Let’s get one thing straight: I’m an online-eyeglass-ordering, hybrid-driving,

Internet-CEO hipster. I will be the first in line

for a driverless car. And, as someone who

has worked with thousands of small law

firms, I predict there is no major disruption

coming. Small law firm attorneys will not

be traveling to the courthouse via jetpack

anytime soon.

I see evolution, not revolution, coming

with technology- and workflow-driven

changes, mostly with the end result of

more profitable firms that can handle more

cases per attorney. But if you’re expecting

fantastic changes like Uber’s disruption of

taxis or Amazon’s upending of bookstores,

I simply don’t see it in the cards.

In the future, small law firms will look

much like the firms they are now. Humans

will continue to find themselves mired

in intractable, suffocating problems that

need solving by brilliant attorneys. In the

future — as in the present and past — small

firms must serve their clients, and they will

differentiate themselves by their success or

failure in doing so. In that sense, nothing’s

changing: good attorneys will prosper, and

bad attorneys will languish or move on.

From a process and business

perspective, though, small law firms must

change or likely go extinct. If you want a

glimpse of how the future for small law

firms will be different, just look at what early

technology adopters are up to today. It turns

out it’s quite easy to predict the future of

small law firms, because the profession as a

whole has been slow to adopt technology.

Change is afoot in dynamic but gradual ways,

for the benefit of most, though certainly not

all. This change has four aspects:

1) ON THE ONE HAND, AUTOMATION MIGHT KILL YOUIf a cheapskate business owner or consumer

can already theoretically replace a lawyer

with an off-the-rack form, expect the future

to be a lot worse. If I, as a business owner,

can obtain a commodity legal service and

have confidence (justified or not) that I will

not get in trouble later on, small firms might

want to come up with a contingency plan.

Small law firms that help people in simple,

transactional ways (e.g., with simple wills or

creating LLCs) will have big problems.

The LegalZooms of the world will

continue to pop up and improve with

increasing rapidity. Resourceful law firms

of all sizes will use contract attorneys to

help with lower-priced, cookie-cutter work.

Software automation will make document

production easier than ever. These forces of

commoditization will continue to increase

until rival brick-and-mortar legal service

providers are no longer able to compete.

They will either leave the law and choose

another career (Uber is looking for drivers,

by the way) or have to migrate their activities

to another specialization altogether, such as

cleaning up the mess made by these off-the-

shelf legal services.

FEATURES

©iStockphoto.com/CREATISTA

This article was first published in

ILTA’s Summer 2014 issue of Peer

to Peer titled “Law2020: Future

Horizons” and is reprinted here with

permission. For more information

about ILTA, visit www.iltanet.org.

peer topeer

SUMMER 2014Issue 2 Volume 30

Peer to Peer Magazine is the quarterly publication of the International Legal Technology Association. Find out more at iltanet.org.

Read this issue on the go! A digital version is available for your tablet, smartphone and computer. Find more information online at iltanet.org/p2p.

ILLUSTRATION BY THOMAS BOUCHER, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

FUSION = INNOVATIONHOW TO ALIGN YOUR FIRM’S IT AND BUSINESS STRATEGIES 50

ALL EYES ARE ON THE TECHNOLOGY HORIZONEXCERPTED FROM ILTA’S LEGAL TECHNOLOGY FUTURE HORIZONS REPORT 44

FUTURE SCENARIOS FOR IT | MANAGING A VIRTUAL WORKFORCE | RETHINKING YOUR BUSINESS MODEL | BREATHING LIFE INTO INNOVATION | TEACHING TECHNOLOGY TO TOMORROW’S LAWYERS | AND MOREMA

GAZIN

E

peer topeer

SUMMER 2014Issue 2 Volume 30

Peer to Peer Magazine is the quarterly publication of the International Legal Technology Association. Find out more at iltanet.org.

Read this issue on the go! A digital version is available for your tablet, smartphone and computer. Find more information online at iltanet.org/p2p.

ILLUSTRATION BY THOMAS BOUCHER, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

FUSION = INNOVATIONHOW TO ALIGN YOUR FIRM’S IT AND BUSINESS STRATEGIES 50

ALL EYES ARE ON THE TECHNOLOGY HORIZONEXCERPTED FROM ILTA’S LEGAL TECHNOLOGY FUTURE HORIZONS REPORT 44

FUTURE SCENARIOS FOR IT | MANAGING A VIRTUAL WORKFORCE | RETHINKING YOUR BUSINESS MODEL | BREATHING LIFE INTO INNOVATION | TEACHING TECHNOLOGY TO TOMORROW’S LAWYERS | AND MOREMA

GAZIN

E

LAW2020Future Horizons

LAW2020Future Horizons

2) ON THE OTHER HAND, AUTOMATION WILL ALLOW YOU TO THRIVEIncreased automation — for producing

documents, generating invoices and more

— reduces errors and saves time each

month that can be devoted to more client

activity and billable hours. Technology is

now so powerful and affordable that firms

that successfully wield it greatly outperform

those that don’t. A small, paperless law firm

with a mobile practice management system

can compete just as effectively as any large

law firm. An attorney with boxes full of

documents is no match for an attorney who

can use an Evernote offering to pull up any

file ever needed anywhere, at any time.

For most small law firms, the fabric of

their reality is so tightly woven that life is

unthinkable without filing cabinets, 15-minute

searches for documents and two-day billing

marathons in which invoices are reconstituted

from legal pads. Highly automated firms do

not share these tribulations and inefficiencies.

They also use document assembly software

to produce fresh and accurate new

documents that don’t need to be proofread

for embarrassing mistakes. And as powerful

document generation tools become less

expensive, easier to use and integrated

with existing tools like CRMs, their use will

become more prevalent across the legal

spectrum.

The digital divide between small firms

that access and utilize technology and those

that don’t will become more pronounced in

the future. The divide will only widen as time

goes on and laggards continue to refuse to

embrace technology (or join the party with

the late majority).

3) THE BILLABLE HOUR WILL NOT DIEAs someone who works with thousands of

small law firms, the predicted demise of the

billable hour will not happen. Flat fees might

be appropriate in some instances, and it’s

entirely possible more work could be billed in

an alternative fee arrangement. But litigation

has too many unknowns and wild twists,

and even the firms with the most advanced

knowledge of their billing practices are

vulnerable to a bad pricing decision.

All cases have similarities, and litigation

goes through the same stages every time.

But well-meant theories and data from

previous cases will not work for small law

firms. In a large law firm, more volume

will mitigate the risk of inaccurate pricing,

much as insurance companies can employ

actuaries to win more times than they

lose. Even then, the advantage of moving

exclusively to flat-fee billing is dubious.

Litigation is a lot more dynamic with many

more pieces of data than the vital statistics

actuaries use to calculate insurance risk.

Small firms do not have the volume of

work to compensate for statistical outliers

that will wreck their alternative fee models,

and a single large loss could cause them

serious economic damage.

4) THE FUTURE IS NOT ROSY FOR SUPPORT STAFFIf you were starting a law firm today with

two attorneys, would you hire a receptionist

or bring on an associate or paralegal?

Would you invest in on-premise software

and servers? Or would you purchase cloud

software that doesn’t require servers or

IT support, use a virtual service like Ruby

Receptionists and minimize payroll with

contract attorneys?

New tools and technologies do not

bode well for office support positions.

Services like Ruby Receptionists thrive

because of easily configurable VoIP

systems and call forwarders, providing a

law firm with a friendly person who is 100

percent reliable (no sick days) and quality

controlled. Fully reliable support personnel

are otherwise rare, golden hires for busy

attorneys. Solo and small firm attorneys

can manage billing without an in-house

specialist thanks to easy mobile time-

capture on smartphones. These systems

integrate directly with invoicing; the lack of

hardware saves attorneys the expense of IT

support. In addition, robust reporting tools

available through the cloud reveal clearly

which employees are especially profitable.

Just as market forces dictate the

difficulty of tossing out the billable hour,

firms weighted down with support staff will

not be as profitable, reliable or nimble as

those with a tighter payroll.

LET THE FUTURE UNFOLDIt’s true that when the singularity hits and

we have artificially intelligent attorneys

and judges, we might need to step back

and reassess things. But we’ll merely have

bigger fish to fry as our flying, driverless

cars evacuate us to the hilltops to avoid

coastal flooding from the melted polar ice

caps. Until then, small firms can evolve with

changing workflows and technologies to

remain competitive.

About the AuthorLarry Port, CEO and Founder of Rocket Matter, helps brings the business of law into the 21st century by

breaking down complex business processes and arcane technology concepts into easy to understand, humorous

and engaging sessions. He emphasizes a pragmatic approach to efficiency, simplicity and productivity for

legal professionals. At the crossroads of the legal profession and cutting-edge technology, Larry has published

extensively in legal publications, conducts free monthly webinars on emerging topics for attorneys and speaks

at bar association CLE’s around the country. Contact him at larry@rocketmatter.com or on Twitter @larryport.