Rely on the most comprehensive, up-to-date legal content designed and curated by lawyers for lawyers
Work faster and smarter to improve your drafting productivity without increasing risk
Accelerate the creation and use of high quality and trusted legal documents and forms
Streamline how you manage your legal business with proven tools and processes
Manage risk and compliance in your organisation to reduce your risk profile
Stay up to date and informed with insights from our trusted experts, news and information sources
Access the best content in the industry, effortlessly — confident that your news is trustworthy and up to date.
With over 30 practice areas, we have all bases covered. Find out how we can help
Our trusted tax intelligence solutions, highly-regarded exam training and education materials help guide and tutor Tax professionals
Regulatory, business information and analytics solutions that help professionals make better decisions
A leading provider of software platforms for professional services firms
In-depth analysis, commentary and practical information to help you protect your business
LexisNexis Blogs shed light on topics affecting the legal profession and the issues you're facing
Legal professionals trust us to help navigate change. Find out how we help ensure they exceed expectations
Lex Chat is a LexisNexis current affairs podcast sharing insights on topics for the legal profession
Printer Friendly Version
As 2016 approaches, we asked our Market Development Directors for their insight and predictions for the development and transformation of the legal market in the next 12 months.
We considered issues affecting the market from private practice firms with sole practitioners right the way up to the international players, including barristers, in-house and public sector and saw five main themes emerging.
In an increasing global market, the larger firms and in-house legal departments are grappling with the international nature of advice required and how to work within a virtual team across many jurisdictions.
We predict that in 2016 2 of the top 20 UK firms will merge with a US firm and 10% of the top 30 firms will enter new markets in Africa and Latin America.
Across the profession as a whole there will be increased pressure to reduce costs and provide transparency in pricing. An obvious efficiency solution is to use workflow and knowhow tools – investing in technology across the whole gamut of firm tasks.
We anticipate that firms will be deploying administrative staff and paralegals in the delivery aspect of routine legal work, allowing fewer qualified staff members to provide more complex legal advice.
Risk will be managed by using technology to manage this process including contract management and automation right the way through to learning and development tools. We predict that this will not be limited to private practice but will include local authority legal departments and in-house teams.
Hand in hand with technology comes ABS and businesses seeking better ways to offer excellence to their clients. We predict that the big four tax and accountancy firms will continue quietly growing their legal practices and that 2016 will also see a big rise in the number of local authority legal departments applying to become ABSs in order to generate revenue for their local authorities to mitigate the proposed 30% cuts in local government funding.
We also predict a rise in alternative external sources of legal advice including in-house lawyers setting up as consultants, and barristers increasing their direct access opportunities to allow individuals and clients to instruct barristers without an intermediary. This will tie in with the increased use of technology to allow quick, effective and comprehensive access to up to date legal resources and to allow that work to be delivered by less highly trained staff.
Firms are changing the way that they attract, recruit and retain the best talent and are at last seeing the value proposition of diversity in addition to the requirement. We predict that by the end of 2016, the majority of the top 100 law firms will have introduced ‘CV blind’ recruitment policies for new trainee solicitors. This value is particularly relevant in relation to meeting client expectations but also in recruiting in a changing market. Interestingly, despite coming late to the diversity debate, Law firms account for 10% of the Stonewall index although Lord Davies still identifies that legal firms in particular are in crisis about the role of women in business.
We also predict that by the end of 2016 there will be 1,000 legal apprentices in training across England and Wales.
The legal market is divided on the role of the customer. Our research conducted among independent lawyers, midsize law firms and sole practitioners in ‘The Bellwether report: the Age of the Client’ suggests that the majority of law firms are entrenched in their views as to how to provide best service for customers and there is a wide gap between the views of the firm and of the customer as to how customer centric their services are.
60% of clients in that market feel they do not get good service when engaging a lawyer, and the stereotype that lawyers and law firms are prescriptive in what they provide and inflexible in pricing and delivery is not being shifted. We predict that unless firms adapt their pricing and purchasing behaviour and start to genuinely add value they will lose clients to law providers who understand what customer service really means.
Currently mid-law is benefiting from the upturn in the economy but firms are generally not gearing themselves up to resist competition from other providers to their traditional model.
What are your thoughts and predictions for 2016?
0330 161 1234