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The “More-For-Less” Paradox

When a theory takes on a life of its own, a reality check can help: results of a survey conducted by Bucerius Center on the Legal Profession and Deutscher AnwaltSpiegel.

By Markus Hartung and Arne Gärtner

pa|ra|dox

• (formal) a [seemingly] irresolvable contradiction in terms; nonsensical, contradictory
• (colloquial) very strange; utterly absurd, nonsensical

The issue at hand

In the wake of the financial crisis, the legal markets have been subject to constant change, and nothing has been, at least at first glance, like it was before. This has raised the question of which trends might decisively influence the future development of the market. This question was systematically addressed for the first time by Richard Susskind in his book Tomorrow’s Lawyers: An Introduction to Your Future in which he identified three key drivers: (a) the “more-for-less” challenge, (b) the process of digitization and (c) liberalization, understood as increasing deregulation, in particular in conjunction with the dissolution of the monopoly of the legal consulting sector.

The effects of digitization, in other words the revolutionary or perhaps merely evolutionary impact of innovative technology on legal consulting activities, were the focus of last year’s and in particular this year’s fall conference of Bucerius Center on the Legal Profession (CLP, Hamburg). Indeed, the (postponed) launch of the beA (besonderes elektronische Anwaltspostfach), an electronic mailbox for legal professionals, is apparently a greater source of inspiration for the German legal profession than Watson, the IBM supercomputer, whom most others look to in wonderment. Nor has the topic of deregulation made its way into the German legal landscape, where most participants still feel couched in the comfort zone of the Legal Services Act (Rechtsdienstleistungsgesetz) and the rather conservative German Federal Bar.

The more-for-less challenge, for its part, dances to a different tune. Its aim is to, in short, bring general counsels to cut 30% to 50% of their budgets under intense and increasing cost pressure – with direct consequences for external legal counsels. The latter are expected to, in the face of increasingly complex regulatory demands, provide more services at significantly lower fees. Susskind, for his part, believes that “the more-for-less challenge, above all others, will underpin and define the next decade of legal service. The more-for-less challenge will, I expect, irreversibly change the way that lawyers work.”

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The English version of this article was originally published by Business Law Magazine.