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Bucerius in the News: Bloomberg Law interviews Markus Hartung

Markus Hartung, Director on the Bucerius Center on the Legal Profession, was interviewed by Bloomberg Law News on the need for innovation in the legal profession. Mr. Hartung recently unveiled a position paper about the same subject.

In the interview, he explained that the worldwide economic crisis precipitated a crisis in the legal profession, with the amount of work available shrinking. With smaller budgets for projects, clients have pressured law firms to move away from the business model of billable hours. Hartung believes that trend is irreversible.

“We think that the ‘good times’ of charging by the hour without any regard to value for money are over,” he said.

The large law firms that have thrived since the recession have found ways to be innovative, including deciding which services to provide in-house and which to farm out. Another example of innovation mentioned by Hartung is the Pfizer Legal Alliance, a panel of law firms that are paid a flat annual fee for the work they do for Pfizer, Inc.

But innovation is not easy to maintain in the legal profession partly because product innovation or innovative legal ideas cannot be patented or copyrighted, he said.

“Once you have [a new] idea, your fellow partner or lawyer might grab this idea and try to make a business out of it,” Hartung said.

Hartung and the Bucerius Center on the Legal Profession are beginning to study ways legal firms can be innovative, but currently there are few quantifiable ways to measure such innovation, he said.

“We don’t have answers to this,” Hartung said. “We’ve just started to raise the right questions.”

To see the full interview, click on the following link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JaZhDpXJGAQ