The future is here: managing legal services within a changing world

Senior lawyers from Spain and Portugal were this past week able to share their reflections on the impact of the international financial crisis, and domestic economic decline, at a special conference in Lisbon organised this past week by Iberian Lawyer. Over 150 lawyers and law firm professionals attended the International Legal Summit – which was “sold out” – at the Pestana Palace hotel.

 Managing Partners from the major Spanish and Portuguese law firms were joined by General Counsel of the biggest Iberian companies to discuss the new challenges they are facing and the measures they are taking in order to overcome such difficult circumstances.

 The event was supported by RSG Consulting, the architect and research partner of the Financial Times Innovative Lawyers Report and the Association of Portuguese Law Firms (ASAP) with international participants attending from across Europe and the USA. Not only did participants hear how the crisis has been bringing new challenges and opportunities around the world, but they were also able to discuss, in the afternoon workshops, the lessons for their own practices.

 Themes

The conference was opened by Moray McLaren of Iberian Lawyer publisher Iberian legal Group and chaired by Peter Cornell, former Global managing Partner of Clifford Chance and now a Director at private equity firm Terra Firma.

Cornell told participants: “There is much talk in the air of a revolution in the delivery of corporate legal services – and our aim for the day is to discover what’s actually happening on the ground? What are the changing needs of clients – what people are calling ‘the new normal’ – and how should law firms be responding to that need?”

Participants heard how the global law firm redundancies, and in some cases closures of recent years, are only the most public expression of the much deeper and more challenging issues facing the profession.

For the first time in Iberia, lawyers were also able to hear the views of Professor Richard Susskind, a world leading expert on the modernisation of legal practice. His recent book, The End of Lawyers? Rethinking the Nature of Legal Services has been a global best seller, suggesting that the delivery of legal services is undergoing a period of extreme change. Law firms that do not examine what this change means to them are at serious risk, he told participants.

“I urge lawyers to ask themselves what elements of their current workload could be undertaken more quickly, more cheaply, more efficiently, or to a higher quality using different and new methods of working,” said Professor Susskind.

He told participants that, going forward, the market is unlikely to tolerate expensive lawyers for tasks that can be better managed and delivered with support from modern systems and techniques. He claims that the legal profession will be driven by two forces in the coming decade: by a market pull towards the commoditisation of legal services, and by the development and uptake of new and disruptive legal technologies.

Other keynote speakers at the Summit included Neville Eisenberg, the Managing Partner of City of London law firm Berwin Leighton Paisner, and Reena SenGupta, the founder of RSG Consulting and creator of the The Financial Times Innovative Lawyers Report. 

Evolution or revolution?

Participants heard also how in-house legal departments are facing an increasing workload alongside reductions in their budgets, and are therefore exploring new ways of making savings and introducing new efficiencies in the way they manage and source legal services. In turn, they are placing increasing pressure on their external lawyers to reduce their costs by working in new and innovative ways.

Throughout the Summit, participants heard that efforts are being made to see where certain work can be standardised and completed by more junior legal and paralegal staff at reduced costs. Further options include multi-shoring or off-shoring of legal work in jurisdictions where legal services may be less expensive or outsourcing tasks to the new breed of Legal Process Outsourcers (LPOs).

Technological developments have a key role to play in these developments and the threat for lawyers is clear, suggested Susskind, their jobs may well be eroded or even displaced. At the same time, he foresees quite different legal jobs emerging which may be highly rewarding, even if very different from those of today, as well as new types of legal providers. 

As Peter Cornell highlighted at the beginning of the day: “Some law firms are embracing change while others are suggesting it will soon be ‘business as usual’ once the economic difficulties are over. Whoever the legal winners and losers will be, the next few years will witness potential opportunities as well as clear threats for the legal profession.”

Recognition

 At the Summit Gala Lunch, a number of Spanish and Portuguese law firms and legal departments were presented with Special Recognition Awards by ReenaSenGupta as a result of the strong showing in the Financial Times Innovative Lawyer´s Report.

The firms that achieved the recognitions were:

- Uría Menéndez for its outstanding Innovation in Client Service and Innovation in Legal Expertise;

- Garrigues for for its outstanding Innovation in Law Firm Brands and  Most Original Idea;

- Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer for its outstanding Innovation by a Foreign Law Firm In Iberia;

- Bankinter for its outstanding Innovation by an In-House Legal Team;

- Abreu Advogados for consistent Innovation by a Portuguese Law Firm.

The Summit also featured a number of parallel workshop interactive and participatory workshop sessions with lawyers sharing their views on the challenges ahead. The panel members included:

• Antonio Alves, General Counsel, Portucel Soporcel Group
• Jorge Bleck, Senior Partner – Lisbon, Linklaters
• Pedro Cardigos, Principal, Cardigos
• Paul Dan, Senior Regional Counsel – France / Iberia, Tyco International
• Stephen Denyer, Global Markets Partner, Allen & Overy
• Kevin Doolan, Partner, Head of Client Relations, Eversheds
• John Ericson, Partner, Simpson Thacher & Bartlett
• Andrea Gomes da Silva, Partner, Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer
• Enrique González-Díaz, Partner, Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton
• Michael Hales, Chair International Committee and European Group, Nabarro
• Rui Mayer, General Counsel, GALP
• Filipa Mendes Pinto, Founding Partner, FIND
• Pedro Pérez-Llorca, Managing Partner, Pérez-Llorca
• Francisco Sá Carneiro, Founding Partner, Campos Ferreira Sá Carneiro & Associados
• Jose María Segovia, Senior Partner, Uría Menéndez
• João Soares da Silva, Co-President and Co-Managing Partner, Morais Leitão Galvão Teles Soares da Silva
• Manuel Santos Vítor, Managing Partner, PLMJ
• Miguel Teixeira, Founding Partner, Abreu Advogados
• Manuela Vasconcelos Simões, Head of Legal - Portugal, Deutsche Bank (TBC)
• João Vieira de Almeida, Managing Partner, Vieira de Almeida 

The full programme can be downloaded here.

For further information on the Summit contact Mari Cruz Taboada at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

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