 Why dropping tools is easier said than done: innovation and why it doesn’t happenEverybody is looking for the “Dyson moment” – the moment when legal services are changed fundamentally by someone who looks at the problem from a new perspective, applies a different solution and hey presto! Toilets around the globe have been changed by the introduction of the Dyson hand dryer. Legal services, so the argument goes, just need a fresh approach.
Well, yes, I agree. The market is ripe for a ground-breaking change, one that radically and fundamentally changes the way that legal services are delivered. A disruptive innovation. Process improvements, BLP and TLT’s adoption of business transformation skills, improved project management, vertical integration and multidisciplinary approaches, many of the latter driven by the new accountancy led ABS. There have been many improvements, but not anything that makes us go “wow!” In truth, these are all refinements: as Henry Ford would have said (with apologies to his memory) these are all ways to build the proverbial faster horse. So..Where is the disruptive innovation? The answer is: probably not in a law firm. Innovation often comes from outside.
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 Christmas is coming. Cards are being written, presents bought, children are practising for their end of term extravaganza and everyone seems to be busier than ever. Have you even started thinking about your New Year’s resolution yet?
If not - can I suggest one that’s going to be critical for every law firm in 2015: To get under the skin of my ideal client and learn how to do what they want, in the way that they want it for a price they like - more efficiently and profitably than our competitors.  How to stop looking at the horse manure: innovation and how to make it happen In Part 1, I looked at why disruptive innovation often comes outside and suggested that those who resist change do so even at their own peril – literally, sometimes, in life and death situations. So it is hardly a surprise that even whilst espousing business transformation, lawyers resist the very changes they aspire to.
Of course, the legal services industry is not life and death. And no, I’m not going to make the Bill Shanklin jest about it being far more serious than that. Except, sometimes it is. Sometimes human liberty, even life, can be at stake. Sometimes it does not even need to be so dramatic for a matter to have a life changing impact: being removed from accommodation unlawfully or having a judgment entered against you. With the withdrawal of legal aid there is a pressing social need for legal services to be made cheaper and more readily available to the poorest and least able in society. |
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