The Rise of “Tesco Law”

By 2012 it’s likely that you’ll be able to pick up a package of legal support along with your weekly shop at the supermarket. This is because the Legal Services Act 2007, dubbed “Tesco Law”, is bringing about a relaxation of the monopoly currently enjoyed by the legal profession, allowing others to enter the market place.

For those using legal services at all levels, this has interesting ramifications. The consumer will have a wider choice from which to access legal advice. Supermarkets and other businesses have already extended their product line to include services such as insurance, white goods, electricals, mobile phone contracts, loans and banking.

Will that be a good thing for the consumer? Supermarkets have a great deal going for them – convenience, price, value, consistency of quality, customer service, things that the consumer perceives as important. There are downsides however, those same values have produced a product delivery in terms dictated by the provider. Consistent quality has sometimes meant that the quality is consistently poor, or at best average. We have to travel to where the supermarket is. The product range is dictated by someone else and all those things that we used to find in High Street electrical shops, clothes shops and ironmongers are now very hard to find. The affect on our high streets has been devastating.

Entry into the legal market may very well have the same affect on legal services. Undoubtedly they will provide a service, but it will be very much on the terms of the provider, in terms of quality, price and location. You won’t be able to haggle your house purchase fees (conveyancing quote) with them, just as you can’t negotiate the price of the contents of your shopping trolley. There will be some perceived benefits – better access such as website or telephone services, more transparent pricing.

This will all have an impact on the current providers of legal services in our towns and cities. Their market could simply disappear off to another provider. We can trot out all the things that people like to say about the legal profession – costly, slow, distant. There may well be justification for all of those complaints, but behind the service that is currently supplied there is a huge wealth of knowledge and experience that we are at risk of losing if we allow a corporate takeover of local law firms. The legal profession will need to take a lean manufacturing approach to their services, all the while refusing to compromise on quality.

The consumer will ultimately make their own choice and will dictate what finally happens to the local delivery of legal services. A move to the use of large corporates – supermarkets or others many not turn out to be in the best interest of the consumer. Clients will get a service, but it will never be the best.

Over the years, the most promising law firms have woken up to the opportunities to market themselves. Up until recent years, solicitors and lawyers were restricted from using advertising to promote their services by the Law Society, which may explain why some firms have been less than quick off the mark to respond to advances in marketing. Law firms need to think commercially and consider their position in a market place which is soon to become saturated by family-favourite brands which consumers have come to trust. Although likely to offer a superior service, ultimately is all about client perception. Law firms will need to consider how they present themselves to ensure that the message about service and value for money is put across clearly to the legal market.

The decision of what happens in the face of such competition may very well rest with the legal profession itself. It needs to take a long and hard look at the way it has delivered its service in the past, and assess whether that is the way in which its customers want the service now. What we believe is important to the client does not always match up with their perception. It needs also to look very carefully at the way in which potential competitors will provide its service – noting that some of the things they do, they do very well.

Some consumers have already started to rebel against the domination of the supermarkets, by insisting on buying local, with all the benefits of that in reduction of carbon footprints and support of quality local suppliers. Within that trend there is the recognition that quality is an issue. What is bought from a local supplier is frequently better and possibly unavailable elsewhere. The same will apply to the delivery of legal services, there is nothing that can really replace the expertise, local knowledge and flexibility of a local provider. The danger for law firms is that they will not organise themselves sufficiently in advance to respond to the likely trend.

It is fair to say that some firms have already started to do this and have started to address the necessary market demands and focus on business development and the selling of their legal services. They have a sporting chance of being the survivors. The rest of the profession will need to follow suit if it is not to be swallowed up by the corporates. There may not be many who would actually mourn the loss of the local solicitor, but once lost, what is left will be much the poorer and a serious compromise on quality and knowledge. So, buy local and still support your local law firms – but insist that they change and deliver a service that is what you want and not just dictated by them.

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This entry was posted on Thursday, December 3rd, 2009 at 10:06 am and is filed under News, Press and Media.

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