White magic

The news last week that the majority of consumers relied primarily on friends' recommendations to choose a solicitor shouldn't come as a huge surprise. But it shouldn't be taken as reassurance either.

The finding came in a survey by Peppermint Technology, which canvassed 1,000 consumers and sought to assess the power of the new legal brands across both the consumer and business markets. Given the numbers surveyed the results provide a reasonably representative snapshot of the current state of the market. Forty four per cent of consumers said they would ask friends for a recommendation and this was the most important factor for 35 per cent.

Much as lawyers might like to look at these figures as comforting reassurance that they provide the valuable personal touch that distinguishes them from machines, other findings should cause them to reflect. Only nine per cent of consumers would take a walk down the high street to look for a lawyer, with 24 per cent looking online instead. And traditional advertising is at the bottom of the pile with only seven per cent of consumers saying they would look up ads in the local papers.

This is a serious hint as to what the future could hold for unsuspecting firms. The provision of legal services online or via big ABS retailer brands has two facets. One is the quality of the service: can clever automated processes really provide the same standard of legal service as that given face-to-face by a lawyer? The other is education: as with other services, pioneers and early adopters will be critical in securing the success of the new channels.

Responding to one of my tweets on the topic last week legal process specialist Jon Busby said machines existed to 'eliminate processes that lawyers shouldn't be doing anyway'. Most lawyers will probably agree with that. Jon also said machines weren't there to replace friends, because 'friends have a different job to the machine'. This is also true. Jon works for legal document-assembly business Epoq so his views are perhaps not surprising. But they highlight the conundrum neatly. The race is on between ABSs and law firms to 'educate' consumers of legal services '“ some will even say that the race has been on since the Clementi proposals and that we are now nearer the finish line than we think. This is not to be scaremongering; it's just what will be happening.

Lawyers can no longer hide behind the dark magic of legal advice as a competence requiring particular skills that only those who have gone through the initiation process can deliver in return for fees left unchecked. For the first time, and without the need for a legal comparison website, a number of online legal services are, together, beginning to provide a benchmark for the quality and price of legal services. At present the online/face-to-face divide still exists but there is no reason why these online services will not set the benchmark for consumer legal services across the board before long.

This shouldn't lead to the death of face-to-face, tailored legal advice, but lawyers offering it will have to convince consumers about the additional value. If lawyers manage to provide this distinctive service, they will have succeeded in educating consumers. This will work for firms at the higher end of the consumer market. The rest, however, will only succeed if they join the online revolution and show themselves as key players setting standards rather than mere followers trying to catch up. If they ignore the potential offered by online and overlook retailers' and ABS's power to attract consumers, they will have a hard time keeping their space in the sector. As a group, these law firms - smaller and medium size traditional high street practices - could be a powerful factor of influence. For those that grasp the issue, it could be the best opportunity in a generation. The question is whether the law firm concept can survive if the profession as a whole is not thinking in the same direction.