The business of the legal profession is in an evolutionary process. The profession tends to reward an effective model with success and punish an ineffective one with failure.
The legal profession's great strengths have always been being consistent, dependable, and offering certainty. But now the world around us is disrupted and ambiguous. Unlike many other sectors, our law firms have perhaps felt a glancing blow when it comes to dramatic disruption. The business model has (mostly) been remarkably resilient and profitable. However, the future of the sector is challenged by new technology opportunities and other professional services eating into market share and meeting client needs.
We have reached a point where evolution is no longer a choice. But I perceive that some law firms may be faced with a shortage of key talent and specific skillsets to bring about the kind of transformation that will ensure their position as leaders in their market and, most importantly, meet client expectations.
The most evolving subject in which a student can pursue his higher education is law. Every day, there are new proceedings happening in our courts, with new judgments coming, creating a constant change in how we understand the law. New areas are emerging in our country with the growing issues that society is facing. There is a need for budding lawyers to understand issues that will be the talk of the town in the coming years. The need for such lawyers trained in modern legal issues is growing tremendously because each day we hear about new loopholes in the law that make it possible for an organisation or a person to exploit them.
Lawyers should be aware of their surroundings and address the issues that are popping up because of changes in power dynamics in society and governance. There is always potential in smart law students to evolve themselves with changing dimensions of the subject to keep them out of the crowd of law graduates that our university is churning out each year.
Change is also being driven by the younger cohort of lawyers. Attracting, nurturing, and managing young professionals is a challenge for the sector. A law firm's culture can be a distinguishing feature, one that draws the right graduates in. However, no matter how modern or fashionable the firm, they all have a fast-paced, pressurised working environment and follow the same traditional route of career progression. The conventional perception of a law firm is that the managing partners and the executive team have highly traditional views and are averse to change. However, many law firms have already started to shift opinion and put ideas into action, with cultural change being a big-ticket item on the agenda for the future.
A number of law firms are also dedicating time to implementing flexible working schemes. The work of lawyers has traditionally involved extreme hours within the office, with little focus on work-life balance. The notion of unpredictable hours and the detriment to mental health is a chief concern for younger generations, making it a difficult career to sell to millennial and Gen Z talent. However, digital platforms are now supporting remote working and therefore empowering employees to have a more agile approach to their jobs, with no detriment to output.
A principal reason for the rising pressure to implement change in the legal sector is the expansion of elite firms and the introduction of new competitors. Certain law firms are, however, having to contend with a growing number of other law firms that can see the prize and are looking to encroach on a valuable global market share through the development of legal capabilities. A few firms have become much bigger. Some are now truly global businesses. As the law has increased in complexity, firms have reorganised to embrace specialisation, and niche firms have emerged. They have the technology, the consulting skills, and the deep pockets to offer something different. As a result, we may see smaller law firms increasingly form conglomerates that are more resilient and can expand their potential for client growth. Integrating two autonomous operations into one that runs seamlessly, incorporating people and processes from the once separate businesses, is a skillset that is growing in demand. To make their mark on society, law firms will need to focus on the issues that will be of priority in the coming decade. This will help them build their reputation and relevance in the current climate.
I do not want to make vast generalisations about people who go into legal professions, but there are similarities in the legal professionals that I meet and interact with in the sense that they tend to be highly eloquent, highly analytical, thinking people who have a very rapid-fire think-before-they-speak button, as it were.
The legal profession is at a point of inflection. It is struggling to deal with the dissonance between the stringent and demanding traditional expectations of professional services and the new, modern expectations of clients and future talent. It is clear that the legal profession in Malta has started to rethink services provided, innovate new "products", and improve talent attraction and retention. These changes will ultimately become a priority as the sector faces an exciting era of change, innovation and evolution.
Dr Mark Said is a lawyer