Bombardier general counsel Daniel Desjardins has called on law firms to act more like businesses in an open letter to the profession. Writing on the Association of Corporate Counsel Docket, he says they need to do more to ready themselves for the dramatic changes sweeping the in-house legal profession. ‘When many in the profession predicted, or hoped, that legal practice would return to the pre-recession status quo, this had not turned out to be the case. We’ve hit the tipping point’, he says.
Respond to the market
Law firms need to change by understanding the need to respond to the market demands of lower-cost services, more predictability and improved efficiency as well as the value and service expectations of their customers, he say.
He believes that firms are making changes but that they are not enough. He says they have got to stop thinking that they are different from other businesses and need to be a business. Whilst in-house legal departments had transformed themselves over the past 20 years, law firms had not. He urged GCs to encourage the transformation of law firms, ‘engage with the firms and open the door to a new dialogue.’ Meanwhile, a conference to talk about this subject is being held in London on 30 September 2013. The Future of Law Summit will see 150 leaders in law discuss the path to business transformation in law firms. For further information, email [email protected]
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