The Florida Bar members shouldn't ignore marketplace changes

Florida lawyers can ignore the technology revolution and the increasing role of nonlawyer providers of legal services and expect to enjoy all of the success that corporate giant Kodak had in the digital camera age.

Which is to say, Bar President Ramón Abadin noted, that Kodak lost 90 percent of its workforce and wound up in bankruptcy.

“Where’s Kodak today? They ran the photography business for 80 years. They were the company in that space and they’re gone now; they didn’t react to technological advances,” Abadin said. “They shunned their engineer who said in the ’70s, ‘Maybe we should get in the digital photography business.’

“Are we going to react to the marketplace, are we going to be nimble, or are we going to stay where we are?”

Abadin posed those questions during a presentation at the Board of Governors meeting in Tallahassee. It was an expansion of a related talk he has given at bar associations around the state and at several chambers of commerce, which focuses on challenges facing the legal profession, particularly in a rapidly evolving market.

Board members spent about 90 minutes discussing the presentation and what the Bar can do to help its members.

Abadin said that technology, particularly the Internet, is changing the way consumers shop for legal services. They no longer solely look at ads or rely on word-of-mouth recommendations. Instead they go online — 66 percent of the world will have Internet access within four years.

What they are finding, he said, is a variety of providers, including nonlawyer companies marketing forms, legal research, and ways to link clients with lawyers.

“Google is now going into the lawyer referral service business. Google is not stupid. They see the data; they mine the data; and they see there is money to be made,” Abadin said.

LegalZoom, he added, wants to take over all small business legal work and “middle class” representation — both foundations for the small law firms that make up 68 percent of the Bar’s membership. England is experimenting with online software to resolve disputes up to about $36,000 and in this country Modria is already solving more than 60 million disputes a year for eBay and PayPal.

The profession has three choices, he said. It can attempt to stop the nonlawyer companies using technology to deliver legal services; it can try to cooperate with those companies; or it can seek to compete with those companies.

The ultimate answer, Abadin said, will come from Bar members and he urged the board to actively seek their opinion. He added that since January 2015, he, immediate past Bar President Greg Coleman, and President-elect Bill Schifino have appeared at 169 town hall meetings, local bars, law schools, Bar section and committee meetings, editorial boards, community events, and other such gatherings talking about the upcoming challenges and seeking input.

While there are many potential answers and solutions, the president said one comes from the Bar’s high standards of professionalism.

“They [nonlawyer companies] don’t have our self-imposed high standards of excellence and our high standards of professionalism,” Abadin said. “We have integrity, honesty, and we understand fairness, and the process of litigation, the process of negotiation through the justice system. . . .

“This is what we offer; this is who we are; this is value we add to transactions; and this is the value we add to people in crisis.”

Public member Lawrence Tyree opened the board’s discussion by praising the presentation, and then added for other board members: “The question that is begging is:‘So what?’ What are you going to do about these enormous challenges, this paradigm shift?”

“At the end of all this, it’s the recognition of what’s happening with the so-called legal profession, and what’s happening with all these alternative methods of delivering legal services. What’s happening with all these methods of connecting with clients?” board member Jay Cohen asked. “How are we going to brand the lawyer as the surviving centerpiece of the delivery of legal services so we can more effectively compete and appropriately compete . . . with all these methods of delivering legal services?

“We have to come up with some solid recommendations so the Florida Supreme Court understands from a rules standpoint that we’re here to preserve the sanctity of our profession.”

Referring to Abadin’s three options for the profession, board member Paul SanGiovanni said, “I think we need to compete . . . and I think we need to compete hard, and I think we need to compete so we win.”

He said the Bar needs to hire experts and consultants and then devise a strategy, including an advertising component.

“That way you win; you win in the free market, and it’s something that’s sustainable,” he said.

SanGiovanni, the chair-elect of the Budget Committee, said there are implications for other Bar activities.

“We have a very challenging budget. The real, hard decision we’ve got to make is not whether we want to compete . . . but what programs do we have now that we need to streamline or get rid of because this is more important,” he said.

Several board members said Bar members need more education about the challenges and possible solutions and it will take more than a cursory information campaign.

Board member Wayne Smith noted he was preparing to join the board after a special election just as the reciprocity debate heated up last year. While the Florida Keys have several hundred Bar members, Smith said he received thousands of emails and phone calls on reciprocity.

While the board eventually unanimously rejected it, Smith said, he saw “threats and scary things” with reciprocity as well as real opportunities. He quoted a psychiatrist friend of his: “You know what it is with you lawyers? You hear the words but you don’t listen to the music.”

Smith said lawyers and the Bar will have to listen to words and music as they sort through options.

Board member Jack Hickey said while the Bar faces tough choices and the profession is changing, lawyers will survive.

“We are and will be relevant as lawyers. There will be a role for something called a lawyer in the future,” he said. “Artificial intelligence will not replace us. LegalZoom will not replace us. We will be here doing what we do. It [the practice of law] has changed and it will change in the future.”

Tyree closed the discussion by praising the board for tackling the issues raised in the presentation and recalled a conversation he had with the CEO of Kodak when Tyree was an interim community college president in Rochester, NY, home of Kodak. He asked the Kodak executive how the company had gone from 95,000 to 9,000 employees.

“‘We buried our heads in the sand,’ was the reply,” Tyree said. “I want to tell you how proud I am that you are not burying your head in the sand. We have to act. We have got to act.”

Tags: Government/Politics & Law