Change As a Management and Marketing Tool

The professions, even as we know them today, are now so bound by generations-old rules and regulations and laws that any suggestion of serious structural change is seen as a virtual assault. The historic codification of laws and legal professional practice is well entrenched, and is resistant to innovation. This rigidity is designed to maintain integrity and probity, as well as efficiency in firm governance. If the nature of products allows for constant and rapid change to match changing consumer tastes and fashions, the nature of professional services requires a measure of uniformity, consistency, and predictability. But now, there are cracks appearing in the wall.

Still, some things in the professions are different now than they were about a decade ago. We now have, for example, an increasing number of firms replacing hourly billing with value billing. Law firm governance is beginning to resemble corporate structure, and indeed, there is talk of law firms going public. Where once associates who seemed not to be partner material were dispensed with, now they are being kept for their specific talents and experience ' the so-called two-tier firm. Where once lawyers were totally aloof from the marketing process, they are now increasingly becoming active marketers.