Legal Technology

Avvocating: Web Site Analytics

By Conrad Saam
Special to the Legal Technology Blog

A while ago, I wrote about the importance of using Web site analytics tools to track the success of your online marketing efforts. Google offers a free tool (appropriately named Google Analytics) that many attorneys use. If you don’t have Google Analytics or a similar tracking system installed on your site, stop reading this and do so -- it's free! However, in some cases the lawyers I’ve spoken with are confused and overwhelmed with the tool. What do all the numbers mean? What are the important numbers? What should I be looking at and what should I be ignoring? Let me try to offer some clarity. Read more.

Avvocating: Knowing Your Client's Business

By Mark S. Britton
Special to the Legal Technology Blog

Our Avvocating columns explore the intersection of business and law, typically within the lawyer’s own practice, but what about the intersection of the lawyer’s practice and his or her client’s business? Many lawyers will respond that they are "lawyers" and, as such, they don’t get involved with or try to understand their clients’ "businesses." I mean, if they loved business they would have become a businessperson, not a lawyer -- right?

Well, sort of, but mostly wrong. I have had many lawyers remind me that they are not businesspeople over the years, and I am always perplexed considering that most areas of the law impact business and commerce in some way. Corporate lawyers probably have the greatest impact; but divorce lawyers, estate planning lawyers, criminal lawyers, etc., are all constantly confronted with decisions that significantly impact their clients’ businesses.

One of my first learning experiences in this regard was in my earliest days at Preston Gates & Ellis (now K&L Gates). I found myself in a corporate partner’s office, Bob Jaffe, noticing on his desk the latest edition of a newspaper for the waste management industry. After exchanging the obligatory jokes, Bob told me that he represented a large waste management firm, Rabanco (now part of Allied Waste). Bob said, "You know why I read this? Because my clients expect me to know their industry. And even though I never thought I would be getting Waste Management Weekly [or whatever it was called], I read it religiously. It helps me help them." That conversation instilled in me a client-service value that I never forgot.

Once in-house, I came to appreciate that value even more. As general counsel of Expedia, I admired those lawyers who understood even the most basic levers of the Internet and travel businesses. General counsel are constantly trying to balance legal and business interests and, anytime outside counsel could help me in that balancing act by offering legal advice informed by the ramifications on our business, it was an invaluable thing.

Many lawyers will say that they have too many clients to understand all of their respective businesses. That is a load for the aforementioned waste management newsletter -- especially now that the Internet is at every diligent lawyer’s fingertips. Simply putting together industry-focused Google alerts will get you half-way there. If you then read a few industry blogs and sign up for an analyst newsletter, you are likely in good shape. Think of researching your client’s business as a retention-marketing expense.

A more legitimate excuse is that the lawyer has a high-volume practice that doesn’t lead to long-term client relationships. This makes some sense. In the higher-volume practices (e.g., DUI, personal injury, etc.), knowing your client’s business will not be as valuable. Still, it is important to ask in every case whether your client’s business interests are relevant. If they are, you need to understand how the case can impact those interests. For example, could pleading guilty to a traffic ticket or DUI cause extraordinary damage to a client because of their business? Does your plaintiff really want to take a position that could be used against them in their own business?

In the end, this all comes back to practice investment. If you have a valuable client, you need to repeatedly invest in her, him or it. The greater lifetime value of that client, the more investment is warranted. Could you continue to just be a “lawyer” and avoid all of this time-consuming "business" stuff? Maybe -- but why open the door for a competitor who is more interested in your client than you are? Hired guns come and go. Invested, business-sensitive counselors are worth their weight in gold.

Mark Britton is the founder and CEO of Avvo. He is a 17-year lawyer with deep experience in the legal and e-commerce industries. Mark is the former general counsel of Expedia.com and has worked as an attorney in large, medium and small law firms. In 2007, Mark was named one of Seattle’s "Top 25 Innovators" by Seattle Business Magazine. He is also a frequent commentator on financial, legal and other business issues, regularly appearing on programs such as ABC’s "Good Morning America," Fox Business’ "America’s Nightly Scoreboard," CNN "Money" and Dow Jones "MarketWatch."

Avvocating: Online Reputation Management

By Conrad Saam
Special to the Legal Technology Blog

People are talking online about you, your company and your clients. Right now, yesterday or maybe last week. Do you know what's being said? Do you know where it's being said? Can you respond? Online reputation management is the process of monitoring and guiding what is being said about an individual, a brand or company. As communication through social media and Web 2.0 sites accelerates, the online management of a brand will become increasingly important.

Consider the case of Domino's Pizza: In April this year, two North Carolina-based employees of Domino's posted a sick, nasty and disgusting video on Youtube of themselves in a Domino's restaurant with Domino's food violating all sorts of health codes and standards of decency. (The two were later arrested.) Yet, within days, millions of people had viewed the clip. Domino responded by jumping into social media, posting a Youtube video from their president and creating a Twitter account (@dpzinfo) to interact with the online community.

The process of managing a brand online is not actually that hard, it just needs to be done in the right way. Additionally, because of the ability of the Web to reach a wide audience in a very short time, online reputation management needs to be a proactive, not reactive process. There are 3 simple steps:

1. Monitor: ensure that you are monitoring Web 2.0 conversations for specific, important terms. For most situations (like law firm names, attorney names, etc.), this can be done very simply with Google Alerts, a free service that notifies you via e-mail every time Google discovers an entry for a specific term. For more common and widespread terms (let's say you represent Nordstrom and don't want to be alerted every time someone writes a post in their latest shoe-lovers blog), sophisticated, paid solutions from companies like Visible Technologies apply advanced filters and reporting mechanisms.

2. Participate: It's called social media for a reason -- you can't sit on the sidelines without actively participating. In the Domino's example, the company missed the boat by joining the conversation after they really needed to (at the time, @dominos was already taken and they had to start from scratch with @dpzinfo. No one had started to follow their tweets when they needed it the most.) Instead, participate in the conversation by building relationships through social networking and generating content on Web 2.0 sites.

3. Manage: People search for a brand (or a lawyer's name) using a variety of different terms and combinations, e.g., "Attorney Bill Ross," "Bill Ross 1017 Ross Lane Roseville CA," "Ross Smallings v. Strump Inc." Managing your online reputation is about putting your best virtual foot forward in as many places as possible. This maximizes the number of positive results for a wide number of terms surrounding a brand. One of the easiest ways to do this is to participate in sites that already do a great job of ranking your name in search engine results (LinkedIn and Avvo are just two examples of sites that are particularly good at this.)

By proactively monitoring your brand, participating in online conversation and managing what is being said, you can build a solid online reputation that truly reflects you. This has never been more important. Prospective clients are checking you out online every day. Are you happy with what they are reading?

Conrad Saam is the senior marketing manager at Avvo. Prior to Avvo, Mr. Saam's experience includes numerous awarding-winning interactive projects for clients including Disney, Nickelodeon, Lego, MTV, Ford, Macromedia, Microsoft, Kraft Foods, AOL, McDonalds, Mattel and Napster. He is a sought after speaker on interactive marketing and has been featured in publications including USA Today and The New York Times.

Avvocating: A New Era of Transparency

By Mark S. Britton
Special to the Legal Technology Blog

What is Web 2.0? It's a question I get asked all the time. Some dismiss it as simple marketing lingo; but, take it from someone who spent a lot of time in Web 1.0, Web 2.0 is different.

Most commentators will agree that the most defining characteristics of Web 2.0 are: Free tools supported by advertising (think Google), user-generated content (think Avvo and LinkedIn), social networking (think Twitter and Facebook) and transparency (think Yelp and Zillow). Speaking to all of these elements could be a treatise unto itself; so allow me to simply focus on the "transparency" element, which may be the hallmark of Web 2.0.

Transparency is simply about letting all information come to light -- the good, bad and ugly. The Web sites of Web 1.0, which were most of the Web sites launched in the '90s, were useful but hardly transparent due to their closed nature. The only information and opinion offered by these Web sites were those of the site's editors or suppliers.

All of this began to change with the dawn of the 21st century. Sites like epinions, YouTube and Yelp ushered in a new era of transparency and a new version of the Web. These new businesses were communities as much as websites, and they flourished by offering open and honest dialogue among their members and operators. Sometimes thousands, even millions of users took their best shot at supporting or thwarting different products, services and sometimes even people. Suddenly consumers knew immediately when an appliance had a design defect, a politician took a contrary position or a hotel offered sloppy maid service. Web 2.0 had arrived.

For many, this new era of transparency felt too Orwellian, too judgmental. But rather than being watched or judged by the government, Web 2.0 is all about us watching and judging us. It was customers, suppliers, students, employers, employees, neighbors, etc., etc., all offering information and opinions about each other in the name of greater transparency for the world around them. And, over time, more and more people began to rely on -- even crave -- this transparency rather than fear it. In fact, most people rely on Web 2.0 transparency today without even realizing it. They share their favorite articles on Digg, they research historical figures using Wikipedia and they learn how to child-proof their home on eHow.

Users of these sites and their Web 2.0 brethren expect to see a spectrum of commentary regarding every person, place or thing. They want good and bad reviews; they want opinions and counter opinions; they want the highs and lows. In other words, they want the transparency of real life so that they can make their own informed decisions. The result is that, especially for those selling legal services, the only choice is to embrace Web 2.0 and its transparency. If someone gives you a free forum to market your experience and expertise, you should use it to tell your story. If someone asks for your opinion, you should offer it. If someone says something you disagree with, you should correct it.

The absolute worst thing you can do is ignore or attempt to suppress the transparency because it is not going away.

Mark Britton is the Founder and CEO of Avvo. He is a 17-year lawyer with deep experience in the legal and e-commerce industries. Mark is the former general counsel of Expedia.com and has worked as an attorney in large, medium and small law firms. In 2007, Mark was named one of Seattle's "Top 25 Innovators" by Seattle Business Magazine. He is also a frequent commentator on financial, legal and other business issues, regularly appearing on programs such as ABC's "Good Morning America," Fox Business's "America's Nightly Scoreboard," CNN "Money" and Dow Jones "MarketWatch."

The God Complex: A Necessary Evil

By Mark S. Britton
Special to the Legal Technology Blog

As a young associate I used to marvel at how the franchise partners in my firm seemed to be the most self-centered, egotistical beings on the planet. They would waltz into meetings having laid few hands on the deal and just start spewing orders. Low on experience and high on indecision, I would often think, “Who do you think you are -- God?”

And the answer was: Yes.

Every one of those partners, to some extent, harbored a “God Complex” -- a non-medical term used to describe someone who is egotistical, unwaveringly confident, over-competitive, unyielding and often condescending. What a horrible disorder, and what horrible people -- right? Well, while everything in life is a matter of degree, I now believe this is wrong. Their God Complex was an evil -- maybe even a defense mechanism -- necessary to get the job done.

The light went off for me a couple of years ago when I was having a drink with a doctor friend who manages a group of surgeons for one of the big Seattle hospitals. We were talking about how I have begun to prefer women doctors because they communicate so much better and seem to have much less ego. In response, my friend offered that (1) the ego is still there in my female doctors, just presented differently, and (2) ego is a critical part of being a doctor who deals with life and death situations on a regular basis. With regard to surgeons in particular, his belief was that a surgeon must have at least a touch of the God Complex in order to confidently execute in the most critical situations. Those that lose this confidence become, in industry parlance, a "compromised" surgeon and are put out to pasture very quickly.

My friend's observation made me realize that, for the most part, the same goes for lawyers. Granted, they are not dealing with a bleeding patient on the operating table; but they often have to make critical decisions that can affect their client's life for years to come. Whether you are trying to keep your client out of jail, or protect your client's assets in bankruptcy or trying to close a multi-million dollar deal, you will encounter many legal decisions that are far from black and white. This is what made law school so fun and being an associate so stressful. But being able to confidently make these decisions is also what divides the men from the boys, women from the girls, and the law firm leaders from the "permassociates."

It's what makes a great leader.

And, without this leader, failure is imminent, even if not immediately discoverable. Especially in the heat of battle, clients don't need to hear that "it depends"; they need to hear what you would do if you were in their shoes. That is why the best lawyers step up to the plate and just start swinging. They treat the client's situation as if it was their own and, with just enough life and professional experience and a whole lot of godlike confidence, they point forward.

So, before sticking another pin in the doll of your egotistical, unyielding team leader, you might ask yourself where your team would be if he or she did not make the tough calls. If the answer frightens you, then maybe a little bit of the God Complex is just what the doctor ordered.

Mark Britton is the Founder and CEO of Avvo. He is a 17-year lawyer with deep experience in the legal and e-commerce industries. Mark is the former general counsel of Expedia.com and has worked as an attorney in large, medium and small law firms. In 2007, Mark was named one of Seattle's "Top 25 Innovators" by Seattle Business Magazine. He is also a frequent commentator on financial, legal and other business issues, regularly appearing on programs such as ABC's "Good Morning America," Fox Business' "America's Nightly Scoreboard," CNN "Money" and Dow Jones "MarketWatch."

Avvocating: 'What Is Strategy'

By Conrad Saam
Special to the Legal Technology Blog

"What is Strategy," by Harvard Business School professor Michael Porter, is at the beginning of the curriculum of almost every MBA "Strategy 101" class. I reread my copy while cleaning out my garage this weekend. The foundational business principles Porter discusses are almost universally overlooked by law firms. As a result, many lawyers find themselves struggling with the business of law. Most focus on operational effectiveness (i.e., improving the efficiency of their work) as the source of law firm success. Porter would argue this is a misguided strategy and instead, the business of law should focus on differentiation.

Businesses (even law firms) frequently focus on improving the way business is done -- either streamlining efficiency to maximize output or adding exceptional value to deliver extremely high quality. In the furniture industry, consider the spectrum between low cost, mass-produced Ikea brand and custom, one-off, artisan-crafted furniture. To survive, every furniture maker must have the appropriate mix of cost-effectiveness and quality, so there is room along that spectrum for Crate & Barrel and Ethan Allen to co-exist.

Porter dismisses efficiency as the end all for corporate success. "Few companies have competed successfully on the basis of operational effectiveness over an extended period, and staying ahead of rivals gets harder every day." Competing solely on operational effectiveness becomes very difficult -- constantly pushing to deliver an appropriate spectrum of efficiency and value-add. Instead, Porter counsels businesses to focus on unique activities that provide a differentiated positioning. "The essence of strategy is choosing to perform activities differently than rivals do." He outlines three platforms on which business can create a long term positioning:

1. Variety Based Positioning -- defined as producing a subset of an industry’s products or services. This is the common way in which attorneys differentiate -- by practice area: divorce, Immigration, etc. Indeed, the general practitioner has becoming increasingly rare as attorneys become increasingly specialized.

2. Access Based Positioning -- a function of anything that requires a different set of activities to reach customers in the best way. This can be a factor of geography or scale. Due to the localized nature of law; most attorneys have naturally embraced this level of positioning (obvious outliers would be nationwide tax attorneys like Roni Deutsch, or firms that focus on international law.)

3. Needs Based Positioning -- defined as serving most or all of the needs of a particular set of customers. It arises when there are groups of customers with differing needs and when a tailored set of activities can serve those needs best. Most large corporate focused firms try to occupy this position -- delivering a skill set so vast they serve as the single solution for all of their clients’ needs.

Most law firms combine variety and access based positioning -- Seattle DUI Lawyers, Texas Personal Injury Lawyers, Rochester Business Lawyers. In doing so, they set the lines in the sand and fight competitive turf wars with similar local competitors. Few firms have had the creativity to think outside the box and embrace Porter’s Needs Based Positioning -- serving a unique set of customers in a unique manner.

One attorney who intuitively understood needs based positioning is Jeff Feulner, who established the Men’s Divorce Law Firm to provide a specialized focus on the needs of husbands and fathers. He provides a comprehensive list of services dedicated entirely to men going through divorce, including the obvious ones like custody, paternity and child support, but also the less intuitive ones, like business valuation and relocation. Jeff is an example of a firm who understands the needs of a specific subset of customers. Interestingly, those firms who can master needs based positioning will often build stronger and deeper connections with their clients.

Instead of struggling to maximize the efficiency of your firm, consider focusing on a shift in your positioning. For the traditional law firm, moving towards a needs based positioning is a huge strategic mindshift. To explore the potential, try the following exercise:

1. Segment all of your customers into groups. Now select just one group you would chose to serve if you had to. Repeat this exercise two more times using different segmentation criteria.

2. Look at the groups you selected and map the entirety of their legal needs. What services would you have to add to meet those needs?

For most law firms, needs based positioning entails contracting the market that you serve and expanding the services that you offer. The result just might be more business with deeper, entrenched relationships.

Conrad Saam is the senior marketing manager at Avvo. Prior to Avvo, Mr. Saam's experience includes numerous awarding-winning interactive projects for clients including Disney, Nickelodeon, Lego, MTV, Ford, Macromedia, Microsoft, Kraft Foods, AOL, McDonalds, Mattel and Napster. He is a sought after speaker on interactive marketing and has been featured in publications including USA Today and The New York Times.

Avvocating: The Power of One ... on One

By Mark S. Britton
Special to the Legal Technology Blog

In 1999, I left the comfort of my law firm for the uncharted waters of online travel. I was hired as the general counsel of my client Expedia.com, at that time a division Microsoft. It was a big change. Suddenly, I was a corporate executive managing a legal team and budget. Suddenly, I was being asked to think through business issues as much as legal issues. Suddenly, I was an operating expense rather than a revenue generating asset.

The list actually goes on and on and aggregates into a professional gearshift that I will always remember -- partly because it was often hair-raising but mostly because I learned so much by submersing myself in the sophisticated Microsoft/Expedia ecosystem. One of my first and greatest lessons was in the area of organizational management, as the entire Expedia organization set up to foster innovation and communication. For example, each manager blocked an hour every week to meet with his or her direct reports. These meetings were called "one-on-ones" and the best managers pursued them religiously.

My first reaction to weekly one-on-ones was that they were largely a waste of time. Wouldn't monthly meetings be enough? What could we possibly have to talk about every week? At each of the law firms I worked for prior to Expedia, I didn't really have a manager. I just did a great job for any partner that asked me to do something and then the department head gave me a review at the end of the year based on the input from the different partners. Totally sufficient -- right?

Well, I quickly realized that I was wrong and probably quite organizationally naive. Through one-on-ones, my boss at Expedia was not trying to make busywork or attempting to spend more time with me. He was reinforcing that communicating between the CEO and general counsel was critical to our legal performance and the health of the overall organization. Over the years, every one-on-one uncovered something important that required direct and honest communication. Maybe it was my team's performance; maybe it was his or the company's performance; maybe it was a briefing on important litigation or a corporate acquisition; maybe it was getting ready for the next board meeting - there was always something. Even today, in a smaller company like Avvo, one-and-ones serve as the best tool we have for pursuing organizational efficiency.

And this is where I would like to offer some advice to every attorney out there that has another attorney, paralegal, administrative assistant, etc. helping drive the practice: Make sure that you are meeting weekly with each employee you manage. Take the time to solicit the employee's thoughts and offer your own. Tell the employee when he has done a great job or a poor job. Lay out for the employee where the firm or an individual case is headed and explain where she fits into the picture. Set objectives for the employee and measure his progress against those objectives. In short, communicate. No matter how big your practice may be, every employee needs a single manager who is constantly critiquing, guiding, supporting and ultimately communicating with the employee.

Now many attorneys will respond, "But our employees work for many different lawyers, they can't have a single manager." I disagree. Every associate -- even in the largest firm -- will have one maybe two partners for whom they do the most work. Have the one or two partners establish objectives for the associate and then have one or both of the partners conduct weekly one-on-ones with the associate.

The result will be partners, associates and other employees who are better informed regarding every aspect of their and the firm's performance. Efficiency and higher output will follow, which simply benefits everyone. A small organizational investment for a substantial return.

Mark Britton is the Founder and CEO of Avvo. He is a 17-year lawyer with deep experience in the legal and e-commerce industries. Mark is the former general counsel of Expedia.com and has worked as an attorney in large, medium and small law firms. In 2007, Mark was named one of Seattle's "Top 25 Innovators" by Seattle Business Magazine. He is also a frequent commentator on financial, legal and other business issues, regularly appearing on programs such as ABC's "Good Morning America," Fox Business's "America's Nightly Scoreboard," CNN "Money" and Dow Jones "MarketWatch."

Avvocating: BigLaw & the SEO Test

By Joshua King
Special to the Legal Technology blog

Search engine optimization is often viewed in the realm of solo and small firm practices; those that need to compete amidst the sea of potential clients who troll the internet looking for a lawyer. Big firms, the thinking goes, needn’t worry about such matters -- their stable, corporate clients aren’t going to be looking online for legal help.

Except that, increasingly, they are. While the purchase decision process and timetable will look different for a Fortune 500 company seeking local counsel than it will for a lead-footed consumer desperate for a speeding-ticket lawyer, the steps at the beginning of the process are largely the same. The economic climate and new business models have also made corporate buyers of legal services increasingly restive and willing to cast about online for more cost-effective counseling options.

Even where referrals are concerned, the idea that companies will simply accept a referral at face value is as quaint as the notion of a CFO calling his bankers to get the company’s current stock price. A referral is always going to be checked online, and the kicker is this: The accuracy of search engines and the amount of online content is rapidly doing away with the old Internet paradigm of entering in a law firm’s Web site address. It’s far easier to simply search Google by name and city, and as an added benefit you’ll get a greater diversity of content than from going straight to a firm’s site, e.g., links to articles, client reviews, ratings, news stories, etc.

BigLaw, however, seems stuck with the notion that their Web pages are simply repositories of information rather than marketing tools that must compete for attention with a sea of other online content. Avvo recently did a study of the Web sites of the 20 largest law firms and found that most are doing a poor job optimizing their content to be found by search engines. Many aren’t taking even the most rudimentary of SEO steps. Suffice it to say that many BigLaw firms get grades that most of their high-achieving attorneys would look askance at had they seen them on a law school report card.

Josh King is vice president, business development & general counsel for Avvo. He has a diverse background in the law, having worked as a litigator in small firms and in-house at technology companies in general counsel and corporate development roles. He is a frequent writer and speaker on M&A, legal and social media issues.

Are You an Expert?

By Mark S. Britton
Special to the Legal Technology Blog

Avvo toured the West Coast recently (six cities in five days) speaking to hundreds of lawyers regarding law practice marketing, specifically online marketing.  It was a great trip full of interesting discussions and tips from our different panels of experts.  One of our panelists was the great marketer, Los Angeles divorce lawyer Kelly Chang Rickert.

On our Los Angeles panel, Kelly offered the following advice, “It is important for every lawyer out there to build your reputation as an expert.  Clients want to hire experts.”  On its face this feels like pretty simple advice; but, as Kelly’s point was teased out by fellow panelists (Stephen Fairley from The Rainmaker Institute and lawyer, writer and blogger J. Craig Williams, the power of her suggestion started to sink in and it got me thinking. 

Legal services are a product that offers few differentiation opportunities.  They are not like automobiles or electronics, which can be designed with any combination of marketable bells and whistles. Instead, what any lawyer can offer is limited by what is permitted by the legal process. Yes, there is some creativity in it all; but lawyers are hired to deliver an expected outcome, and as such the differentiation is in the downside rather than the upside. In other words, the differentiation opportunity is similar to that of an airline or drug company -- something to the effect of “Use us because we won’t screw it up.”

I call this “disaster differentiation,” and the only way to succeed in this differentiation is to ensure prospective clients that the expected will occur (or, conversely, that the potential disaster will not). In the legal profession, the “expected” is that you to know more than any potential client regarding their legal issue and the legal system that governs it.  You satisfy this by establishing that you have the expertise to avoid any downside – that, similar to a pilot, you will not lose control of the plane in a storm. 

In Los Angeles, our panelists focused on three principal tools for demonstrating (or do I dare say “advertising”?) your legal expertise:

• Interviews by the press: Rickert talked about television as a powerful medium for establishing your legal expertise. If a credible news channel asks for your legal point of view, who will doubt your expertise? Same goes for a credible periodical or radio show. You can see a number of Rickert’s television interviews on her Avvo Profile.
• Blogging: Offering your opinions on a blog allows others to understand and reference your expertise. If many in the blogosphere, including traditional media outlets, are referring to your blog posts, your status as an “expert” is dramatically enhanced.  
• Testimonials and Endorsements: Politicians have used these for years, and lawyers are only now getting around to using them effectively. One of the reasons that LinkedIn has boomed is because it allows people to speak to and endorse the expertise of another (Avvo offers the same for lawyers). That’s powerful stuff.  Anytime someone takes the time to compliment your expertise, it helps reinforce that you are in fact an expert.

For some lawyers, “advertising” their expertise feels too salesy. For others, it is a critical part of their marketing strategy, and they are out there every day turning their expertise into business. It’s ultimately your call; but, in an environment of limited differentiation, the only real choice is to market yourself as the expert that you are and that your potential clients expect you to be. 

Mark Britton is the Founder and CEO of Avvo. He is a 17-year lawyer with deep experience in the legal and e-commerce industries. Mark is the former general counsel of Expedia.com and has worked as an attorney in large, medium and small law firms. In 2007, Mark was named one of Seattle’s "Top 25 Innovators" by Seattle Business Magazine. He is also a frequent commentator on financial, legal and other business issues, regularly appearing on programs such as ABC’s "Good Morning America," Fox Business’ "America’s Nightly Scoreboard," CNN "Money" and Dow Jones "MarketWatch."

Avvocating: Commoditization and the End of Lawyers

By Conrad Saam
Special to the Legal Technology blog

According to Richard Susskind during his keynote at the ABA’s Techshow, “. . . it’s the end of many, or most, lawyers as we know them.” Susskind’s talk focused on the radical changes technology is causing in the legal industry, offering three core points:

1. The legal profession is transitioning from a bespoke to a commodity model: Bespoke is the British term meaning “from scratch, utterly custom”. Commodity is the economic term meaning price-driven and utterly without profit. Under the bespoke model, attorneys provide individual customized solutions for every client, generally at high hourly rates. This is the pure art of law – transferring hard earned knowledge into one-off legal solutions. It’s also exorbitantly expensive and utterly unscalable

2. Lawyers are unwittingly commoditizing their services: Over time, lawyers have developed processes to streamline the practice of law and standardized documentation to avoid the inherent costs of repeatedly reinventing the wheel. The move from customized solutions to standardized products is fueled by consumer demand for lower costs and higher quality. Standardization drives costs down and makes legal bills more predictable (good-bye billable hour). Ironically, standardized products offer higher quality as a result of accumulating the wisdom and experience of many lawyers into a single, refined product. This move toward commoditization can be seen in multiple examples:

• Outsourcing of clerical legal work abroad.
• Standardization of legal documentation and forms.
• Streamlined intake procedure.
• Do-It-Yourself legal services.
• Outsourced law firm infrastructure like Axiom Legal.

3. Commoditization compresses profit margins: The ongoing evolution is a slippery slope towards legal services as a commodity – like sugar, steel or wheat. As anyone who has sat through microeconomics 101 can tell you, the commoditization of any good or service (yes even Legal) initiates a race towards zero profit. Throughout business history, every industry has faced similar economic and technical forces resulting in a paradigm shift. In every case, there are companies that have not only survived, but have grown to dominate during these periods of upheaval.

Susskind is an amalgamation of economist, technophile, lawyer, and orator. He shared his from-the-clouds-vision of the future of the legal industry to a packed audience at Techshow. His thoughts struck fear in the heart of some attendees, astounded others and left a small minority of fellow technophiles utterly nonplussed. And that is exactly why his vision has such merit. Like it or not, the legal profession is changing and margins are compressing.

But is the outlook for lawyers as bleak as Susskind’s talk envisions?

For the entrepreneurial lawyers out there, I believe the future is still bright. For lawyers, the key is understanding commoditization and making smart moves to avoid it in the practice of law. In my next blog post, I will offer up a number of suggestions in this regard, relying on the combined teachings of marketing expert Jack Trout and business guru Tom Peters.

Stay tuned.

Conrad Saam is the senior marketing manager at Avvo. Prior to Avvo, Mr. Saam's experience includes numerous awarding-winning interactive projects for clients including Disney, Nickelodeon, Lego, MTV, Ford, Macromedia, Microsoft, Kraft Foods, AOL, McDonalds, Mattel and Napster. He is a sought after speaker on interactive marketing and has been featured in publications including USA Today and The New York Times.