Can We Talk About Our Profession, Just For A Minute, Please?

If you spend any time on the internet these days, you are led to believe that if lawyers don't start buying better iPad-type devices and finding a better, cheaper, faster way to sell documents, they will go broke.

Yes, "the legal profession is changing," but hasn't it been changing since day one?

Lawyers used to be created by people "reading" the law. Then they invented law schools. Law schools had full time professors. Then they started having practicing lawyers teach a class or two. Law used to be read in books housed in libraries, now it's read on computer screens and accessed from websites. BigLaw hasn't been around forever - most (many deceased) partners in old big law firms began their careers with storefront offices. Now most lawyers start solo, and stay solo.

But one thing has not changed - people still need lawyers.

Most of the posts on the net today are whine-fests, collections of thoughts from crying babies telling the "dinosaurs" to get with the program or die.

Then there is Jordan Furlong. Although he's wrong, he does know how to write without sounding like a basement-dwelling unemployed child.

I'd read his recent trilogy if I were you. Not because I agree with it, but because it's (wrong and) well written.

Jordan starts his trilogy with noting the "drawing cards" for Google Ventures in their acquisition of Rocket Lawyer, an online platform for getting legal documents to clients:

...ease, accessibility, affordability, user-driven, user experience. They have nothing to do with the intelligence of the lawyer or the quality of the legal offering and everything to do with the manner in which clients find and access legal services. As I’ve said before, convenience is the new battleground, a fight for which law firms still haven’t even shown up.

So we begin with the notion that there are clients out there looking for 7-11. It's not about the quality, it's about the ability to run in and out quickly and get a "sandwich." May not be a great sandwich, but it's a sandwich, and it's easy and affordable.

Jordan says that companies like Rocket Lawyer have created a client-facing document assembly system that provides channels to licensed lawyers who can review the completed documents and answer more complex questions. He says that Law firms have had the capacity to create these services for years, but they’ve been unwilling or unable to risk changing the nature of their business.

Jordan concludes the beginning of his trilogy with the goal of companies like Rocket and Legal Zoom:

So they have converted the legal advice process and legal document assembly system into marketing and business development opportunities for lawyers. And they have one simple goal in mind: to replace the law firm as the primary platform by which clients find and engage with lawyers.

OK, so the goal is to replace lawyers with sites that sell legal documents.

Got it.

A point that Jordan makes is that if lawyers don't find a way to compete, they will lose, and lose big:

The real story is that firms are buying these new products and services, not selling them. They’re taking marching orders about their use, not issuing them. They’re accepting the new realities of the marketplace, not inventing them. Law firms are now drifting to the periphery of the marketplace, trading places with technology-driven outsiders whose own importance increases daily. Law firms, whether they realize it or not, are settling into a new role: sources of valued specialists called upon to perform certain tasks within a larger legal system that they did not create and that they do not control.

Law is partly a business. The rule of business is that there is always someone out there trying to do it faster and cheaper than you. Those claiming to do it "better, faster, and cheaper," usually find clients who don't care that much about "better" until they realize "faster" and "cheaper" wasn't what they really wanted.

Jordan's take on the role of document selling in the legal profession is a good read, but it misses an important point: Law is also a profession. Down the street from your local 7-11 is a regular everyday grocery store, with the produce manager that knows what type of tomatoes you like to buy, and down the street from there is the gourmet market that special orders the smoked meat you like to eat on Sundays.

There is room for every type of lawyer, and there always will be. Jordan marginalizes the profession when he says: We need to understand what technology is doing to legal services and either adopt that technology, adapt to the client expectations it’s creating, or leave.

I am not "we," and I didn't become a lawyer to sell documents online. Yes, I know, my practice area will never adapt to that type of service. But yours doesn't have to either. My clients want to come to an office and have a private conversation. They want to be greeted by Evelyn, and they want to feel that there is a place where their legal needs are being serviced other than a computer or coffee shop.

There is still a place for lawyers to decide what type of lawyers they want to be, not which type of convenience store they want to operate.

Non-anonymous comments welcome. Located in Miami, Florida, Brian Tannebaum practices Bar Admission and Discipline and Criminal Defense. He is the author of I Got A Bar Complaint.

The Future Of Law: Better, Faster, Cheaper - Pick Which One You Want

If you practice law, go to law school, or just know that lawyers exist, I trust by now you've read the story of Joseph Rakofsky's representation in a murder case.

New details have surfaced.

He solicited himself for the case. If you don't know, lawyers can advertise under stringent rules, but are not permitted to solicit. They do, every day, but it's a violation of the ethics rules.

Rakofsky also quoted a fee 50-75% less of what the client was hearing from other lawyers. Nothing unethical about that, unless you are quoting the fee just to get the case, and refrain from telling the client that a. you've never handled a murder case, and b. you've never tried a case.

This is how some inexperienced lawyers get cases today - cut price and say as little as possible about your lack of experience.

Take for example one of the cornerstones of today's marketing lawyer - if you've only been out a few years, don't put your graduation date from law school or college on your website. (Stop laughing, internet marketers - yeah, we all know it's one of your "secrets.")

Sunday night a group of people not asked to speak at the ABA Tech Show in Chicago this week, had their own pre-tech show conference - Ignite Law. This conference selected 12 people, some practicing lawyers, to discuss the future of law - each speaker getting 6 minutes.

Of course, how a lawyer parading as an experienced criminal defense lawyer used tech and social media to create a false image of his experience and qualifications, was discussed profusely.

Actually, no it wasn't.

The marketers and tech types are still on an embargo on that topic. Not a word.

All the speakers did mention the New York Times piece by exonerated convict John Thompson that went viral yesterday where he wonders if the future of law will bring prosecutors to justice.

Actually, none of them mentioned that, and no one at tech show will mention that this week. As some hysterical attendee said last year "it's tech show, tech show, it's about tech, tech tech tech," etc...

If you're wondering what the future of law holds for all of us according to the speakers at Ignite Law:

As the ABA Journal summed it up:

Technology will push bar regulators to ease jurisdictional restrictions. More than 50 percent of clients will rely on consumer review websites like Yelp to find a lawyer. And iPads and other smart tablets will be as ubiquitous in firms and courtrooms as microwave ovens are in homes.

Lawyer Jay Shepherd is so certain the billable hour will be dead in 8 years that he announced to the sold-out crowd he is closing his practice to focus on a new venture, PREFIX, which teaches lawyers how to value and price knowledge and judgment.

Lawyer Jim Calloway probably assured himself he wont be invited back when he called for a return to old-school communication including handwritten thank-you notes and smartphone-free face time as two of the best ways to build client trust in the future.

His catchphrase 'What Would Grandma Do?' drew laughs.

Ha ha h......heh..h...

I wasn't invited to speak at Ignite Law, mainly because I didn't submit an audition package and beg people on twitter to vote for me, but if I did, and was selected, I would have said something like this:

The future of law will require lawyers to keep confidences of clients. It will require that lawyers understand legal issues and figure out ways to resolve client problems. There will be so many lawyers in the profession for the sole purpose of collecting clients through internet marketing, that it will be the rare lawyer who agrees to meet in a room with a client where the only technology is a glass to hold some water, a pen, some paper, and a professional interested in a face to face opportunity to discuss an important issue with a person needing legal services.

Witnesses will be called into courtrooms to testify about what your clients did, and you will be required to understand how to question them without the use of something with an on/off switch. You will also be required to explain your legal position through an analysis of the case law you obtained virtually or via the fax machine connected to the radio in your wireless car.

Because everyone will have a tablet-type device and ability to video conference with people through their sunglasses, the successful lawyer will be the one who gains a reputation for understanding how the law applies to a particular client's issue, and who has the ability to advocate a position through the connection of facts to current law.

I don't know what the future of the legal profession will entail, as I'm just a practitioner, not a palm reader. Like anything else, there will be a movement towards better, faster, cheaper.

Tech and social media marketing can definitely help you be two of those things.

Located in Miami, Florida, Brian Tannebaum practices Bar Admission and Discipline and Criminal Defense. He is the author of I Got A Bar Complaint.

Legal Tech New York Shows Social Media The Door

For those of you doing other things like practicing law, there is a big, big convention going on in New York's Hilton this week. Legal Tech New York is best described as a toy convention for lawyers. Pretend as if you are standing in the Apple Store or Best Buy while people in various rooms are talking about the future of the profession.

Legal Tech is the perfect place to learn about all the new technology that can streamline law practice. Apparently Microsoft Office 2010 is about to come out (not sure how that will change my use of Microsoft Word to draft pleadings), there are new software programs to handle discovery sent via e-mail (creatively called "e-discovery"), and there are ways to use the iPad so that you can do an entire case while standing at a train station.

What comes with tech conferences is the call that "lawyers MUST adopt new technology." It makes sense - if you are selling tech, you need people to buy tech, and if your tech is geared towards stupid lawyers who believe they can practice with a 2 year old Dell laptop and a Blackberry, then the best way to sell it is to demand that lawyers buy it.

No tech conference today is complete without a collection of social media lawyers (defined as lawyers who work at Starbucks or at home, who generally don't practice law but did for 5 or 10 minutes, and now have the expertise to show you how to use twitter and other social media sites to get much clients.)

Legal Tech is no different.

As the conference date came closer, the various "social media rock stars" began to figure out how they would be relevant to Legal Tech. I trust none of them are staying in the Legal Tech conference hotel, rather, like college students going to a concert for which they have no tickets, they are most likely staying in a neighboring hotel, or with friends, and loitering in the free exhibit hall hoping no one asks them about the conference that they are not attending.

They are there for a group hug and to drum up social media consulting business.

As I watched the comments coming out of Legal Tech yesterday, I noticed something: None of the social media idiots were commenting much. None of the topics were about social media. None of the self-named "experts" were asked to speak. None.

It was almost as if social media was not the focus of this tech conference.

How could this happen?

How could it be that a conference about how lawyers can better practice law would not include hours and hours about how Facebook and Linkedin were the silver bullets to getting clients? Wasn't there a need to discuss how to properly tweet?

Just when I thought the day would go by without a mention of social media, and the "experts" would go skulking away, it happened.

There was a session on social media. And it must have felt like a slap in the face, no, a punch in the stomach to all the social media evangelists that were there. Like a bride being brought to the alter just to be told "I don't," these words were spoken:

Social Media Credential Fraud. You need to be sure people are who they claim to be online.

Lawyers need to be extremely careful not to convey any false, deceptive or misleading information.

I've written extensively on the liars that permeate social media, from the "gurus" that lie through their teeth about their qualifications, to the disbarred, suspended, and convicted that hide it from their prospective social media clients (and even law clients) to the actual practicing lawyers who believe no one will find out that they are not who they say they are.

The responses I've received go from "wow," to "that's not possible," to "why should I care?" Curiously, most that say "why should I care," are lawyers.

There are also people who believe I shouldn't talk about these liars because "no one needs your protection Tannebaum, we all know about these people." Except the person I spoke to two weeks ago, someone very active on social media, who was about to discuss business with one of these idiots, and had no idea what a liar they were.

Yeah, shut up, everyone knows.

And then there's Tim Baran, who is loved and respected by people in the social media world. Yesterday, as I wondered if anyone noticed that social media was being shown the door, he broke rank with this post: Legal Tech 2001: Not About Social Media.

Ut oh.

One of the rules of social media, is that if you're in the business, you never say anything remotely negative about social media. The circle jerk is essential. For example, my close personal friend Kevin O'Keefe says lawyers are ill served by preaching the perils and pitfalls of social media.

All positive, nothing negative, especially if you're in the business of selling social media to lawyers.

But Tim breaks rank, at the peril of those in social media that will be angry:

LegalTech conference attendees had over a dozen e-discovery sessions to choose from on the first day alone. Social Media? Exactly one. And that one session was more about how not to do social media.

Even so, the large ballroom hosting the session ended up being an echo chamber with only a smattering of attendees.

A look at the conference agenda for the next two days promises more of the same.

Tim wonders what happened here:

Is this a backlash against social media in the legal profession? Perhaps not since a change would have had to occur in order to have a backlash.

Is it a miscalculation of the level of adoption? Conceivably, certainly the adoption by law firms.

Does it have something to do with the sponsor, ALM, the premier publisher of many of the major regional and national legal print publications? They certainly would not be mistaken for being on the forefront of the social media charge.

Perhaps it’s because LegalTech, unlike the ABA TECHSHOW, for example, is more vendor driven than content based.

Or perhaps it's because the social media snake oil salespeople misunderstand the difference between a real practicing lawyer's need to market themselves on social media, and their need to do real work with real tools.

Located in Miami, Florida, Brian Tannebaum practices Bar Admission and Discipline and Criminal Defense. He is the author of I Got A Bar Complaint.