The Legal Profession Has Lost its Monopoly
The big tech platforms are eating away at the profession’s market share.
The legal profession has lost its monopoly on providing legal services. High margins, a massive, underserved market, and processes ripe for automation have attracted all sorts of competitors. This is changing the economics of the industry from bottom all the way to the top.
Most lawyers and law firms assume that neither client needs nor technology will challenge their very profitable position atop the legal market, but they’re wrong. Actors like big tech will make much of their work redundant.
Platforms like Paypal, eBay, and Amazon are changing the law, both by requiring the acceptance of standard terms and conditions on their platforms and using electronic dispute resolution to manage disputes.
We could be excused for not thinking of these companies as legal service providers, yet between them, they resolve millions of legal disputes every year. These disputes about product quality, contract fulfillment, payment, and more all take place within their platforms and outside of the judicial system. No lawyers, no law firms required.
You may say that none of these companies compete with your law firm? You work B2B and they’re just B2C platforms. Okay, pal. Yes, Amazon used to just sell books, but they’ve moved into business to business, they’re there to stay, they’re making lots of money, and they’re not alone.
They facilitate billions of transactions including an ever increasing number of B2B transactions and their electronic dispute resolution (EDR) services act the same way that those services work in stock and commodity exchanges — with very little human interaction.
And that’s just half of their challenge. The legal profession delivers custom solutions to individual customers. The big tech platforms do the opposite. They offer standardized terms and conditions to everyone.
There’s little to write or review. It’s take it or leave it, and if your clients want access to the large part of the market these platforms make happen, they’ve got to take it.
The legal industry’s clients are, in effect, taking their business elsewhere as they expand their use of the big online platforms. The clients and the tech giants are driving this development, not the lawyers or law firms.
Once upon a time, Amazon only sold books, but the 20th century ended, and that was all a long time ago.
The tech giants are changing the way law is practiced. Right now, right here. They don’t care if we’ve noticed them. They’re too busy changing who provides legal services and how those services are delivered.
We’re Thinklegaltech. The solution is out there.
