Ottawa Accident Lawyers - Interesting article about lawyers

It's the end of the profession as you know it, lawyers told

With other options, clients expect more for less, professor says

Article by: Janice Tibbetts, Postmedia News

Lawyers are under a "huge threat" and risk being run out of business unless they come to grips with a new legal order instead of trusting that big profits will bounce back when the economy recovers, says a legal futurist.

"The genie is out of the bottle," warned Richard Susskind, who said Tuesday that the wide availability of do-it-yourself services and legal documents online, along with a growing trend to hire lawyers in India for a fraction of the cost, will force the profession to offer more for less.

"That is the mindset you have to have," Susskind, author of a provocative book called The End of Lawyers?, told the Canadian Bar Association. "What I find as I wander around is that there is no way back."

Susskind, an international speaker and professor at Oxford University in England who has made a bit of a splash in the legal world with his brand of futurism, noted that his audiences tend to be gatherings of senior lawyers who seem more interested in short-term profitability that the wave of the future.

"Leading firms are relying on the market returning," said Susskind, adding that the "old way of thinking" is gradually giving way to more openness because the traditional business is under siege.

Clients, in particular, are loathe to pay high hourly rates for routine services that they can source online or find offshore for a fraction of the cost, Susskind said.

The public is not only demanding more, but young lawyers are also questioning whether the business model is broken, whether fixed costs are too high, and whether senior partners care about the long-term sustainability of the profession, he said.

The bar association hired Susskind as a "special adviser" last year to help modernize the business in Canada, which has been slow to adopt new ways of doing business to compete with novel legal services.

Traditionally, lawyers have billed by the hour and clients pay for the whole package of services, without knowing whether they are getting value for their money.

Canadian lawyers have been considering following a growing trend in the United States of "unbundling" services by permitting clients to do some of the work themselves.

Critics, however, contend it could open up lawyers to legal problems of their own by offering advice on issues when they do not have the full picture.