Partners and law firms have positioned themselves as expert since God was a boy. But the task of achieving a trustworthy and credible status in the target community just got a lot harder.
Many law firms under one brand
Alternative Business Structures (or ‘Tesco Law’ as it’s known, because it is going to allow legal services to be offered on a ‘supermarket’ basis by non-law firms) have prompted some solicitors to launch the first serious law firm marketing alliance: QualitySolicitors. It’s a national high street branch network that aims to become the first ‘household name’ legal brand.
By having a national shop-front presence, supported by marketing, QualitySolicitors aims to protect the interests of its member law firms against expected competition for legal work from non-law firms.
But how will participating firms’ own identities fare? There appear to be a couple of entry levels for firms joining the new alliance. One is full participation under the new brand; the other is a partial re-brand.
That’s one strategy for facing off the ‘supermarkets’ as they enter the arena.
State of independence
Law firms that wish to remain independent will now have to work harder to raise their flags against bigger, well-funded brands.
More than ever firms and partners need to speak directly to clients and prospects with a clear, honest voice. People seeking legal support today are digitally sophisticated and will often do a great deal of research online before approaching a firm.
Firms need to shrug off decades of caution and dive into the social whirl. In the process they need to freely give advice and opinion in a way hitherto unheard of. The concept of ‘Freemiums get Premiums’ applies to law as it does to most services.
The knowledge and expertise firms share on the social web will be a defining factor for firms wishing to consolidate or grow in the changing climate of Branded Law.
This is where a planned schedule of quality, generous content pays dividends. Prospects and clients will appreciate a consistent voice cutting through the noise and advertising that will inevitably result from Tesco Law.
Some lucky firms might be asked to participate in Law Donut, the excellent business law publishing collaboration.
Others will require more bespoke content. They’ll either bring content production expertise in-house, or outsource it to content marketing experts. These are the firms that will have a distinct and secure place in the market 10 years from now.
If you’d like a rigorous content schedule aimed at your target market, please get in touch.
Notes
It’s well worth reading the comments under the Law Society article – a mix of hilarious pomposity and reasoned judgement.
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
I subsequently found this good intro to QS from a participating firm, @inksters: http://www.inksters.com/qualitysolicitorsorganisation.aspx
Mick
The point about social media and professional services is that firms/partners/stakeholders need to know how to leverage their creative intellectual capital (see the book Re-imagine! by Tom Peter @tom_peters). At the moment social media is too focused on the tools: the theory seems to go that build it and they will come. Not enough time is being spent questioning the logic or immersion of social media and the usual elephant in the room, being time. In my view it is only when law firms start to apply the same sort of rigour and analysis to social media as they would do to any other BD or PR activity that things start to feel more meaningful (and I don’t mean just focusing on the ROI, which is always very ethereal in the context of social media).
Lots and lots to think about but that is what makes it so fascianting (for me at least).
jULIAN
I’d go along with everything you say, Julian. Particulary ‘too much focus on the tools’ – the technology is secondary. Lack of content is where most organisations fall down (but I would say that). They know it’s important, but not how to produce it. This is also true with a lot of law firms.
I think it is going to be difficult for “Quality Solicitors” to compete with the corporates entering the market. The corporates have on their side (1) huge economies of scale, (2) years of experience in dealing as efficiently (and ruthlessly!) as possible internally, and (3) the clout that comes from a carefully constructed friendly, comforting or indeed iconic public image. Many would love to say that their conveyancing has been done by good old Steve Jobs or Richard Branson!
So I think it’s a strange move on the part of those firms that have entered the “Quality Solicitors” brand, although one that’s understandable. They are effectively saying, “if you can’t beat em, join em”. But they’ll be badly outgunned, within a year or so. My advice would have been the opposite, namely to separate themselves from the mass market in whatever ways they can.
However that requires tough decisions: redundancies, in particular, as you drop your routine conveyancing team in favour of a lean and highly skilled “country house sales” department – probably just the partner within the current extensive team. And high street firms, unlike their City counterparts from whom the hawkish lawyer image derives, and unlike Apple, Virgin and Tesco, are actually fairly cuddly places who don’t like letting people down.
Not very long hence, I think, the high street firm will disappear. It is sad – as we will lose a largely benign part of our culture, as English as tea and rain – but true. As Richard Susskind says in his book, it will become an anachronism like the medieval guilds. Does anyone now know or care what a chandler did? No.
The interesting question is, what will remain? I predict three tiers of legal services provider: (1) the internet and Tesco for the mass market; (2) niche firms / boutiques dealing with what the mass providers cannot, for the more sophisticated or demanding smaller client (SMEs, high net worth individuals); and (3) mega-firms such as we have at present, albeit more technologically literate.
How about you?