The Great Recession has transformed entire industries. From manufacturing to banking and countless sectors in between, each has been or ultimately will be reshaped and retooled. The legal industry is no exception. Over the last two years, our industry’s experts have pointed to material and tangible changes in the pricing and delivery of legal services. Many conclude that profound changes — like decreased leverage, the push for cost predictability and increased value-added counseling — are here to stay.
These trends are in large part client-driven. With flat or shrinking budgets and, at best, conservatively optimistic economic projections for nearly all business sectors, the financial impetus for change is front and center. Clients are scrutinizing their legal budgets and undertaking comprehensive evaluations of their legal service providers. These same clients are similarly working with their outside lawyers to increase the predictability of fees and results and to obtain greater value for their dollars. More subtly but surely, these clients are driving their outside lawyers to be business-savvy problem-solvers as a complement to being legal service providers. The lawyers and firms who proactively meet these challenges will do more than survive, they will thrive.
