Futurist Projects Vision of Tomorrow’s Legal Profession

From YourABA, October 2009

“Clients are customers, and customers are more knowledgeable, more diverse and more demanding. They are kings and queens of the new economy,” said Stuart A. Forsyth, keynoter at the 2009 Fall Leadership Meeting of the Section Officers Conference. Forsyth, principal of The Legal Futurist, said the practice of law is changing rapidly and its future is being shaped by client demands.

Clients are looking for lower cost services because of the bad economy, according to Forsyth, whose consulting practice is based in San Diego. At the same time, he maintains, the furnishing of legal services online and the public’s increased access to legal information on the Internet are further evolving clients’ expectations for lower costs, as well as affecting their expectations for service delivery.

“People don’t think they can afford legal services. Right now we’re only serving the very poor and the very rich. We’re becoming less relevant to the public in the middle. If you become irrelevant no one cares,” said Forsyth.

With clients perceiving a misalignment between their expectations and the cost for delivering legal services, Forsyth noted that public respect for the law and the legal profession is eroding and lawyers themselves aren’t doing much to stop it.

“As lawyers,” Forsyth said, “we are taught to see in specialties. We are not taught to see in breadth, vision or connection. We’re trained to look to the past. We’re moving forward by steering in the wake.”

Among other trends, Forsyth sees more consolidation in the field of law as client expectations continue to shift, and as technology continues to globalize and standardize law practice. Citing America’s population boom among racial and ethnic minorities, particularly Hispanics, Forsyth said that a shift in the racial majority would be an additional factor influencing the future of law practice.

In light of these trends, Forsyth urged lawyers to reinvent their practices with technology and changing demographics in the population in mind.

“What guarantees success today will not guarantee success tomorrow,” concluded Forsyth.

“Futurist projects vision of tomorrow’s legal profession” is from the October 2009 issue of YourABA, an e-newsletter for ABA members.