Why am I not surprised that lawyers prefer to stick to what they have done before? A lot of people do: it's a known quantity, it requires less time, and it costs less. Lawyers are comfortable with precedent, and that is what it is all about.
And at one level that's OK. Why reinvent the wheel?
But there is a caveat.
For all their talk of innovation (one of the most used words on law firm websites) lawyers aren't very good at "the new". For a number it simply means finding a slightly different way to bill you. And as for marketing? Lawyers shrink at the thought of anything too novel. At one of the firms I worked for, a partner told me, "The last thing we want to be is first", adding, "and anyway, why do we need to change anything? What we had was fine by me."
I left Ashfords LLP as Director of Marketing late yesterday afternoon. My P45 was in the post - the last time I had one of these was nearly 30 years ago. Today I go out on my own as George Wilkinson Consultancy.
And on what is for now, although I hope not for long, a rather clear desk, I have this quote,
We should spend more time thinking about the future and postulating possible outcomes, rather than relying on the past.
History is important for all sorts of reasons but, as my team became very tired of hearing, the future is not going to be more of the same. That will be as true of law as it is for all the professions, and how law is sold and marketed is going to change.
All I know is that this is going to be an exciting time.
Note: the quote is by Karl Sternberg from his review in Christ Church Matters of Jerome Booth's Emerging Markets in an Upside Down World.
