Law Students

Link: Strategic Legal Technology :: Measuring Lawyer Quality. Ron has a couple of excellent posts here regarding lawyers and process issues. It seems like, despite how legal services are sold, that there is relatively little process (read quality assurance) that goes into the delivery of legal services, apart from the professionalism of the individual contributor primarily responsible. Sure, mentoring happens occasionally in "one off" instances, but mostly the almighty billable hour reigns because "process" is not readily billable.

But that is mostly nonsense. Take Ron's analysis of checklists in the operating room or the kind of QA that software requires. I believe that process is simply something that lawyers are not comfortable with. There is no training for it in law schools or anywhere else as far as I can tell. This is certainly not an optimal state of affairs but one that globalization and a more competitive environment is likely to have an impact on. Clients will begin to expect more. They will begin to ask the right questions. When they do, firms that have a process in place to ensure quality are likely to win more business.

The "good 'ole boy" nature of the profession has some serious cracks in it. A shakeout will be good for consumers and good for those firms that learn the importance of process.