International expansion, brainstorming sessions and competition advice are not examples of innovation, says Tim Bratton

As one general counsel put it to me recently: "The reset button has been pressed on the legal profession." But while the button has certainly been pressed, the machine has not yet rebooted.

If one needed to look for evidence of the reset, it was given by Mark Harris, CEO and founder of Axiom Legal, who received a special achievement award at the FT Innovative Lawyers Awards in October.

If anyone had suggested 10 years ago that in 2013 a US start-up would be winning legal awards ahead of – and, more importantly, winning work from – the magic circle and other leading City firms, they would have been laughed out of the Square Mile.

But if one wanted to look for evidence that the machine has not yet rebooted, then it's worth taking a closer look at a few of this year's other FT Awards entries. While many were truly innovative – and congratulations must deservedly go to the winners – a handful strike me as 'business as usual', not innovation. 

tim-bratton-ftExamples include 'providing cutting-edge competition advice', holding 'a one-day brainstorming session' and 'international expansion'. Entries such as these demonstrate that while the words 'legal profession' and 'innovation' are not quite paradoxical terms, they do not always fit comfortably into the same sentence.

Many leading thinkers and practitioners have talked about the systemic changes experienced by the market over the past 10 years. But if firms continue to submit 'business as usual' entries for the UK's leading legal innovation awards, it surely illustrates just how far the profession has yet to travel on its innovation journey.

It is too easy to lay the blame solely at the door of the legal service providers. But, barring a few exceptions, any firm that thinks it can continue to rely on a model that is simply the continued provision of traditional legal services will at some point suffer a rude awakening.

The market's new 'disruptor brands' such as Axiom and Lawyers on Demand (LoD) are here to stay. As clients realise the benefits that flexible legal resourcing can bring to their teams and organisations, many leading law firms are reassessing their offerings and adapting to these new upstarts. They are doing so either by entering the market themselves or accepting the business case for working with those alternative service providers on some projects.

Ultimately, though, the providers will not reshape the landscape themselves. Clients will play the instrumental role in making sure that supply meets demand.

While clients understandably demand 'more for less', the most innovative general counsel are also open minded about how they are willing to work with their legal service providers. More for less with no change to service provision simply will not work. More for less with structural service change will.

Over the past seven years, LoD has seen that many clients are already alive to this and client demand had led to significant disruption of the legal marketplace. LoD was an early-stage service that was conceived to meet that early disruptive demand, but we are now facing the challenge of seeing who wants to disrupt the disruptors.

Whether launched as a standalone service or with the backing of an international law firm, there is an ever-lengthening queue of alternative legal service providers eager to compete. LoD's secondment model remains an innovation success story, but we know we won't 'win' unless we continue to evolve our service offerings and pricing structures in line with market demand and increased competition.

'Put yourself in the client's shoes' is a constant LoD mantra and service development is a daily theme in our office. While services like LoD's are forcing global law firms to reassess their business models and not rest on their laurels, competition from the other flexible resourcing services means we at LoD are constantly evaluating out product to make sure we continue to match client demands.

I'd like to think that, as the FT Awards evolve, the bar will be set much higher and we won't see even a handful of 'business as usual' entries and instead will see people and practices pushing the boundaries of innovation. To make this happen, the profession (both suppliers and clients) needs to think about what it wants the future to look like.

As Harris put it on the night: "Bigger is not better; better is better." Indeed, but what is better? That is a question law firms, alternative providers and in-house lawyers all need to answer. Because if they don't, someone is going to answer it for them and they will lose far more than the chance of winning an award. Change does not happen by talking about innovation – it comes through creative thinking, brave steps and hard work.

Once the machine does fully reboot, the game could be up for those who don't play better. But the good news is that those who embrace change – however uncomfortable they feel at first – have the potential to be game-changers. I see plenty of opportunity ahead.

Tim Bratton is practice development director at Lawyers On Demand and blogs at thelegalbratblawg. Click here to follow Tim on Twitter.

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