Jordan Furlong

High-Value Retainers

I put a post up last week on LinkedIn, off the back of a very interesting blog by Jordan Furlong on his Substack feed: ‘The legal world in 10 years (if we’re really lucky)‘, that got some social media traction so I thought I would re-share here.

At the heart of my LinkedIn post was a comment Jordan makes on – what he calls – High-Value Retainers and the effect Gen AI will have on these fee arrangements. To quote:

High-Value Retainers
Thanks to Gen AI’s consumption of many traditional tasks, lawyers have moved up the value ladder, going beyond “bet-the-company” and “run-the-company” work to start offering “grow-the-company” work (or “advance-the-individual”). These are engagements in which lawyers ask: “How can I improve your situation? What are your near-term and long-term goals? How can I help you anticipate problems and prevent them before they happen? How can I bring you more stability and peace of mind? How can I be your advocate and counsellor in whatever you need?”

While I think Jordan’s point is an excellent one, mine was this: “Do you think this could work in 10 years time?“

Because if you think it could: Why are you waiting 10 years for AI to develop in order to have this conversation – have this conversation with your clients now!

In that, it’s not a 10+ years from now discussion. It’s not a 10+ years from now problem. It’s a HERE AND NOW problem and a here and now discussion.

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To succeed in the future, law firms need to specialise

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Over the course of the past week I have seen two news items that include comments by prominent industry experts advocating that for law firms to success in the future they will need to specialize.

The first item was a short [1 minute 40] video interview of David Lat (editor of Above the Law) titled More ‘Shakeout’ Coming for Big Law, Says Above the Law Editor in which (the recently married – congratulations David) Lat touches on the issue that for firms to survive going forward, they will need to get much better at the specialization game.

The second item, from the same day (11 September), was an article (‘How future-ready is your law firm?‘) on the Australasian Lawyer website that included comments by Keynote speech presenter Jordan Furlong of Edge International and Tim Williams of Ignition Consulting Group at last week’s ALPMA (Australasian Legal Practice Management Association) Annual Conference on the Gold Coast (at which I was not a participant).

In essence the article promulgates the experts opinion that the “future of law firms will be specialisation, rather than expansion” and that “In reality, clients have changed from wanting to be loyal to a full service firm to shopping around for the best firm suited to a particular project.”

Both the article and Lat’s interview video raise an interesting issue and I have to say that while I largely agree with William’s view that:

“Buyers [today] are seeking best in class solutions to their problems. They no longer need to fall back on a generalist firm that they can count on for everything in their hometown.”

it has yet to be fully explained to me why some, but certainly not all, full service firms cannot also claim that they provide “best in class solutions to their clients’ problems”.