front. And this means going much further than grappling with client relationship management systems and dabbling with social media.

Second it is the increasing need for marketers to help bridge the gap between their fee-earners, clients and technology – and prompt innovation - so that we can help them rethink the way that the professions create and deliver value for clients – and possibly reengineer the way firms are structured and operate whilst protecting (and enhancing) profitability.

The third is the importance of developing two essential disciplines within the management of most professional firms. First, we are usually missing the strategic processes to promote and harness creative thought and the subsequent innovation processes that enable us to harness those ideas and implement them. Second, there is a clear need for firms to have dedicated research and development centres where resources are allocated to developing new products and services. At present, product development – along with strategic pricing – is too often missing from the marketing and business development agenda.

The final chapter starts with two sentences that say it all really “The future for lawyers could be prosperous or disastrous. The arguments and findings in this book can support either end game” and “I believe that lawyers, in order to survive and prosper, must respond creatively and forcefully to the shifting demands of what is a rapidly evolving legal marketplace”. It's the same old message - act now and it's an opportunity, do nothing and it becomes a threat.

PM FORUM 2009 CONFERENCE - RELATIONSHIPS

I spent Wednesday at the PM Forum Annual Conference which this year was titled “Relationships” – as a result of my observation when I wrote about the event last year that it appeared to be the predominant theme whether we were talking about culture, clients, service quality, selling or brand.

The first panel session comprised an academic (CRM/KAM from Cranfield) and three technology suppliers talking about leveraging and monetising relationships. Lee Bryant of Headshift (personally my favourite speaker at last year’s workshops) was delightfully strident in his views.

One particularly interesting idea was from Andy Honess at Qlik Tech who described a system where the time spent with each hospital patient was analysed to enable patient level costing and consultant effectiveness analysis – another factoid was that thoracic surgeons were 30% more productive when their performance data was made public - imagine if these tools were applied to lawyers, accountants and surveyors!

For the first breakout, I joined a select group of marketing leaders to hear what Max Landsberg (writer of The Tao of Coaching) had to say in the sales coaching masterclass which he titled “Creating heroes”. Others reported considerable enthusiasm for the tips picked up at the pitching session run by Allen & Overy and PricewaterhouseCoopers and many liked the insights provided by the Eversheds team on classifying client service and value by rocket science, core and routine.

The highlight of the day for me was the first afternoon session. Looking and sounding amazingly like a young version Pierse Brosnan, the charismatic Octavius Black of Mindgym exploded onto the stage fired up no doubt by his recent coverage in The Guardian. It was many, many years ago when I first met Octavius when he was relatively junior at Smyth Dorward Lambert and I must say that the years have been very kind to him. With such a short slot he made maximum impact by selecting a few key ideas and communicating them with vivid stories, interesting anecdotes (interestingly using Malcolm Gladwell as a key source) and various audience participation exercises.

My next breakout was to hear Roger Delves, a former mainstream advertising man turned academic, from Ashridge talk about power and influence and how to be a (political) player. We observed that so often in professional firms results win over adherence to values and that mavericks were tolerated because of their significant financial contribution.

Last year, I found the client panel the most valuable session and I was not disappointed this year. It was an impressive line up of panellists (Sir Paul Judge of the Chartered Institute of Marketing, Ian Sears of the Office of Government Commerce, David Illingworth of the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority, Neville Eisenberg of Berwin Leighton Paisner and Paul Edwards of DLA Piper) and they spoke candidly about their experiences of being the client of a professional service provider, their concepts of value and what they most disliked about professional advisers.

The full review will appear in the next edition of Professional Marketing magazine.

PM Forum – Assisting Management: The role of marketing in influencing the Board

Last night I braved the miserable weather and trundled along to the offices of Kingsley Napley lawyers to attend a Professional Marketing Forum meeting entitled “Assisting Management – the role of marketing in influencing the Board”.

Two senior non-marketers presented their thoughts.

The first presentation was by an incredibly young-looking Sacha Romanovitch - a qualified auditor who managed the growth of Grant Thornton’s London office to become a £60m turnover business in five years and is now a member of the firm’s National Leadership Board with the HR portfolio.

She started by extolling the virtues of being excited by your work and thus creating an impetus for change. She stressed that, like everyone in business, the primary function of marketers to support the Board members who are there to drive business performance. She suggested that you challenge everything you do with the question “How is this contributing to improved business performance?”

With a short reference to the Tim Wilson’s model of professional firm success drivers (quality people -> quality product -> quality clients -> reputation) she encouraged marketers to look beyond their traditional role in clients and reputation to look at people and product too.

She suggested that a key contribution was in marketers reviewing the selling expertise and efficiency within a firm and advising on the business structures, people recruited and reward systems to support cross-selling. She also saw value in marketers advising on whether proposed investment projects should receive a green, amber (more research needed) or red light. And with advice that is likely to cause consternation amongst partners, she said that marketers need to stop “doing” things just because partners want them to.

Next up was Jonathan Clelland of Hermitage Associates who was formerly a COO in financial and professional service firms. He argued that the managing partner had to be the principal marketer and needed to create space for marketing on the Board’s agenda. He said that ownership of clients and business development activity was a key area of focus for marketers and advised that it is most effective when marketers gather and present information for partners to form their own conclusions.

He spent some time explaining how marketers should look critically at what a firm is selling (and urged marketers to develop their technical product knowledge) and to focus on exploring the quality of service and client needs – and to therefore take control of the client research programme.

Recent tweets/news round up

For those of you who don’t follow me on Twitter (RedStarKim), I have selected some of my recent tweets which may be of interest to those in the legal, property and accountancy professions. If you want further information, you’ll need to see the sources, references and links to full articles on Twitter.

Economic, social and market changes
• Personal lending fell by £600m in July to £1.457trillion - first fall since 1993. Mortgage lending down by £400m
• Sharpest fall in business investment in 44 years shocked economists yesterday
• From October 2009 single parents must seek work when kids reach 12 years (currently they receive benefits til their children are 16). By 2010 Gov plans to reduce to seven years
• National Minimum Wage rates are to rise from October 2009, with the minimum rate for workers aged 22 and over rising to £5.80 an hour
• Survey shows business confidence increases
• Changing markets - Six tips for SMEs to reduce your fear of the future
• Women graduates more likely to be working
• 1 in 6 under 24 year olds out of work. Unemployment at highest level for 14 years - 7.8 %
• Turnover of fortune 500 companies is 4x faster than it used to be
• Investment banking, on life support last autumn, is booming again as companies and governments raise vast amounts of fresh capital
• Every small UK business will now have free access to thousands of lower-value (below £100,000) government contracts
• Recent research by Microsoft says that over next 25 years the UK workplace will be dominated by women
• Exeter University research - Businesses trying to rebuild after crash more likely to employ women (more conciliatory and less abrasive)
• Lending to small businesses rose by £391 million in July
• Blogged: Breakdown of the family life cycle: Sad graduates, happy 55+s and work free families

London
• London dropped 19 places in ranking of the world’s most expensive cities due to sterling’s devaluation
• The hiring freeze in the City of London is beginning to thaw, according to recruiters
• Tokyo most expensive city for expats: London ranked 16th

Legal market developments
• Law firms enjoy vintage year despite dip in profits
• 56% fee-earners/support staff say their goal is to be partner (46% last year).
• Bar Standards Board warning over ABSs
• Billable hour RIP?/Flat fees a growing trend among firms big and small
• Lawyers Viewed Negatively by Most Americans
• Leading (legal) real estate practices shrink by 18 per cent as recession bites
• Earlier Facebook exchange on why lawyers still fear the word 'selling'
• £26m of London NHS litigation bill (£73m) was maternity related
• Surge in libel actions
• Blogged: Rural market - Lawyers follow surveyors and agents
• Blogged: UK top 20 law firms and other winners and losers
• Cold calling leaves solicitors at risk of conduct breach
• Stunned at the fact that 15,000 students each year are accepted to study law as undergraduates in England.
• Intellectual property
o Patent Denials on the rise
o International trade mark fees cut by 1/3
• Family law
o Separating couples forced to consider mediation under Ministry of Justice plan
o Pannone found London/South East pro-wife and North pro-husband.Survey: people spend just 2 minutes looking at law firm websites
o How will lawyers manage the Conservative's proposed three month "cooling off" period for divorcing couples? Diversify into counselling?
o UK Courts Pre-nup upheld decision - The Courts giveth, the Courts taketh away (£5.85m)

Property market developments
• House price rise hits 5-year high
• Mortgage approvals from major high street banks rose to the highest level since February 2008
• Colliers CRE recruits Asson for corporate occupier expansion
• $76m first half loss for Cushman & Wakefield
• Developing a "share index" to measure cross firm collaboration and cross selling in property and legal partnerships
• Estate agents charge more for HIPs (Freehold house £344-£413) than direct providers (£189-£380). Except Savills (approved supplier - £292)
• Carter Jonas - enquiries for commercial properties are up by 26%
• Knight Frank - Prime Central London Residential Index – 07/09 prices rise for the 4th month, led by overseas demand
• Cluttons forecasts late summer increase in London property for sale

Accountancy market developments
• Auditor institute warns against conflict
• Smaller firms clean up as recession sees audit clients shun the Big Four
• Accountancy fees comparison site launched
• ICAEW claims recession is over
• Boom in audit tendering as companies change auditors in a bid to drive down costs
• Big accountancy firms see consulting as a key area for growth
• Bank reform will never work unless you tackle accountants

Social marketing
• 73% of marketers are using Web 2.0 technologies, an increase of almost 10 percent
• 69% of respondents report that their companies have gained measurable benefits from Web 2.0
• Young People Are Flocking to Twitter
• How to Use Twitter Hashtags for Business
• What are the business models for influence and reputation – today and in the future?
• Twitter Flew Above The 50 Million Uniques Mark For the First Time in July
• Clickstreams: What They Are and Why You Should Track Them
• Mobile technology adds 15 hours to the working week
• 20% Increase in Companies Blocking Social Media Sites
• 10 things B2B companies can do to be more social now
• Two-Thirds of Marketers Now Use Social Media
• Learned today that the average age of LinkedIn users is 43. & it is a highly effective tool for executive search
• Twitter follower numbers as a proxy of influence - what comes next in measuring influence?
• Ofcom/Deloitte research shows youngsters losing interest in social networking and Twitter is for over 25s
• New study finds correlation between social media and financial success
• How to build your personal brand on LinkedIN

Miscellaneous (Innovation, marketing, relationships and management)
• Measuring global innovation by patents filed and granted...new infographic
• CIPD finds more organisations using mentoring as professional guidelines for coaches approach
• Remember the rule of good relationships: five positive comments to each negative one
• Written for different "partnerships" but good advice on conflict management
• Californian psychology research found a genetic link between physical pain and social rejection. Explains why some hate networking/pitching?
• Blogged: Top 10 tips for organising the perfect lunch/dinner roundtable discussion
• Blogged: Real CRM - 20 Top Tips
• FAQ: 16 top tips on remembering names when networking
• FAQ: What is great leadership?
• Making finishing touches to the "MArketing Drivers And Metrics" (MADAM) single sheet executive report