Even if the eternal skeptics turn their heads and look elsewhere, the worm is indeed in the fruit. Like many professions, lawyers see their economic model challenged by new technologies. Far from being anecdotal, it is the result of profound changes in society. Update on the evolution of the legal profession tomorrow.
State of play on the legal profession in France
Focus on some elements that are reshaping the horizon of the profession.
Heterogeneity of practices
The delay in the common law lawyers is widening with the risk in the long term of being more strongly exposed to competition. Anglo-Saxon business firms rely more than their French counterparts on a collaborative approach to the exercise of the legal profession, where the French fail with their liberal and individualist mode of practice. With their entrepreneurial vision of the firm, they attract large companies by offering them more complete and global offers. American and English firms are often at the forefront of innovation: wasn't an American firm the first to use the robot lawyer "Ross" to handle company bankruptcies?
These differences in practice are also found in the provincial cabinet/Parisian cabinet divide. Typically French centralization is again at work. Paris still remains the center of the world bringing together the largest structures, the most profitable files, the most specialized firms and the most advanced in terms of innovation.
Beyond these external elements, the lines are also moving for the legal professions themselves. With the project of Covenant law, a silent revolution is underway. The lawyers who were already undergoing the competition from accountants fear the new measures of this law. Indeed, the traditional separation between accounting audit and advice will henceforth be reduced a little more, a counterpart granted by the government to the raising of account audit thresholds. Also, the broadening of the skills of auditors will offer new markets to professionals.
Even within the profession, the findings are not necessarily more encouraging. With doubling the number of lawyers in 20 years, growing from around 30 lawyers to more than 000 today, the profession has become highly competitive. Corporate lawyers, sometimes former lawyers, also take up space because they know how a firm works.
New technologies: threat or opportunity?
Will the lawyer of tomorrow be replaced by a robot? Recurring, almost hackneyed question that many people ask but above all reflects a real concern...
Beyond the fantasy, the disappearance of part of the activities previously the preserve of lawyers is already tangible. Who will take care of it? The LegalTechs who respond to new needs expressed by customers, and in particular:
- Better transparency of prices and more restricted costs,
- Better accessibility (quick access and clear legal information)
However, not everything should be put on the same footing. Among the variety of LegalTech, some have real added value and therefore strong development potential in the long term. This is for example the case of practice management solutions which integrate strong innovations (API, etc.).
Other LegalTechs offer services with moderate or even low added value but nevertheless force certain lawyers to rethink their service offering so that it does not become interchangeable and only differentiable from others by its price, which is necessarily higher. For example :
- Service to very low added value : the statutes of SARL, a simple pact…
- Service to moderate added value : limited revision of specific clauses…
What use will a lawyer (still) have tomorrow?
The question is deliberately intended to be provocative but has the merit of facing the upheavals which are shaking the profession.
The lawyer is of course not doomed to disappear, devoured by an army of robot zombies, giving in to “ the uberisation » widespread of his profession.
He must refocus on its own added value, which is very real and essential. Quite simply because the services offered by LegalTech carry within them the fruit of their own limitations.
For example, let's take 4 elements that only a lawyer will provide:
- Customer advice and strategy development : standardized documents will always remain models to be adapted
- The human relationship itself (listening, proximity, etc.)
- The reliability of legal information : to avoid giving in to clients’ “legal self-medication”…
- Confidentiality preserved : should we remember that professional secrecy is one of the pillars of the profession?
In other words, the LegalTech/lawyer competition is not on the same level. Lawyers have a core business and skills that cannot be replaced by new technologies. On the other hand, LegalTech can bring them many advantages and opportunities for firm development.
So, is the death knell tolling for lawyers? No, of course. But, the evolution of the legal profession is certainly underway. Adapting your practice to new client expectations and putting technology at the service of the firm's growth and performance will be essential in the future!
