Practice Management

Forbes  presents us with a pictorial of America's Fastest-Dying industries.  Most of them have been terribly affected by the Internet, telecom and social changes.  Most of them you will find obvious like newspapers and publishing, and pay phones.  Other might not be so obvious, such as bowling alleys (no longer cool as it was when I was younger), laundromats, beer production (the market is not dying so much as it is saturated), arcades (you can play cool games now at home), tobacco farming (although it is scoffed at, there are still a lot of people smoking), and DVD rental (can anybody say On Demand or Netflix).

Sometimes we kind of laugh at these suggestions, but then I think that when I was a child I did not see a time when the milkman would not come to our house once a week.

When you look at the list it is not to say that every industry is actually on its deathbed, as there seems to be enough beer and cigarettes to go around.  Every one of these industries is sick, and three things are the immediate cause.  One, technology is making access more plentiful in most of these situations.  Two, social trends are changing (often because of cheap tech).  Three, as tech and social trends drive down pricing (or at least do not let prices rise), these old industries cannot survive well.

I tend to think that one industry that should be on the list and is not are old line law firms.  Sure, you can cite the high entry salaries for Big Law, but this is an exception presently because of the increase in corporate and big business litigation.  They cannot hold on long term, however, because as industries fade and technology improves access and availability, even big international businesses are not going to tolerate $1,000 per hour fees and the overhead that these behemoths wrought.

Big Law aside, the truth of the matter is that there are two types of law - Big Law and Little Law, and Little Law is a much different animal made up of solos and small firms.  Most of these firms are consumer based, and as a result they already feel the squeeze.   Like beer there is a saturation problem.  Like bowling it is no longer cool to speak in terms of "your lawyer" because general practice is, well, just a think of the past.  Like tobacco farming, there is just an attack on lawyers in this country that often make lawyers appear out of favor despite the demand.  And, like arcades and DVD rentals technology is just making is possible to make legal services more accessible and cheaper.

Lawyers need to be more proactive.  I had to call back a law firm today in Houston that typically represents municipalities and they do real estate closings as well.  The attorney was not in and so I had to leave a message for the receptionist who wrote it down.  They still have to take a pink sheet back to the attorneys' office and place it in the attorney's chair.  I then asked if the attorney had an email address and was told yes, but they were not allowed to give it out.  I went on line only to figure out that the firm does not even have a static website.  They have offices in an expensive and impressive building in a ritzy part of town.  And I am left thinking that the milkman probably still visits this lawyer's house.  It is this thought that municipalities and those wanting to close real estate transactions do not need to be able to find you with the one tool or device they almost all use these days -- the Internet.

It is time to make communication seamless with your clients and other attorneys, to get rid of any unnecessary expenses and overhead, and learn to collaborate to get work accomplished efficiently and cost effectively.  If not, we law firm's might end up on the Forbes list of fastest dying industries as well.