Do the New Business Models Provide 'Justice' to Legal Services?

Year 2018, Volume: 1 Issue: 1, 22 - 32, 16.07.2018

Elisabetta Lentsiou Dimitrios Valsamidis Dimitra Giannopoulou Kalliopi Kalampouka Lambros Tsourgiannis

Abstract

Advances in technology offer new capabilities for all
the professions and the lawyers are not the exception. Nowadays, ICT is used
not only to enhance efficiency, access, timeliness, transparency and
accountability, helping the lawyers to provide adequate services. Now, we are
in the midst of a new revolution driven by the power of digital technology.
These developments have enormous implications for every aspect of law. Traditional
law companies have built themselves on leverage and hierarchy depending on
billable hours by more junior associates and staff. Now, they are facing a new
economy that includes competition from machines and global outsourcing. Unless
they fundamentally change their revenue and employment models, more efficient
automation can destroy these law firms.

Business models have to cope with the external changes
and to be adapted to innovation. They exploit technology and globalization by
matching consumers' needs with tied-up services and products. Factors such as
global competition, legal process outsourcers, changing regulatory
requirements, rapid mergers and dissolutions, and alternative fee arrangements
have shifted the legal marketplace into one of seemingly constant evolution.
The new models are reducing costs, breaking away from old patterns of fee
arrangements, and increasing efficiency through unique structuring and use of
technology. Disruption is the shaking up of existing markets, mainly because of
innovations.

This study ascertains the digital disruption in the
law profession taking into account three entities: technology, lawyers'
profession and business models. The fields of business models in legal services
are analyzed and an innovative application of SWOT analysis is proposed. The
perspectives of the study may trigger future work in the rapidly developing
landscape of digital disruption in the lawyers' profession.

Keywords

Lawyer's profession, Technology, Business Models, Digital Disruption

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