Brand new world

Despite the over-hyped and much-feared spectre of 'Tesco law' currently looming large over legal profession, there appears to be little enthusiasm on the part of the consumers to buy their legal services from supermarkets or, indeed, any of the household names associated with the retail market. That was one of the headline findings in a new report by the legal research company Jures called 'Shopping Around: What consumers want from the new legal services market'.

In a survey of more than 2,000 people, consumers were asked which leading brand they would purchase legal advice from if they could (Tesco, Marks & Spencer, Barclays Bank, Virgin, etc). While the most popular of the big name brands was that perennial high street favourite M&S (14 per cent), more than half weren't even tempted by the big names (54 per cent '“ see box).

Only one in 20 consumers was willing to associate Tesco with legal services despite the fact that the retailer has lent its name '“albeit unwillingly '“ to the liberalising package of reforms under the Legal Services Act 2007.

To mark the launch of the report, leading lawyers and commentators were invited to discuss the importance of 'the brand' in the brave new post-LSA world: how does the legal profession compete with the comparatively limitless marketing clout of the new entrants currently eyeing up legal services? Does the profession have any hope of developing its own solicitor-led brands to fend off the newcomers?

The roundtable discussion was hosted by Fox Williams, chaired by partner Doug Preece and featured Ian Dodd, director of BarFutures; Nick Jervis, director of Samson Consulting; Neil Kinsella, chief executive at Russell Jones & Walker; Jon Trigg, strategy director of A4e; Andrew Twambley, senior partner at Amelans and founder of Injury Lawyers 4U; Fraser Whitehead, head of parliamentary and legal affairs at Russell Jones & Walker; Tina Williams, senior partner at Fox Williams; Tony Williams, director at Jomati and former managing partner of Clifford Chance; and Jeff Zindani, managing partner of Forum Law.

A question of brand

Arguably, there has never been a successful legal brand that has impinged upon the public consciousness. Why was that? asked Doug Preece. 'Firms just haven't spent the serious money to achieve it,' replied Tony Williams, adding that in a Financial Times survey of the 500 top brands only three law firms appeared '“ 'and they were all in the second half'. 'Clearly there's no stickiness for legal brands at the moment '“ and that's a worry for us,' Williams said.

'What concerns me is that we're all talking about creating brands and yet nobody has created a brand as a law firm yet in any real sense,' commented Neil Kinsella. His firm, RJW, bought the Claims Direct name as well as its contact centre technology and relaunched the service in 2007 with a £5m annual advertising campaign. Claims Direct is possibly the one brand to have any recognition with consumers '“ and at height of its powers Claims Direct was signing up 5,000 new clients a month as a result of a saturation TV campaign and deploying armies of reps in shopping centres.

Fellow RJW partner Fraser Whitehead questioned what it might be that firms were seeking to compete against. 'Are those who are going to be selling themselves as new entrants to the market going to be branding themselves as lawyers or are they going to be branding themselves as something else?' he queried. He argued that the profession was attempting to compete with a market in flux where the newcomers might be 'using buying power to create brand awareness in law. But will they brand themselves as lawyers or, for example, as a large supermarket with an ancillary function?'

Jeff Zindani argued that the profession wasn't offering a single product to brand anyway. 'We have a situation where you have services transformed into products '“ for example, personal injury, wills, etc.

From a branding point of view in the retail marketplace there will be identifiable services that become products that are bought and sold around a trust issue.'

The profession was 'too hung up on the issue of brands', reckoned Jon Trigg, whose 'welfare-to-work' company runs a number of large-scale legal aid contracts. A4e has made no secret of its plans to be in the first wave of alternative business structures (ABSs).

Consumers didn't seem 'tied to big brand names' and supermarket branding was ''a bit of a misnomer' '“ 'the supermarket is just an enveloping brand tied around 50,000 other brands'. The purchaser of legal services was 'most often making a distress purchase' and so the importance of 'trying to connect it to a retail brand which the customer has an involvement with on an almost daily basis' was 'over-stated'.

Andrew Twambley, who runs the Injury Lawyers 4U network, questioned the assumption behind the assertion that there had been no successful legal brands.

He pointed out that Marketing Magazine conducts regular surveys of consumer perceptions around the 20 most recognisable brands on TV advertising and rated IL4U 'eighth or ninth in the last two surveys. There is recognition.'

This is quality

In the week of 'Shopping Around' coming out, the QualitySolicitors network launched its national 'high street' branch network with the first 15 of 300 planned 'branches' across the UK in which a number of well-established regional firms had a complete rebranding reappearing as 'QualitySolicitors Burroughs Day', 'QualitySolicitors Lockings'. The idea is to offer a similar retail experience to clients as they might have walking into franchise like Specsavers from the signage over the front door through to stationery.

Chief executive Craig Holt sees the scheme's success as all about the creation of a legal brand. 'The guiding principle is to ask: how would Virgin or M&S approach this?' he said. 'Let's not think about lawyers for once, but let's think of a large consumer brand and almost redefine what it means to get legal services.'

Could this approach be the salvation of the high street? asked Doug Preece. 'It could work if it's saying something about the quality of the experience that one can expect going through the door,' said Tina Williams. 'But it will not work unless the actual experience matches the name. There has to be that consistency between what is promised and what is actually delivered. That is where the real work has to be started.'

Nick Jervis has set up Loyalty Law, a new scheme aimed specifically at high street solicitors. The concept is to build 'a nationally recognised legal brand providing a quality legal service from smaller firms'. Jervis argued that there was a future for small community solicitors' firms in a world where shoppers have increasingly been attracted by the likes of farm shops and home delivery of organic vegetables. He argued that with 'some clever marketing and a targeted local approach' consumers had 'gladly returned to smaller providers'.

According to Jervis, some traditional high street firms were doing incredibly well 'because they communicate with their clients, take time to listen and keep in touch after the case is concluded. In other words, they do the basics.' He cited the 'Shopping Around' survey which indicated that more than four out of ten consumers would ask a friend or family member for a recommendation (44 per cent) and just over one in five still have 'a family solicitor' (21 per cent).

'People go for recommendations from families and friends and yet another survey suggested people cannot name a single law firm. They also go to Google and that's why so many firms are generating work online. If firms take time to cultivate their name, I don't see any reason why they cannot carry on doing what they do and avoid the situation we had with the greengrocers and butchers disappearing from the high street.'

'Do you actually need a high street as far as legal services go?' interjected Andrew Twambley. 'Most people I know access legal services through the internet. Is the high street relevant?'

Neil Kinsella queried whether the support for a marketing scheme like QualitySolicitors from the profession might be a passing fad 'like gym membership. You do it one year, and you don't renew the next.'

He suspected that an exercise like QualitySolicitors could be 'rebranding something that doesn't work. It is like applying a sticking plaster to a severed artery.'

'Some people might say you would say that,' quipped Jeff Zindani, arguing that such approaches threatened the position of the larger claimant firms by allowing 'the smaller practices to come together as a cooperative with the customer experience to create a quality brand'. 'I think it could take off but only if it is properly capitalised,' the solicitor said. 'They might run out of money after the first year.'

Jon Trigg called the move 'very unlawyer-like: audacious, bold and one that challenges the status quo. It is to be hugely applauded, especially if it stops the profession from this obsession with talking to itself and actually talking to its clients.'

Neil Kinsella didn't agree. 'Do you think it is challenging the status quo? I think it's propping it up.'

'What this research indicates is that there is an appetite among consumers for better ways to distinguish quality and make choices when it comes to legal services '“ rather than people simply taking what they're given or what's based just around the corner,' comments David Edmonds, chair of the Legal Services Board.