Countdown to a new dispensation

An interesting piece in this morning’s FT by Jane Croft, Legal firms set for ‘Tesco law’, based on a recent survey by Smith & Williamson on whether, and to what extent, the top 100 law firms will use the deregulation of the legal services sector to raise external finance.

What is clear from this survey is that the top end of the legal market is preparing to take advantage of the Legal Services Act and, if the rumour mill is to be believed, so too are the external providers – whether Tesco, the AA etc. None of this is surprising.

But what about the “squeezed middle”? (Not mentioned by Smith & Williamson).

In my previous Lawslot Redux post, now six months old, I said that in the hurly-burly of practice it is sometimes difficult to take time out to think about what may be needed. I might also have added that the current economic environment is making fee earning work an imperative (no time for posts).

Yet as Giles Murphy of Smith & Williamson notes,

The provision of legal services will change radically in the next five years with consolidation, external capital, new entrants and mergers with other professions; those who are best prepared will be in a strong position to take advantage.

He is talking about using external finance to develop and grow faster than your rivals. And competitive advantage may be obtained in any number of other ways – but I am not convinced that the profession as a whole has yet come to grips with what the Legal Services Act will actually mean for us day-to-day. It is going to be an interesting run up to October.

Just a perfect day

The last day of a week’s holiday, and another day out with the birds.

We started the week at the London Wetland Centre – very cold and gloomy, and notwithstanding recent sightings of Bitterns, we didn’t see any (we always arrive at a hide to be told, “You should have been here five minutes ago; you’ll never guess what we have just seen . . .”) – but plenty of Snipe, Tufted Duck, and Coot.

Wednesday was another cold but bright day at Slapton Ley and on the beach at Thurlestone. Shovellers, Tufted Duck and a solitary Little Grebe in the reeds by the Slapton Hide, and plenty of Canada Geese and more Tufted Duck on the water. Robins everywhere, and a Sparrowhawk through the bushes at the edge of the Ley, upsetting the troupe of Longtailed Tits that was bowling along the edge.

It was late afternoon by the time we reached Thurlestone – we had to stop in Kingsbridge, where I was living when Caroline and I first met, and stop at the deli at the top of Fore Street and visit Pig Finka. The marshes behind the NT car park were frozen and there was very little duck around. Instead, there were Oystercatchers and Turnstones on the rocks edging the beach, and a wonderful sunset.

Today we have been at Roadford Lake. We didn’t know quite what to expect – we last visited in January 2009, and had then seen little (and been rained on). This time was different: in the woodland and along the edge, Nuthatches, Great, Blue, Coal, Marsh and Longtailed Tits, Greenfinch, 6 Bullfinches and half an hour later another 9, a Greater Spotted Woodpecker chased off by a solitary Raven gliding through the canopy, Crows, Rooks, Kestrel, Sparrowhawk and Buzzard, Dunnock, Blackbirds, a Song Thrush, Redwings, Goldcrests, Robins and Wrens – and on the water, Coot, Moorhen, Tufted Duck, Mallard, Teal, Widgeon, Gadwall, Pochard, Herons, Great Crested Grebes and a Little Grebe, Shag, 3 Goosanders, and in the last light of late afternoon, a pair of Goldeneye below the bridge.

A perfect day.

Acts of the Apostles, chapter 20, verse 35?

The Church of England is sometimes remarkably inept.

A good example of entirely failing to get it is Exeter Cathedral’s Christmas lunch for its Volunteer Stewards and Guides. These are the people who, for most of us, are the face of the Cathedral. As the Cathedral website says,

Exeter Cathedral, like all cathedrals, relies on its team of Volunteers Stewards and Guides to welcome visitors and provide guided tours throughout the year. Their role is one of public relations and as such they are ambassadors on the Cathedral’s behalf. The time and dedication of them all cannot be praised highly enough.

And there are a fair number of them – some 90 or so.

But far fewer will have gone to the Christmas lunch today, as the Cathedral asked each of them who wanted to go for £12.50 for a buffet lunch and one glass of wine. And for a number of them this was simply too much.

What a way to thank people for a year of service.

Tugging one’s forelock

Telegraph sub-editors sometimes slip one past. In the paper today (though interestingly no trace on-line, so no link) a small piece on the Prince’s Teaching Institute’s schools programme mark. This recognises inspirational ideas to enhance the teaching of English, history, geography etc. And the title of the piece? Prince promotes ‘traditional’ subjects. Well he would, wouldn’t he.

Even turkeys know Christmas is coming

In The end of inevitability Jordan Furlong challenges the legal profession to think about its future. In a few short paragraphs he identifies the key issues that will shape how law is practised in the future. And it is not just that there are profound changes happening in the relationship between lawyers and their clients, but that it seems most lawyers are simply not aware of them.

It is a sobering post. For Furlong, it is that almost complete lack of awareness of the legal profession that is the real issue,

The one thing that concerns me most, as an observer of the extraordinary change in this marketplace, is that the majority of the profession has no idea what’s coming. Most of the lawyers with whom I’ve dealt over the past several years simply can’t envision a world where lawyers aren’t considered essential to the social and economic fabric. They might recognize that times are tougher and costs are rising and prices have topped out and clients are more demanding. They might be resentfully aware that providers outside the profession are entering the market with lower-price offerings, and they might grudgingly accept that technology allows things to be done faster and cheaper than they used to be. But they’re not putting it all together. They’re not following this road to its conclusion, because they can’t really see how the world could get along without us. The inevitably of lawyers is our fundamental precept, and it has become a mental block.

This is as true in the United Kingdom as it is in North America.

It is certainly difficult in the hurly-burly of practice to take time out to think about what we need to change to stay in the market; and the very fact that we are busy is itself a problem, because it allows us to think that things are, after all, OK: change is not something any of us are that eager to rush into. But choosing to ignore the problem won’t make it go away, and the clock is ticking. And just as Furlong ends his post, ” Lawyers should know better than anyone else what a ticking clock sounds like.”