Avoiding Extinction: Reimagining Legal Services for the 21st Century

Maria Fernandez, General Counsel of Kowtor Industries, clicked on the YouTube link. Sylvester Bowen, CEO and chairman of Bowen, Fong & Chandri, was perched on a stool in front of a plain white backdrop, center stage. After a tight close-up, the camera pulled back as Bowen began speaking: "There are countless law firms around the world. Many are very successful. However, our recipe for success is far different from theirs. We are successful because we believe in challenging the status quo. We are successful because we believe in changing the nature of how legal services are delivered. We are successful because we relentlessly search for ways to leverage technology and professionals in order to service our clients’ legal needs. We are successful because we don’t benchmark against what others are doing—we reimagine the entire process." Bowen stood up and walked to the front of the stage. "But why, in a world that is flooded with law firms, have we achieved success? Are our lawyers more highly skilled? Are our lawyers the most highly paid? Do we charge the cheapest fees? Do we perform legal functions that no one else can? The answer to all of these questions is: no. We are successful because our clients not only buy what we do, they buy why we do it. Our clients see our passion and they want to be part of our drive for innovation. Seems like an odd thing for a law firm client to want, isn’t it? I’ll let you in on a little secret. Our goal is not to do business with every single client on the planet. In fact, we don’t want to do business with every single client on the planet—even if we could resolve all the conflict issues. We want to do business with those who believe in what we believe. Our clients want to see that we are as innovative as they are. They want to see that we want to make our services better, faster, and cheaper—that the laws of economics also apply to legal service providers. They want to see that we don’t abuse our monopoly by providing average service at high prices. In the traditional law firm model, there is immense pressure on lawyers to pound out more billable hours each year; to work harder in order to make more profits. This mindset inhibits innovation. It encourages each lawyer to act in his or her own self-interest rather than in the interests of the firm as a whole. It encourages the pursuit of short-term profits at the expense of long-term stability and profitability. This mindset encourages lawyers to see the firm as nothing more than the sum of its parts instead of something that is greater than the sum of its parts. In my view, firms that do not change their business model and embrace innovation are dousing themselves in gasoline and marching along a burning platform to their own destruction." Maria paused the video and pulled out the Bowen, Fong & Chandri submission, bound much like the other two law firms she and her team had short-listed. Could BFC really be any different? Or was Bowen just a great salesman?