The Multidisciplinary Law Firm

The concept of law firms’ nature and structure needs to be ‘redåfined’. More and more law firms start looking like typical business companies and certain efforts into changing the legal profession business model should be made. And now more than ever quality client service needs to be the goal of the contemporary law firm. The pursuit of satisfying clients’ needs and increasing revenue can take the modified form of Multidisciplinary Law Firm, delivering better service to its current and prospective clients. Unlike the rest of society service providers, the attorney is the only one, called to come up with overall solutions to problematic situations. In his/her practice he/she inevitably encounters a lot of the so called non-legal issues whose solving is an obligatory condition to fulfill in order to get his/her work successfully done. Clients expect from their lawyers ‘Solutions’, and not just legal consultation; they expect ‘Results’, and not just regular legal assistance. That is due to the nature of lawyer’s role in society, in particular – in peoples’ life. It can be best detected in the two words group ‘My Lawyer’ – it certainly implies the idea of confidence and trust. In the context of what I have just said, lawyers should start offering their clients variety of services, going beyond the pure legal assistance. And results will not be late (some of them will be discussed further down on this page).

A good way of realizing such an initiative would be ESTABLISHING A MULTIDISCIPLINARY LAW FIRM!

It is very important that I first draw your attention on certain distinctions between the idea discussed here and some similar trends amongst law firms (their positive influence on law firm’s business is indisputable, but they turn out different in terms of certain aspects).

1) Law firms, defining themselves as ‘Law Firm ……… (Environmental, Human Resources, Governmental, PR, etc.) …… Consulting Company’, don’t fully correspond to what I mean here. It all comes to expanding the Consulting Services of the law firm beyond the pure legal assistance. That gives law firms the opportunity of adding value to their services and thus charging at a higher rate. But that is basically all that happens;

2) Other law firms team up with non-legal specialists (e.g. technical experts) and thus are able to offer a better service to their clients and differentiate themselves from their competitors. But that’s what it is – a ‘better’ service. By doing this they actually do not offer anything entirely new to the legal services market. And that leads to lower intensity of their marketing efforts;

3) Other law firms are now acting as fiduciaries, arbitrators, mediators, notaries public, etc. The approach certainly leads to positive results, but it is limited in scale, since those are services staying outside their core expertise (though related to).

What I mean is, establishing a new non-law related business (or closely cooperating with non-lawyers), which of course has to be in accordance with the nature of your practice. You have probably often heard tips such as ‘Meet non-lawyer members of the community who can refer clients to you. You can do this by joining groups that meet on a regular basis. Try to attend one or two breakfasts or luncheon meetings each week.’, but in my opinion ‘to meet’ such non-lawyers (accountants, financial planners, detectives (security guards), insurance agents, psychotherapists, priests (ministers), translators (including such dealing with document legalizing), etc.) is not really enough.

The most appropriate way for big and mid-sized law firms (and for some of the small law firms depending on their structure and area of practice) towards realization of such an initiative is the establishment of separate business entities. That is the new business needs to be in the form of self-determined entity, an independent subsidiary. A variant of compromise is the one in which this business is determined as a distinct department within the firm. What makes the form of separate business entity the most appropriate one is the following: 1) besides adding value to the services of your law firm, the new business will have the opportunity to serve its own clients, respectively to has its own profits and revenue, hence the number of the referrals generated will be considerably greater; 2) both organizational and Model Rules of Professional Conduct related problems will be avoided; 3) you are going to be able to much easier provide yourself with the services of the respective qualified specialists, because of the possibility that they participate (symbolically though) in the ownership of the company. 1) If you have directed yourself towards looking for the needed specialists on a local basis, then it would be enough that you review the ‘Job Seekers’ column of local newspapers. 2) On a regional, national or even international scale it is necessary that you show some initiative – the respective internet portals would prove quite useful there (it very often comes to mostly former governmental officials and big companies’ employees, looking for (regardless of reason) ‘new horizons’ and independence). That’s why ‘reasons for leaving’ should be one of the basic criteria (together with ‘professional experience and skills’) throughout the process of selection.

For Solo Practitioners the best way towards realizing such an initiative (probably the only one) would be cooperation. It would better be established in advance, in a formal way. The cooperation agreement can be even in the form of a General Contract, which needs to include in its clauses at least something like ‘Both parties shall upon request perform professional assistance on a discounted basis…’ (it may also contain some other terms, providing preferential status to their clients, but it is advisable that both parties attach their fee lists to the contract). One thing is for sure - some type of fee sharing arrangement needs to be in effect. Of course I would not ignore the significant question concerning the mutual referring of clients, but because of the common nature of that current piece of writing and the differences in legal systems around the world (in some of them such a scenario would lead to serious negative consequences), it would be better if the particular legal situation is considered.

Realization of such an initiative holds wonderful opportunities. Here are some of those positive aspects: you would 1) increase your client base through marketing your law firm as one, providing ‘all-round’ service (legal and non-legal); 2) generate cross-referrals; 3) gain more profits through the operation of the separate entity business and/or by charging at higher rates.

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