People still want to meet face to face

Apr 21 2009 by Karen Dent, The Journal

THERE is no doubt that although the public sector is now starting to feel the effects of this recession, the professional services sector has been hit a lot harder than during previous periods of economic hardship.

The landscape for professional services has changed and the emergence from the recession could lead to sweeping changes.

The Legal Services Act, which was introduced when the markets were high, will open the doors for other professionals to join with law firms in the provision of legal services and one question that has been posed is whether or not the Act will lead to a commoditised “Tesco” law approach.

While this is highly unlikely, certain legal services will lend themselves to a bulk delivery approach.

The potential for increased competition raised by the Legal Services Act and the effect of the recession itself has led to a call for change. The recession has obviously led people to be far more price sensitive and has led lawyers and accountants, in particular, to look at fixed-fee and set-fee packages.

It is not always possible to create a fixed-fee approach. However, accountants, architects and lawyers can put together fixed packages for quantifiable tasks that have an obvious start and finish point. This can be communicated quite readily to clients and this approach has been adopted during recessionary times.

The real opportunity, post-recession, will be the ability to implement these fixed and capped fee structures for areas previously not considered in order to deliver a valuable service proposition to clients. The only way to ensure that creative solutions are delivered for clients is through face to face contact.

If professionals can free themselves from the constraints of hourly charging for certain areas of the work, this in turn should free up more time for direct client contact. This would then hopefully lead to a more enjoyable working experience for both professionals and their clients. Inevitably this would stave off the risk of “Tesco” law, as ultimately, people would prefer to deal face to face over the matters that are important to them.

Neil Warwick, partner at Dickinson Dees