VIII.DISINTERMEDIATING AND RE- ENGINEERING THE LEGAL PROCESS
A. POWER OF THE INTERNET
Most law firms think of their Internet websites only as a marketing tool. However, they can also be very important tools for improving client relations, increasing revenues and lowering costs. Internet websites effectively publish the firm brochure and newsletter on the Internet at low cost. However, the real power of the Internet is that it allows two unrelated computer systems to communicate with each other.
The power of this idea can be clearly seen in email, the most basic, but at present the most useful, Internet based client relation tool. Email sent over the Internet from one computer to another is encoded in a common communications protocol (TCP/IP). This protocol allows the transmitting and recipient computer to communicate, whether the computers are the same kind or not.
This simple concept means that lawyers can now send messages to any client who is connected to the Internet. Previously, law firms that wanted to electronically communicate with clients had to call in specialists to properly configure the firm's computers to communicate with the client's computers. Today you simply ask for the client's email address.
B. DISINTERMEDIATION
The simple process of sending an email message is the epitome of disintermediation. Disintermediation is a long word for getting rid of the middlemen. In traditional non-Internet based mail, you compose the message, your secretary types the message, the envelope is addressed, the letter enclosed, it is then picked up and delivered to the post office, and a dozen or more postal employees sort, route and deliver the mail to client's office. If the client is a large company, several more people will be involved in getting the letter to the intended recipient. The whole process takes days.
With email, nearly everyone in this daisy chain is disintermediated. Most email is typed by the sender, a short address is attached and then computers perform all of the functions previously handled by human intermediaries. Email is so cost effective that it alone can justify a firm's investment in Internet connections for all attorneys.
Firms that use email have a significant competitive advantage over firms that do not use email. They can get messages to the client's desk top within minutes and unlike phone messages, email waits for the client unchanged and configured for an instant reply to the sending attorney. In fact, many large clients will only consider firms that have Internet email capability. Internet-based email is only the beginning of the changes that the Internet will cause in law firm operations and marketing.
C. CLIENT RELATIONS, BEYOND EMAIL
Email is a one-way medium. A properly designed website is not; it is interactive. At the present time, most law firm websites are simply on-line brochures. The better websites are being used as searchable archives of newsletters and links to practice specific resources on the World Wide Web. The best law firm websites provide resources that are useful by the firms clients and by prospective clients.
When clients visits a website, they should be able to quickly locate the information they need either through a well organized set of point and click links or a keyword search. In either case, the clients decide what they want and the website responds with the information. A website gives clients the information they want, when they want it.
In nearly all cases, the information that the law firm makes available at its website is public information, but it does not have to be. A few firms are starting to make private information available via passworded websites.
The kind of information a firm wishes to make available at a private website is only limited by the needs of the client. For example, a website could be created for a complex litigation that brings together all of the litigation documents; complaints, answers, memoranda of law, deposition schedules, etc. Any document is only a click away from the home page and can be electronically searched. A list of email addresses and mailing lists can be kept at the website for easy dissemination of comments to all parties.
Such a website builds the client relationship on a daily basis. Clients get the information quickly, when they want it and can contact you without interrupting you. The website also disintermediates a large number of people who were previously involved with maintaining and delivering paper based records. Paper records are dead text. Paper records cannot be easily searched, modified or pasted into electronic records and paper text does not have live links to other documents and references.
D. LEGAL PROCESS RE-ENGINEERING
A litigation specific website can be used for legal process re-engineering (in corporations the process is called business process re-engineering or BPR). Information that was previously distributed on paper is now distributed electronically directly to the persons that need the information.
Re-engineering the legal process consists of more than just automating processes traditional legal work procedures. Simple automating a traditional process is also known as "paving the cowpath". (Paving the cowpath refers back to the early part of this century, when people simply paved the traditional serpentine roads needed for animal-based transportation, rather than re-routing roads directly over the hill to take advantage of powerful automobile technology.) Firms need to look at other ways to re-engineer the legal process via websites that don't simply pave the cowpaths created by paper documents.
As an example, a website could be used to greatly streamline the incorporation process. The paved cowpath version is simply to have the client fill out the firm's incorporation matter intake form on-line, which is then sent to an associate for drafting. Useful, but it only slightly speeds up satisfying the client's need, a new corporation.
The re-engineered incorporation process uses a website (sometimes called an "extranet") that asks the client a series of questions to target the client's specific needs. Each client answer shapes the next question. The process may reveal that the client also needs a shareholders agreement, in which case specific questions about the shareholders agreement will be asked. The client's answers do not go to an associate or paralegal. They first go to a document production system that selects the right forms and clauses based on the client's answers, assembles the documents, fills in the blanks and only then emails the whole package to an attorney for review.
The reviewing attorney then uses his or her expertise efficiently to review complete or nearly complete documents. The reviewing attorney can edit and send the client a full set of documents only a few hours after the request was submitted.
Each step and intermediary in getting to the client's goal needs to be examined and those steps and individuals that can be effectively disintermediated should be. Attorneys, paralegals and staff should only do those steps that require human intervention.
E. WHAT CAN BE DONE NOW
Internet technology and particularly the WWW, are evolving incredible rapidly. No one can predict where this evolution will lead. At the same time, it is now very evident that the Internet's ability to tie computer systems together and to allow clients and law firms to access and provide input to each other's computer systems will redefine client relationships and the legal process.
Clients now have the ability to provide information directly to a law firm without human intervention. As a result, many of the intermediary steps in the legal process can be automated at low cost compared to the costs of the present system. Law firms and clients need to talk about integrating their systems and how to disintermediate the steps in the legal process that can be automated. Both the discussions and the integration of the computer systems will build stronger client relationships.
I. INTRODUCTION
II. OVERVIEW
III. THE IMPORTANCE OF TOP LEVEL DOMAIN NAMES FOR LAW FIRMS
IV. WHY CREATE A LAW FIRM WEBSITE
V. DEVELOPING A WEBSITE DESIGN STRATEGY
VIII. DISINTERMEDIATING AND RE-ENGINEERING THE LEGAL PROCESS
IX. A BRIEF REVIEW OF LEGAL ETHICS AND WEBSITES
For information on how Web Counsel can help you develop your own website see our Web Counsel Services page OR send e-mail to mark@webcounsel.com, phone us at (203)-637-4352, FAX us at (203) 698-1052 or mail us at our Greenwich office address - Web Counsel, LLC, 17 Wilmot Lane, Riverside, CT 06878.
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