Chas Rampathal and the Future of Legal Practice – LiveBlog From PLTC
Chas Rampathal, the General Counsel and Vice President of LegalZoom is giving the lunch keynote at today’s PLTC 2011 in Vancouver on the Future of Legal Practice.
LegalZoom is a company that is responsible for 20% of the corporate formations in the US last year.
This is a live post:
Pressures that force change
Large businesses and general counsel are forcing change on their law firm
Consumers and small businesses are an unmet market. Legal Zoom’s success is testimony to the potential.
Academic commentators wonder what the future of the law firm will be
How is the legal profession responding – who should control the change?
The forgotten legal customer
First thing we do – let’s deregulate all the lawyers
Who is the legal consumer?
The term is not the client – but consumer
How do we know what they want?
Who is the legal consumer of the future – unmet legal needs of the middle class.
Small business needs
They want help – simple, fast economical and trustworthy.
Doubt that meaningful reform can come from within the legal system. Are lawyers equipped to take the tough road of reform. We have had a long time to open up access to legal services for the middle class. Most people cannot afford real legal help.
Lawyer billing rates are going up at a time of economic pressure.
Chas is both inside and outside of the system.
First ABS in England formed – LegalZoom will open in the UK next year. With a law firm.
Innovation will come from outside the profession. Need to have a continuum of services – good enough.
Law in a flat world – Hadfield
Legal Advantage for LegalZoom
Target and CostCo model.
Anatomy of a middle class legal solution –
Brand recognition +
online information gathering and interaction for the web-savvy solution +
affordable pricing through volume and monthly subscriptions +
customer care and responsiveness +
helpful attorneys working through technology not adjacent to technology +
easy or online delivery of documents +
social gathering place for like-minded consumers +
project management and operations efficiency +
willingness to refer other consumers +
internal crowd-sourced knowledge management +
check list manifesto to gather information and use for quality control (no bad day) +
economies of scale through creation of templates
LegalZoom is testing the approach but how long will this take?
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