Brands won’t kill your law firm, clients will. Solicitors need to engage with their clients and find out what they want. The top line was the title of a webinar I took part in last night with Jon Busby of Epoq (@legal2.0) and Amanda Bancroft of 41Minds, a digital media agency who may be better [...]
A Blog about UK Legal Services Deregulation
Category Archives: Brands
Here Comes the Future
Now that the clock is ticking ever nearer to ABS Hour (for Licensed Conveyancers if not Solicitors for the time being) more and more businesses are launching their products, or announcing plans to launch. The current plan de nos jours seems to be online. Back in May, In-Deed, the online conveyancing portal fronted by Harry [...]
Podcast (1) – with Gary Yantin of HighStreetLawyer.com
This is the first Troubleahead podcast. A little while ago I met up with Gary Yantin, solicitor and Managing Director of High Street Lawyer.com, to discuss how HighStreetLawyer.com works and to chew over the challenges posed to practitioners by the Legal Services Act. Gary is well worth listening to for not only his explanation of [...]
Compete on Quality Not Price
Yesterday I was in Liverpool, speaking about the Legal Services Act to practitioners. It was a good session and the more I talk about the Act (and listen to what other lawyers are saying) the more I am convinced that the Act itself isn’t the problem. Yes, it will lead to new entrants to the [...]
The LSA: Opportunity or Threat?
Do you think the LSA presents an opportunity or a threat to lawyers in private practice? A brief newspiece on the front of yesterday’s Law Society Gazette entitled “ABSs “increase opportunity” caught my eye. It reported on the results of a survey commissioned by the Gazette on the view that solicitors have of the LSA. [...]
What Effect will Jackson Have on the LSA?
I’ve always thought that the Jackson report would have an important bearing on how new entrants to the legal market place reacted. Events over the last few days haven’t made me change my mind. The Lawyer reported that Ken Clarke, Minister of Justice and aka Lord Chancellor and the government are fully behind the Jackson [...]
Poppy in a Wheatfield
In a changed economic climate and with legal de-regulation on the way, competition for legal services promises to become fiercer. Standing out from this jostling crowd of business-hungry vultures is essential, but how do you do it? Differentiation is the key word here. “Ah, she’s talking about having a USP… but there’s no such thing [...]
More on Branding
With ABSs only one year away, the brands are on the march into the legal services market. The Law Society Gazette reported on HighStreetLawyer.com, a new legal brand set up by solicitor Gary Yantin, as the latest business venture to try and and create a nationally recognised brand for solicitors. Quality Solicitors is already some [...]
Fixed Fee Pricing for Legal Services: The Way Forward?
Hourly billing by lawyers has been coming under scrutiny for a long time now and it’s no great surprise given the world we live in where the price of most things (if not always the value) is known. I don’t like committing myself to open ended financial commitments any more than the next person, yet [...]
Legal Brands Will Emerge: Which Will Prevail?
Rory MccGwire writes, I’ve been asking this question a lot recently because it gets straight to the heart of the changes that we see unfolding in the legal services market. I was gripped by the stream of vitriol on the Law Society Gazette website when it broke the exclusive on the QualitySolicitors (QS) launch last [...]
