Reshaping Business Models within SME Law Firms William Robins - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

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Reshaping Business Models within SME Law Firms

William Robins – Operations Director Keystone Law

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How are we all doing? Business Good?

• You report you are feeling optimistic

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But change is coming

• How will you deal with change
• Will it blow you away?

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What’s the problem?

• Rise of millennials
• Change in client expectations
• Increasing costs and falling revenues
• TECHNOLOGY

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Rise of millennials

• Carrot and stick no longer works
• Millenials have been brought up differently

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Change in client expectations

• They have
• Processised
• Internationalised
• Embraced technology and remote working
• Why haven’t you?

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Increasing costs and falling revenues

Increasing costs

• Rents up
• Rates up
• Wages up
• Knowhow suppliers up
• Technology suppliers up

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Increasing costs and falling revenues

Falling revenues

• Clients expect to pay less
• Clients can and do shop around
• The big law firms are coming down the value chain
• Non law firms coming up the value chain

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Technology

• Document automation
• Personal digital assistants
• Legal apps
• They are eating our lunch

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Technology – Good news or bad?

Good News

• Technology can help us to be more efficient
• Technology will allow us to offer services at lower rates and increase

both the market and the addressable market

• Technology can help us to reduce cost and increase margins
• But...

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Technology – Good news or bad?

Bad News

• What are legal services?
• Knowing and understanding the law
• Using the law to solve problems
• Advising clients
• Can computers really do this?

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How have computers changed our lives outside the law?

• The Internet – The connected world
• Search – redistribution of knowledge and easy retrieval of knowledge
• AI/Bigdata – customers who bought…
• Robots replacing human labour
• Drones pick stock in the logistics business
• Self check outs
• 3D printing (manufacturing at home)
• Self driving taxis

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The effect of computers outside law

McKinsey Global 2016 2m industrial robots 2025 75m industrial robots But that’s just industry, what about professional services?

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The effect of computers outside law

• 2011 Watson won Jeopardy!
• 2016 Watson technology being used in medicine
• Faster and more accurate diagnoses
• Able to do 20 man years of work in ten minutes (1 million x faster than

us)

• Ok, but what about law?

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Preparing for the future

• Change is certain
• Game changing technology is still a few years away
• Effects of technology will be wide spread
• By 2035 47% of all jobs will have disappeared in the UK, 77% in China and

83% in Ethiopia (University of Oxford)

• But beware the boiled frog!

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Artificial Intelligence

• Our distorted view of AI
• The gulf between Einstein and the village idiot
• The status quo
• The rate of improvement

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Artificial Intelligence

• Einstein and Village idiots not so far apart
• AI improving rapidly
• Moore’s Law
• Kurtzweil's ‘The Singularity’….

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The effect of computers inside law

• Riverview – digital legal assistant

“The Advisory and Smart Assistants we launch later this year will do lower level legal work and provide suggestions for what advice should be given.” - Karl Chapman

• Epoq – contract drafting
• Rocket Lawyer/Legal Zoom
• Ross AI
• Keystone Law

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The effect of computers inside law

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The effect of computers inside law

• What’s the connection?
• These companies are using technology for competitive advantage
• Your firm needs to be doing this
• But how?

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Preparing for the future

• Which route to take?
• Full AI
• Craftspeople model
• Paralegal model

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Preparing for the future

• Where do you start?
• By looking at yourself
• (Or get an outsider to take a look?)
• What’s your market (geography/service/sector/price)?
• What do you offer clients?
• What’s your competitive advantage?
• What opportunities can you address?
• What problems do you have?

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Preparing for the future

• Where do you want to be in the market?
• Ceasing part(s) of your practice
• Improving part(s) of your practice
• No change

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Time to act

Ceasing part(s) of your practice

• No shame
• High water mark?
• Your market might have changed
• Use funds to invest in what you do best

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Preparing for the future

Improving part(s) of your practice

• Gradually, start changing now to
• Increase agility
• Increase efficiency
• Change remuneration models
• Change focus
• Change culture
• Change working practices (e.g. remote working)

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Preparing for the future

• How to improve
• agility – move to variable costs, which includes…
• changing remuneration models, don’t forget
• culture
• working practices (e.g. remote working)
• efficiency – delegate/processise/outsource/invest in IT => re-price?
• focus – high value, bespoke, empathy, use the IT

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A last word on…

• IT
• Get the right IT
• A challenge in a changing market
• Employ an IT consultant/director and LISTEN to what he says

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A last word on…

• Remote working
• Reduce costs (lease and rates)
• Less commuting
• Less politics
• Happier colleagues (remember happiness?)
• Continuity of service
• Portfolio career
• Access to millennials and disenfranchised workers

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Remote Working

How to implement remote working

• Plan
• It’s not just about IT
• What’s the culture of your business?
• Who should be able to work remotely?
• How will IT facilitate this?

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Questions

William.robins@keystonelaw.co.uk

@KeystoneOps