The law firm of the future?

The Toronto Globe and Mail reports on Richard Susskind’s predictions regarding the future of lawyers and law firms.  Susskind is no one to be ignored; in 1996, when he predicted that lawyers would soon send legal advice and most legal documents via e-mail, he was derided and even considered dangerous.  I can testify first hand to the resistance law firms had to the internet.  Even earlier, in 1994, I lobbied my firm for an extra telephone line so I could attach my personal laptop’s modem to the dialup connection for my Manhattan-based ISP (the innovative and much-missed “Pipeline“).  My firm hemmed-and-hawed and finally refused my request, worried somehow that the connection threatened their own internal computer network.  Try as I could to explain that the phone line and the network had no connection to one another and that, therefore, the access through the phone line could in no way provide access to even the most sophisticated of post-Soviet criminal hackers, I was unable to get permission.

It’s hard to believe that was only fifteen years ago.

Now, Mr. Susskind predicts for the near future:

Small law firms that dispense customized legal advice will be pushed out of business by technology-savvy and more nimble firms that dispense run-of-the-mill advice and legal documents through websites. Larger law firms will evolve into commercial enterprises with vast stables of legal, accounting and other experts geared to preventing and managing clients’ legal risks. These big firms will outsource basic legal services to cheaper quasi-legal experts and they will build retail kiosks or websites that allow clients to download regulatory expertise and draft legal documents any hour of the day.

And, of course, it is already happening.  Linklaters LLP, a London-based law firm, has long had a “Web-based service called Blue Flag that allowed clients to research regulation and compliance standards around the globe.”  Other firms use “online document drafting services to download within minutes financial term sheets, employment contracts and other standard documents.”  In addition, “a pair of retired U.K. judges recently launched an Internet startup that allows lawyers to quickly generate judicially approved directives and motions for the courts.”  Just last November, Toronto lawyer Michael Carabash launched an online legal service called Dynamic Lawyers that charges lawyers a modest annual fee of $30 to connect with individuals who privately post legal questions on the website.”

On another point, already addressed on this blog, Mr. Susskind predicts a ‘radical shakeup’ of law firm billing practices that charge clients according to hours of service provided. The days of billable hours are numbered, he said, because it ‘rewards inefficiency’ by handing the largest pay for the most time spent on an assignment.

What will the next great innovation be in online legal representation?  Stay tuned.