Client Services in the Legal Information Age

  • January 14, 2014
  • Michael Geist

Table of Contents

  1. Introduction
  2. The Changing Legal Service Landscape - The Threat
    1. Access to Legal Information
    2. Selection of Legal Counsel
    3. Competition - Borderless and on the Home Front
    4. Automation of Legal Services
  3. The Changing Legal Service Landscape - The Opportunity
  4. Leveraging Legal Knowledge
  5. Overcoming Barriers for Small and Medium Sized Law
  6. Summary
  7. Best Practices - Internet-based Client Services
  8. Legal Dot-Com's
  9. Additional Resources

1. Introduction

The Internet has sparked a radical change in the delivery of legal services. It changes how clients access lawyers and legal information, creates a borderless environment for the provision of legal services that brings large U.S. and U.K. firms into the Canadian market, and automates or commodifies some legal services1. For Canadian law firms the changes present both a threat and an opportunity. As a threat, the changes mean more demanding clientele, more competition, and the prospective loss of longstanding lucrative legal services. As an opportunity, the Internet provides new ways to market existing and prospective clients, opens new markets, and enables movement toward higher-end legal services.

This guide provides the Canadian legal community with an overview of the changes in the legal marketplace. It assesses the changes from both perspectives, identifies how to provide new legal services that leverage existing firm strengths, and highlights best practice examples from Canada and around the world.

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2. The Changing Legal Service Landscape - The Threat

The Internet, as the catalyst for the changing conditions in the legal industry, has fueled a democratization of legal information and services to a more aware and educated marketplace -- leading to the imposition of greater demands upon established legal service providers.

a. Access to Legal Information

Prior to the placement of legal information on the Internet, clients were largely dependent upon lawyers for accessing the law. With community library systems rarely able to stack volumes of legislation, legal journals and case law, the public faced little alternative but to turn to the legal system.

The Internet has dramatically changed the way the public and legal profession access legal information. Court systems around the world now provide free access to case law, court documents and procedures. Governments supply electronic versions of statutes and regulations that previously cost hundreds of dollars to obtain from legal publishers. Legal information services now feature virtual libraries that house an abundance of legal primers, FAQs, commentary and instruction.

The widespread availability of legal information on the Internet provides consumers with the basic tools needed to access the law. The result is better informed, more assertive clients who increasingly seek collaborative work relationships with their legal counsel.

b. Selection of Legal Counsel

The emergence of the World Wide Web as a marketing tool has increased the approachability of law firms to the public. Using websites that feature firm profiles, attorney biographies, and service fee information, consumers of legal services now have the opportunity to comparison shop for legal services without the need for formal contact with any firm. Moreover, email enables prospective clients to contact lawyers with no-obligation questions in a less formal environment.

The Web introduces a second possibility for consumers in the lawyer selection process. Consumers are able to search for a law firm or a lawyer through online law directories, which frequently act as intermediaries by providing advice and information on law firm selection. These sites often include discussions on billing practices, questions to ask lawyers, and what to expect when speaking with lawyers, all resulting in better educated clients.

c. Competition - Borderless and on the Home Front

The global nature of the Internet provides large U.S. and European firms, already accustomed to competing in the global marketplace, with ready access to another legal market -- Canada. The large foreign firms, supported by vast financial resources and marketing expertise, can leverage the Internet to quickly launch virtual law firms and knowledge services into untapped markets.

The Internet is also likely to increase competition within Canada. Law firm websites allow Canadian firms to make themselves available to clients nationwide without the need for local offices. With the expansion of national law firms and the dismantling of barriers between provincial law societies, ironically the competition faced by smaller firms will intensify as small firms are forced to compete for clients both locally and nationally.

d. Automation of Legal Services

In response to demands for reduced legal costs, repetitive or redundant processes such as court filing and corporate registration are likely to become automated services. Interestingly, the automation threat comes not from traditional law firms but rather from emerging e-commerce legal service providers anxious to compete with established legal entities. This shift in the marketplace has already begun to manifest itself with online providers offering small claims court document filing, divorce kits, and incorporation. Unless traditional law firms alter their service delivery systems, clients will see little difference in the quality of work carried out by e-commerce service providers and traditional law firms.

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3. The Changing Legal Service Landscape - The Opportunity

While many view the changing legal service environment as a threat, others see opportunity. Successful law firms will respond to change with the mindset that the future presents a renaissance for the legal industry. Providing easily automated legal services will no longer drive legal practice. Instead, lawyers will be sought after for value added services, with information technologies playing a pivotal role in the realization of this potential. To reach that potential, law firms must integrate information technology into all facets of their client service approach, enhance existing client relationships through the provision of value added services, and ensure that clients perceive their role to be one of an indispensable advisor.

  1. Access to Legal Information
    Law firms can attract those wishing to use the Internet as a research tool by supplying them with the very information that they seek. By implementing a marketing strategy that includes email newsletters, publications and legal primers, law firms will become prime sources of legal information. In recasting themselves as providers of legal information knowledge, law firms establish connections to the marketplace and increase their value to existing and prospective clients. As a result, existing and potential clients will turn to the law firm first as a source of freely available legal information, and second, as a source of value added legal services and higher-margin legal transactions.

  2. Selection of Legal Counsel
    Internet marketing provides law firms with an unprecedented opportunity to market the firm and its expertise to an ever-growing client base. Using value-added technological tools such as extranets, knowledge services, and portals, law firms can garner greater awareness among both existing and prospective clients and firmly establish their relevance in a changing legal services climate.

  3. Competition - Borderless and on the Home Front
    Faced with foreign and domestic competition, Canadian legal entities must themselves leverage the Internet's reach to serve clients in foreign countries. Law firms should adopt an aggressive position by using the Internet as a marketing and services platform that emphasizes competitive advantages such as reputation, pricing and technological superiority. Moreover, with information technology leading the way, firms must develop new services in order to maintain and grow existing client relationships.

  4. Automation of Legal Services
    Law firms can respond to the emergence of e-commerce legal service providers by expanding their own range of services to include a combination of traditional, and electronic legal services and applications. In fact, traditional law firms enjoy significant competitive advantages against their e-commerce rivals since newer electronic providers will be unable to offer the full suite legal services and applications.

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4. Leveraging Legal Knowledge

As law firms awaken to the potential of the Internet and e-commerce, they increasingly realize that their greatest asset is not brand recognition or a blue chip client base – it is their knowledge. While that knowledge may be sold to clients on an hourly or project basis, the electronic environment provides new means of leveraging that knowledge base. The following section highlights some of the possibilities, focusing on legal knowledge services and modes of delivery.

Legal Knowledge Services

The term 'knowledge service' refers to a service that delivers legal information in electronic form. The service provides client access to the legal knowledge accumulated by law firms via databases and intelligent search technologies.

Types of knowledge services include:

  • Legal Web Advisors
    Using artificial intelligence, these systems have the ability to 'learn' the law as information accumulates within its database. Users pose questions to the system in order to retrieve information. The system responds to these queries by answering the legal questions and providing advice. The advisors augment services offered by lawyer since lawyers educate the system by entering their own legal information and knowledge. While the full-scale implementation of legal web advisors remains a future possibilities, these services are likely to raise the need for codes of conduct and identification of potential liability issues.

  • Decision-Tree Expert Systems
    This system produces answers to legal questions in the form of an answer that states 'You need to do A, B, C, D and E 2.' For the system to retrieve this information it poses a series of questions to the users. With each response the search field is narrowed until the desired information is located.

  • Virtual Libraries
    Virtual legal libraries enable law firms to provide their clientele with access to memo banks, publications, specialized instructions, and primers. Virtual libraries can also provide clients with access to legal forms and documents ready for customization.

The client benefits in using electronic legal knowledge services include:

  • Flexible pricing – Electronic legal knowledge services permit law firms to provide clients with legal information priced on a subscription basis, enabling clients to control their legal costs, while being served with expert advice and information.
  • Awareness – By providing clients with access to a greater range of information, clients better appreciate their need for legal services and are able to identify potential solutions before problems become serious.
  • 24/7 availability – The delivery of electronic legal knowledge services allows content to be accessed from anywhere at anytime, giving clients flexibility and convenience when retrieving information.
  • Active clients – The information garnered from legal knowledge services enables clients to play an active role in fulfilling their legal requirements. By retrieving the information themselves, clients become involved in the legal process and develop into a partner in the legal process.
  • Satisfaction – When clients work for themselves, using self-services legal tools, they gain a sense of satisfaction in their interaction with the legal system.

The benefits for law firms in providing electronic legal knowledge services:

  • More awareness means more service – With clients retrieving legal information themselves, the law firm becomes more aware of their needs resulting in the provision of more higher-margin legal work.
  • Lower costs – Knowledge services satisfy the demands from the marketplace to provide legal information at lower or more accessible costs. Law firms will find it easier to maintain existing relationships, as they will be competitive and responsive to client needs.
  • Client dependency -- In establishing an electronic relationship with clients, legal entities are making it difficult for their clients to abandon them. When legal knowledge and information becomes commoditized, law firms shift toward providing unique value added services.
  • Efficiencies -- Legal knowledge and information as a service transforms law firm operations, creating efficiencies in the storage of, and access to, its lawyers' expertise.

Electronic legal knowledge services will become a value-added service for some clients, and a primary service for others. Whatever the clients' needs, introducing knowledge services sets the stage for law firms to become indispensable legal service providers.

Modes of Delivery

  • Extranets
    Law firms are increasingly turning to extranets, a web-based technology, to optimize and add value to their client relationships. Extranets provide a secure private network connection between clients and firms with a Web-based interface. In return for an investment in technological capital, law firms receive the benefit of a more efficient working relationship with clients. An extranet best serves to facilitate communication and access to information between clients and firms. As the information located on the extranet can contain case files, billing information, memoranda, and other relevant documents, clients enjoy the ability to retrieve vital information at their convenience.

    Implementation of an extranet requires analysis of several considerations. These include:

    • Since the establishment of an extranet requires a significant investment, a full review of the associated costs is essential. For example, extranets frequently involve the purchase of new computing equipment or the retention of application service providers that may lease or rent the necessary server space.
    • Since client service levels will directly impact the extranet operational budget, firms should consider, which services are likely to result in the greatest short term cost recovery. The level of service will determine bandwidth usage and technical support requirements.

  • Wireless services
    As clients become increasingly mobile, the integration of technology to support their needs is paramount. Legal entities that are quick to make their services available to clients through a myriad of remote media will be well positioned to satisfy their clients' adaptation to new technology. By serving customers wherever they are, a firm ensures that its clients are dependent upon its services. For every link that is established between the firm and a client, it becomes increasingly difficult for that client to sever the relationship.

    In Canada, the Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) is the current technological standard for delivering content on a wireless device. While a WAP site bears many similarities to standard Web sites, it does require separate design and development. Law firms seeking to develop wireless services will typically require web design and web hosting providers in order to implement their wireless strategy.

  • Law Firm portal
    The law firm portal serves as the hub for a firm's online activities. The portal integrates marketing, communication and client service functions and strategies. A portal site, blending free and pay content with multimedia, electronic legal applications and knowledge services is the ideal mode for an effective law firm website.

    The portal invites prospective clients to create new relationships with the firm. As these potential clients continue to make use of the free services, connections are reinforced turning prospects into new clients. Offering free services to prospective clients through the portal, engenders trust and allows them to become accustomed to the firm's expertise and services.

    The free services offered on the portal benefit existing clients as well. A relationship building strategy that extends zero-cost value-added services to existing clients reinforces the connections between them and the firm.

    Content should be frequently updated since stale or old content provides visitors with little or no incentive to return to the website. Establishing a regular schedule for new content additions is one method of ensuring that the website remains fresh.

    As firms move from providing free content to online legal services through their portal, an investment in hardware, software, and technological support is typically required. Technology vendors and consultants can assist in determining the costs associated with developing e-commerce services.

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5. Overcoming Barriers for Small and Medium Sized Law Firms

The challenge of adapting to the online environment and to providing new electronic legal services is particularly acute for small and medium-sized law firms who face capital-intensive initiatives with significant start-up costs. The danger is that this may create an environment that leaves smaller firms behind, with only large firms able to capitalize on the efficiencies and new marketplaces presented by the Internet. Although there are no easy answers, smaller firms can compete in the electronic marketplace with their larger rivals.

  • A virtual law library presents an opportunity for firms of all sizes since the development time and costs associated with creating virtual libraries are lower than those of other knowledge services. Smaller law firms, or those with limited resources, can frequently service their clients with virtual libraries that focus on niche practice areas.
  • Small and medium-sized firms can team up and enter into joint ventures to establish more technologically advanced knowledge services. By entering into a joint venture, firms can share in the costs and risks associated with developing such a system. Firms specializing in different, but related, practice areas can combine their expertise to offer users a broader base of legal services.

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6. Summary

Adopting and integrating information technology with client services positions law firms to be prepared for the changing demands of the marketplace. Although the changing legal landscape may be perceived as a threat, the real threat comes from failing to embrace the opportunities presented by information technology and the Internet.

From a law firm perspective, these opportunities include:

  • Offering clients new products and services
  • Expanding existing practice areas
  • Leveraging existing legal information and expertise
  • Meeting clients' changing needs
  • Creating greater client reliance on the firm
  • Competing with firms in different markets

From the client's perspective, the electronic environment:

  • Introduces new billing options that allow previously inaccessible legal services to be become economically viable
  • Enables faster delivery of legal information and services
  • Creates the potential for lower legal expenses
  • Fosters a collaborative work environment
  • Better educates clients about their legal needs
  • Ensures flexibility in legal service delivery

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7. Best Practices - Internet-based client services

The following section highlights several of the Internet-based client service websites operated by law firms from around the world.

  • mytechnologylawyer.com

    Draughon P.A., a Florida-based law firm, developed MyTechnologyLawyer, a comprehensive site featuring a variety of free and fee based services. Free services include publications, multimedia files and a "find a law firm" index. Fee-based services feature live online consultations with attorneys along with subscription access to a virtual technology law library and ready-made legal forms. Draughon's subscription pricing model provides the benefit of stable and predictable revenues, while also attracting new clients to the firm.

  • www.cliffordchance.com/online/home.htm

    Clifford Chance, an international law firm, has developed a series of individual online knowledge services, with each focused on a niche legal field. The service delivers information through personalized e-mailed news alerts, links to relevant sources, website publications, themed analysis, and "channels" that cover specific segments of a practice area.

    The individual knowledge services operated by Clifford Chance converge in their CliffordChanceConnect extranet. This is a full service tool that integrates the knowledge services with document exchange and communications between the firm and its clients. The service includes decision records, interactive comment postings, personalization features and collaboration tools.

  • www.blueflag.com

    Linklaters, a global firm, is a pioneer in the implementation of electronic knowledge services. Their BlueFlag service provides legal information, direction and expertise for the European commercial market. The service covers a breadth of topics from drafting World Bank bond issues to shareholder disclosure to derivatives.

    BlueFlag is continuously updated to provide its clientele consistency within their organization as all users draw legal information from a single source. By emphasizing the quality of its expertise, as opposed to the novelty of the system, BlueFlag attracts a clientele who is serious about a long-term commitment to the service. Clients who introduce the service across their organization create conduits for dependency between themselves and their legal information provider.

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8. Legal Dot-Com's

The following is a list of the some of the initial e-commerce legal service providers:

  • http://www.cybersettle.ca/

    Using a "double-blind" bid process, Cybersettle acts a conduit for insurance claims and lawsuit settlements online. With an online demonstration of the process, consumers are presented with a no obligation introduction to the service. In addition to this demonstration, the site offers several help options, including a toll-free number, and a Frequently Asked Questions section. As an online service, Cybersettle expedites the settlement process while offering cost savings to its users. As the service operates merely as a settlement service provider and not an advisor for consumers, Cybersettle does not eliminate the need for an attorney.

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Professor Michael Geist University of Ottawa, Faculty of Law Technology Counsel, Osler Hoskin Harcourt LLP

1 "The 21st Century Law Practice", online: Charles Robinson Future Site, http://64.78.52.120/article_21st.htm (date accessed: July 15, 2002).

2 Gottschalk P, "Law Firm Clients as Drivers of Law Firm Change", (2002) 1 JILT at 10, online: Journal of Information, Law and Technology http://elj.warwick.ac.uk/jilt/02-1/gottschalk.html (date accessed: July 15, 2002)