Innovation in the Legal Industry

Image via WikipediaStrategies around innovation seem to vary between industries, i.e. pharmacutecal companies spend vast amounts of cash on research and trying to develop new drugs, tech companies seem to feed money into start-ups and venture capitals.

So what is it that large firms in the legal industry do? Of course when I say that I mean Law Firms themselves and also Legal Publishers and Legal Technology Firms.

Many people on the outside of this industry would probably think (sometimes rightly), that the average traditional lawyer might not be the most forward thinking of individuals, but people shouldn't under-estimate their intelligence and their thirst for success. Law firms might not neccessarily always look to innovate new "products", but they do look at how they can provide new or improved services or use new software to improve internal and external services and processes.

Examples of these could be initiatives in business development; we've all seen the increase in CRM's system deploys and the recruitment of a more specialist business development/marketing departments in law firms. Firms are also investing more in SEO and SEM, rather than sticking to the traditional routes or law firms directories and referrals.
This brings me onto the technology innovations, from case management to knowledge management, law firms have been relatively quick to pick up new software and technology services where they can see there being a benefit to the firm. Of course there is anectdotal evidence to suggest the opposite, but I think that in general law firms are innovative and forward thnking.

For legal publishers, I think it's seen from the outside that they generally just buy up innovative companies when they prove that it's a viable economically (LexisNexis - Axxia, VisualFiles, Everyform, among others and Sweet & Maxwell - Criminal Law Week, Digita, Lawtel, etc.). However that can be unfair, both companies (and probably Wolters Kluwer too) publish new books every year - generally a reaction to changing climates and new laws.
Internally too they must have done many things to transition themselves from book publishers to online information providers (via CD's!). I understand from sources LN has developed their single sourcing options, something many firms struggle with and they were also the first UK legal publisher to provide online products (thanks to the ever forward thinking Ivan Darby). Sweet & Maxwell came late to the online party, but have proven with their new Westlaw UK that they are able to innovate their products and I hear that there's always a great deal of investment going into their content management systems to enable them to deliver that into Westlaw.
Really though it sounds like it's less of an exciting environment for technologists. I wonder what it is that these firms do (if anything at all) to publicise and encourage innovation within their companies?

Smaller legal industry firms (publishing & software) tend to be the ones who get the most attention for bringing innovative ideas to the market. Firms in the past like PLC, Solicitec/Visualfiles, Axxia, Solcara, Recommind et al have received press about what they can bring to firms. However many of these firms are merely bringing existing ideas and technologies to the industry from other industries that have probably spent more on these areas. However relatively speaking what they do sometimes bring the industry can be truely new and brilliant within the market.

There's obviously innovation out there... but the key seems to be either to start as a small company, innovate and sell up or work at a larger firm and work on less of the cutting edge.

End of the childhood of Web 2.0?

An interesting article on the BBC Technology page showing the effect of La Credit de Crunch on Web 2.0 with the thoughts of the man who coined the 2.0 concept, Tim O'Reilly. For those of us who've had to listen to the rubbish from consultants, web enthusiasts and blogger-types (damn, outed myself there) on how we need to create social networks, get lawyers blogging, sharing the knowledge and using these tools to make and maintain business networks this article makes some great points! Maybe Web 2.0 has finally grown up due to hard times and the need to actually justify itself in terms of (that crazy concept) ... return on investment.

Tim O'Reilly states ""You have to conclude, if you look at the focus of a lot of what you call 'Web 2.0', the relentless focus on advertising-based consumer models, lightweight applications, we may be living in somewhat of a bubble, and I'm not talking about an investment bubble"

Most people would agree that despite the soft benefits behind Web 2.0 from everywhere from a Law Firm internal wiki through to the massive success of Facebook et al there is a distinct lack of commercials and ROI in everything. Talk of click thru Ad revenue, SEO and the like masks the distinct lack of business drivers, return on investment (unless of course you flog your non-money making cool gadget to microsoft!), and profits!

It's not all doom and gloom but at the end of the day this technology needs to ultimately make money, especially if they are to be used in large business enterprises like a Law Firm or Tax Firm. There is a future in Web 2.0, however in these dark hours the commercial and ROI imperative comes back to the fore. It may not be so fun but it will at last be focused and concentrated on the real problems and how this technology can solve these issue. Leaving the final word to Mr O'Reilly:

"The next great companies don't come from jumping on the bandwagon," he said. "They come from finding something really meaty and tough and hard and putting your best minds to work on it and making the world a better place as a result."

Get those grey commercial Web 2.0 cells whirling ... or just hang on for the next Web 3.0 "reality bubble" to emerge if cold, hard commercials are just too scary.

Spoke too soon?

Image by Greeeny via FlickrAs reported on Above the Law, it seems not all firsm are as lucky as Lovells, Norton Rose, et al. I seems White & Case have been phoning around today laying people off, up to 3% if the reports are correct. It's now been reported in The Lawyer.

Looks like we're in for a dark winter...

Lovells profiteering on the current climate

At Image by Grant MacDonald via Flickrlast there's some good news for those of us in the legal tech/publishing industry, it seems Lovells have magaged a 15% increase in first half revenue. They claim to have acheived this through "The firm's undoubted strengths in counter-cyclical areas, such as litigation and restructuring". There is hope and thankfully what some people in the industry have been saying is coming true, that the decline in some practice areas may largely be off set by increase in practice areas such as these. I wonder if Lovells might also be looking at gobbling up a firm whose core practice areas are struggling to try and boost themselves into the top four when the up turn comes?

Other interesting points in the article are that Clifford Chance and Freshfields won't be releasing their first-half results and Norton Rose has acheived 11% growth.

The article in general makes me feel much better despite the dark mornings and evenings as winter fast approaches.

Web sites of the Legal "solutions" providers

Image via WikipediaI'm currently doing the website for my new company (paying a design company lots of money to do it!), I've been doing a little bit of research on what the big legal solutions providers web sites are like, what they have on their sites, whether the front page has marketing info or logins to the products and how the sites are structured. Thought I'd share the feedback here.

First up we have LexisNexis, their main site generally is mostly marketing gumph, lots of text no one is ever going to read and lots of links to various areas. To find a product you have to in through via your sector (Legal, Corporate etc.) and actually finding the login area to a product is nigh on impossible. Interestingly no favicon shows up (the little logo that hows up next the the address on your browser). Seems to be more about selling themselves than anything else.
Grade: C - Back to the drawing board please.

Next we have PLC who go for a completely different tack. They have the login link directly on the front page and you can access each area directly from there. Sure it's pretty busy and the design looks a little tired now and they've basically just crammed more and more on there, but it gives a "user" directly what they want, and also allows you to quickly find information about each product. I think they are able to do this because they don't play in many sectors, like LN does. Also has a favicon.
Grade: B - Could maybe do with a quick face-lift.

Now it's Solcara's turn. They don't have login's to products of course, but theirs is, but it's got a clean interface with everything you'd need on there, quick access to information about their products well delineated and contact information right there on the front page. I rather like the design too, products have their own colour coding which changes the whole site colour as you go into the section covering that product. Slightly meaningless favicon.
Grade: A - Stands out from the crowd and does the job.

I'll cover Sweet and Maxwell's next. Now is it just me or has this one changed recently? It was rubbish before but the redesign (something to do with a Thomson Reuters re-brand?), seems to have made it a little nicer looking and more modern looking. Had a couple of broken links in there, but it might be teething problems if the site is new. Good access to information on each product (though not why they are separated into different products - surely it's all legal information). The main focus of the site seems to be selling books interestingly. No favicon.
Grade: B - Rather generic nothing to make it stand out.

Up next? Recommind. Not a lot to say here to be honest. It's a website, some press releases, links to products/solutions. Design is pretty nice, but nothing to write home about. No favicon.
Grade: B - Generic but clean

The last one I'm going to cover is Tikit. Again, much like the Recommind one it's a pretty standard marketing website, no favicon. Not sure what the image is all about - why an Obama look-a-like with a telephone headset standing over a PC?
Grade: C - Try something a little cutting edge.

Oviously have concentrated on the UK sites, but you don't want to get me started on the LexisNexis.com site!