One size does not fit all: commercialisation of legal services

There has been a seismic change in recent years in the way in which legal services in England and Wales are delivered. Within a very short space of time we have moved from a centuries-old system of face-to-face meetings between professional and client, interspersed with traditional paper correspondence, to a culture where contact by telephone, email and text are regarded as the norm.

Services, formerly delivered exclusively by a highly respected and to a large extent ‘mysterious’ profession, are now offered by commercial organisations (apparently without the mystique).

Knee-jerk response

As a profession, we are inclined to deal with the effects of these changes in a piecemeal and/or knee-jerk way, without really considering the overall effect of them on the service we provide to our clients in specific circumstances.

In my view, we need to be more thoughtful in our approach if the profession is to thrive.

One very basic truth needs to be acknowledged. There is without doubt a difference in culture between commercial and private client lawyers and their clients – and there is good reason for that.

It is a truth often overlooked and systems within firms are often designed on a ‘one-size-fits- all’ basis, which simply does not translate between cultures. All clients are not the same and we need to tailor our approach to the particular needs of each.

As regards technological developments, there is a willingness among commercial lawyers to embrace change. Commercial clients are themselves technologically savvy and expect to do business with all their contacts using a variety of media.

Over the years, a culture of instant decision and deal-making has arisen and that pressure has been passed on to the advising lawyers who generally continue to be well regarded as specialists in their field.

And let’s face it, as a result of the figures involved and the pace of transactions, commercial law is seen as sexier than what many perceive as the rather ‘old-fashioned’ private client arena.

Commercial law has not yet been seriously threatened by the high street names. It is not seen as ‘routine’ and the stakes, in any case, are seen as too high.

But it is undoubtedly different on both fronts for the private client lawyer. Certainly many clients are happy to use modern technology as a convenient form of giving information to, or obtaining, up-to-date information from their solicitor. But whereas the commercial client is often not dealing with transactions that will not directly impinge on his/her own lifestyle, for the individual, the position is different.

The matters about which he/she consults have a very direct effect on their own life. Often the decisions being made affect absolutely everything they have financially, and not infrequently their independence, or that of a close family member.

An individual is usually less concerned with a swift solution than with the right one – in other words the one that after advice feels right and comfortable to them. They want to know we understand the specifics of their situation and how their family operates. They want to be listened to and understood. That cannot be achieved by electronic means alone.

Formal identification

Many clients we deal with are elderly and/or vulnerable. They are uncomfortable dealing with or unable to use modern technology. They have grown up in a world where personal appointments with advisers have been the norm.

Others are worried about loved but ‘fraying’ parents or children in unhappy situations. All these people are suffering a degree of anxiety when they consult us. Frequently, the problem a client thinks they have proves to not be the real issue that needs addressing at all. Only by face-to-face discussion, in which body language and facial expression are as important as what is vocalised, can the reality of a situation be properly identified.

Not infrequently, more can be disclosed by a client and/or understood about them as a result of informal conversation immediately before or after a formal meeting.

This was the case many years ago when it was discovered that a couple in their eighties, and for whom the firm I was a partner at had acted for decades, turned out to not be married, as had always been quoted. They were of an age where the stigma attached to ‘living in sin’ had led them to not disclose the truth and it was only when they knew me well that it ‘slipped out’ in conversation.

It made an obvious difference to their testamentary arrangements which had to be very speedily revised. We would have been none the wiser until one of the couple had died had we transacted their business by electronic means.

Public interest

High street names have launched conveyancing, probate and will-writing services and the media promotes their services – and the DIY approach – as an attractive money-saving option. No publicity is given to their associated risks. The picture painted is that all these exercises are routine matters of bureaucratic form-filling that anyone could do. (Why then, do they think a lawyer’s training so long and arduous?)

Whatever happened to the adage ‘penny wise, pound foolish’? Every one of us could cite numerous cases in which we have had to sort out the mess made by a non-professional – sometimes at a greater ultimate cost to the client than if we had undertaken the whole operation ourselves, but often where the client has benefited financially as we have been able to recover very significant amounts of tax or other assets which had been missed by the layman from whom we inherited the case.

There are analogies to be drawn between the roles of solicitors and bankers and also between solicitors and specialist medics.

Most of us hanker for the days when we all knew and were known by our high street bank manager who was available on the end of a telephone at his branch and who knew us and our family and affairs personally and who could make instant decisions with us about mortgages, loans, and investments.
A few of us still enjoy some of those privileges, but by no means all – and most individuals have none
of them.

Instead we deal with call centres; service is patchy, time is wasted and we are frustrated. We feel that no one at the bank knows and understands us or cares about us. We have become commodities not individuals – and we mind, because we are charged more than we used to be and bankers are seen to earn vastly more than they ever have for providing us with poorer and expensive service.

Such is the image that lawyers are beginning to acquire. We need to stop that rot.

What follows is an extreme and rather trite example, but you will get my point. As a layman, I could buy a craft knife and, if someone wrote me a set of instructions and provided me with a diagram or two, I could attempt my own appendectomy – but of course only a madman would do that. The risks are way too high – and we all understand that.

A layman can purchase a DIY will-making kit and fill it out himself. We know that the risks associated with that can also be huge – but generally the layman does not.

As private client specialists, our greatest priority should be to educate the public and the media about what it is we do and explain the importance of ‘value for money’ as opposed to ‘cheap’. SJ