Lawyers must deliver better service to tech-savvy clients

As a pro­fes­sion, the law has nev­er been the fastest to embrace change, but with tech­nol­o­gy shak­ing up this last bas­tion of con­ven­tion, even the most tra­di­tion­al prac­tices recog­nise they have to move with the times.

Behind this trans­for­ma­tion is a new breed of client, more tech savvy, more dis­cern­ing and far more demand­ing of their law firms. Accus­tomed to high lev­els of cus­tomer sat­is­fac­tion in oth­er sec­tors, they are forc­ing a change in legal ser­vices, and regard­less of their abil­i­ty to prac­tise the law, firms that fail to respond and deliv­er on cus­tomer expe­ri­ence risk los­ing their busi­ness.

Facing up to challenges

The sec­tor has made its inten­tions clear. Accord­ing to PwC’s 2015 Annu­al Law Firms’ Sur­vey, 95 per cent of firms plan to invest in IT in 2016 to improve their effi­cien­cy and com­pet­i­tive edge.

How­ev­er, in embrac­ing this cus­tomer-dri­ven trans­for­ma­tion, they face many chal­lenges, large­ly con­cern­ing their deci­sion-mak­ing process­es, says Lau­ren Riley, founder and chief exec­u­tive of The Link App, a tool that helps UK law firms improve cus­tomer ser­vice, effi­cien­cy and pro­duc­tiv­i­ty.

She says: “Deci­sions tend to be made by those who have been prac­tis­ing the same way for many years and can be resis­tant to change or, worst-case sce­nario, unaware of the needs of their clients when it comes to tech­nol­o­gy.”

A key area of change lies in com­mu­ni­ca­tions, with clients increas­ing­ly expect­ing to be able to con­tact part­ners when­ev­er and wher­ev­er they are, on the device of their choice.

“It is all about pro­vid­ing a choice,” says Jonathan Sharp, part­ner at law firm Royds. “Rather than tele­phon­ing, it may be eas­i­er to talk to some­one via instant mes­sag­ing or web chat.”

The use of social media to com­mu­ni­cate and pro­mote legal ser­vices has also risen. He adds: “We have seen an increase in the num­ber of prospec­tive clients com­mu­ni­cat­ing to us via LinkedIn. As a cut­ting-edge law firm, we use social media to com­mu­ni­cate with our clients, for exam­ple, pro­mot­ing newslet­ters and blogs over Twit­ter.”

The process of deliv­er­ing work should be as much part of the law firm psy­che today as the law itself

Inno­va­tion is not just about imple­ment­ing the lat­est tech­nol­o­gy. True trans­for­ma­tion comes from how tech­nol­o­gy is used to deliv­er an effi­cient ser­vice that meets clients’ needs. Accord­ing to David Pester, man­ag­ing part­ner at law firm TLT, the start­ing point for law firms is to be sys­tem­at­ic in the way they lis­ten and respond to the chal­lenges their clients face.

He says: “Today’s clients are in the dri­ving seat when it comes to rela­tion­ships with their lawyers, which is as it should be. They expect much more than tra­di­tion­al legal advice, and they look to their lawyers as true part­ners and con­sul­tants, able to bring a wide range of exper­tise to the table to deliv­er a suc­cess­ful out­come. This can cov­er every­thing from how the work is best resourced, to how tech­nol­o­gy can help deliv­er.”

Clients are also more dis­cern­ing about cost and what they will pay a pre­mi­um for based on the risk or val­ue to their busi­ness. Price is no longer aligned to the time or com­plex­i­ty of work, which are the fac­tors that lawyers have tra­di­tion­al­ly used to price work. They also expect greater flex­i­bil­i­ty around sup­ply­ing ad hoc advice with­out charge.

Mr Pester says: “They expect legal advice to be deliv­ered in the most effec­tive way. Good lawyers must build mul­ti-dis­ci­pli­nary teams and draw on exper­tise in areas such as project man­age­ment, tech­nol­o­gy and resourc­ing to deliv­er the best out­come for the client. The process of deliv­er­ing work should be as much part of the law firm psy­che today as the law itself.”

And it is impor­tant to keep in mind that tech­nol­o­gy will nev­er replace the skills of a good lawyer. Cas­es need to be han­dled by the right per­son and, for the client, this needs to be at the right price.

Patrick Allen, senior part­ner at Hodge Jones & Allen, says: “Clients appre­ci­ate clear cost esti­mates in advance and month­ly billing. How­ev­er, sen­si­ble clients don’t want the cheap­est ser­vice, they want the best ser­vice. They appre­ci­ate qual­i­ty and will pay your fees hap­pi­ly if you are the right per­son for the job. That’s why rep­u­ta­tion and refer­ral are vital for win­ning new clients.”

Millennials and collaboration

Anoth­er dri­ver of legal inno­va­tion, both from the client’s and law firm’s per­spec­tive, is the fact that the mil­len­ni­al gen­er­a­tion of employ­ees, those born between 1980 and 2000, is com­ing of age.

“Old­er mil­len­ni­als are now hold­ing senior posi­tions with­in the legal and cor­po­rate worlds,” says Rob Jones, man­ag­ing legal con­sul­tant at e‑discovery provider Kroll Ontrack. “Hav­ing grown up with expo­sure to a tremen­dous amount of dynam­ic change, par­tic­u­lar­ly in the tech­nol­o­gy are­na, these young pow­er bro­kers are not only open to tech­no­log­i­cal solu­tions, but expect the most mod­ern, most inno­v­a­tive and slick solu­tions to achieve the best advan­tages pos­si­ble and to con­clude mat­ters as swift­ly as pos­si­ble.”

Col­lab­o­ra­tion is also emerg­ing as a fea­ture of legal inno­va­tion and deliv­er­ing suc­cess­ful out­comes for clients, with the more pro­gres­sive law firms devel­op­ing stronger col­lab­o­ra­tion rela­tion­ships with oth­er law firms and alter­na­tive legal ser­vice providers as a means of being more effec­tive and effi­cient in their approach.

“Law firms are inno­vat­ing in the way they resource work, includ­ing using their own cap­tives, legal process out­sourc­ing and flex­i­ble resourc­ing mod­els. They are devel­op­ing com­pli­men­ta­ry non-legal ser­vices in areas like risk, project man­age­ment and resourc­ing. They are also devel­op­ing pric­ing mod­els and meth­ods that pro­vide cer­tain­ty or at least pre­dictabil­i­ty,” says Mr Pester.

Vir­tu­al­ly every busi­ness sec­tor is being dis­rupt­ed by dig­i­tal tech­nol­o­gy and law is no excep­tion. How­ev­er, most experts agree that any inno­va­tion in the legal sec­tor needs to revolve around improv­ing client ser­vice.

Fran­cis George, man­ag­ing direc­tor of Fran­cis George Solic­i­tor-Advo­cate, says: “Free legal resources on the inter­net inevitably mean that clients will have ‘Googled’ you and formed their own view of the advice you will give before you have even giv­en it.

“They will shop around. Those who focus on and empha­sise qual­i­ty can main­tain prof­itabil­i­ty if they pro­vide excel­lent cus­tomer sat­is­fac­tion. In this ultra-com­pet­i­tive mar­ket, superla­tive cus­tomer ser­vice and sat­is­fac­tion can be a unique sell­ing point. Those whose prime focus is cus­tomer sat­is­fac­tion, hav­ing man­aged client expec­ta­tions, will sur­vive. Those who do not will fail.”

FIVE WAYS TO IMPROVE CLIENT RELATIONSHIPS

01 “Law firms should go paper­less as soon as pos­si­ble and as much as pos­si­ble,” says The Link App’s Lau­ren Riley. “Think how much you dis­like hav­ing piles of paper around your office and mul­ti­ply that by a fac­tor of ten for a client in their home.”

02 “Intro­duc­ing a bring-your-own-device pol­i­cy will enable law firms to sup­port devices of choice for both employ­ees and clients, and deliv­er a con­sis­tent user expe­ri­ence via home phone, office phone or mobile device,” says Royds’ Jonathan Sharp.

03 Billing by the hour is at odds with the notion that tech­nol­o­gy dri­ves effi­cien­cy. “If it takes a part­ner in a law firm sev­en hours to type a legal doc­u­ment that can be processed in min­utes by intel­li­gent soft­ware, the chal­lenge is for the firm to adapt its busi­ness mod­el,” says Dar­ren Saun­ders, legal client direc­tor at tech­nol­o­gy firm Trust­mar­que.

04 Clients must be able to rely on their law firms’ infor­ma­tion secu­ri­ty prac­tices. Recent head­lines involv­ing law firms, includ­ing the Pana­ma Papers data breach, have dent­ed con­fi­dence, but also cre­at­ed an oppor­tu­ni­ty for law firms to mar­ket their secu­ri­ty cre­den­tials.

05 “Lis­ten more,” says Paul Lewis, inno­va­tion part­ner at Lin­klaters. “If tech­nol­o­gy can help us organ­ise this bet­ter or pro­vide dif­fer­ent ways of feed­ing back, then that would be of great ben­e­fit to client and law firm rela­tion­ships. But the key point is to lis­ten, to assim­i­late and to learn.”