Headline this evening in The Lawyer “Firms to go bust will top 3,000, says Mayson”.

TAKE NOTE.

Mayson is Professor Stepen Mayson, director of the College of Law’s new Legal Services Policy Institute, who is giving his inaugral speech tonight.

This warning echoes similar warnings made by Professor Mayson at a Law Society presentation I attended back in mid February on Alternative Business Structures under the Legal Services Act.  That night, he began his address by saying he was alarmed at the general “complacency” and “ignorance” within the profession about its future, based on his experience of talking to firms up and down the land.  His talk then still resonates.  So will his speech tonight.

When I collected my real world post this morning, I almost fell over when I read the main headline in Legal Week "Big Bang put on hold as Legal Services Bill delayed till 2010".  I was lost for words.  The implications of the delay will take time to consider, especially as many organisations have been gearing up for the earlier change.

Quoting briefly from the article, Bircham Dyson Bell public law partner Nick Brown told Legal Week: “I am surprised there is a delay. I cannot see it is necessary to take so long as there has been a lot of preparation for this legislation.”

One can only imagine the forces at work behind the scene.

The arrival of this story this morning on the timing of change in the legal world contrasts markedly with the constant theme of thousands of blog posts I have read in the last few weeks, which is the exponential change currently taking place in the world of new media and social tools.

The "Did You Know?" video from 2006 will be very different from the 2008 version and certainly very different from the 2010 version.  A change of UK government may also have something to say on the subject.

On Tuesday this week in Manchester, Tom Peters and Charles Handy, appeared together on the same stage for the first time in "Transforming Life, Work and Organisations".  I would love to have been there.  As a poor substitute, I have read through all 184 slides of Tom's presentation, which he has made available for download on his website, and together with other materials from the day on his new UK business website, the future shape of the winner.  Even in the absence of the spoken work, these are inspirational, and I commend them to you if you have not already read them via your own RSS feeds.

I have not yet been able to locate any copies of Charles Handy's presentation to link here, but seeing the two names in print together reminded me to dust down a single A4 sheet I prepared nearly 10 years ago.  I called it "KM Activities in Global Law Firm / 20 Examples of “Upside Down Thinking”".

I created the following list in August 1998 as part of my preliminary work in making a career change from private practice into consultancy to be independent to develop my ideas on changing law firm working practices through process change and technology.  The list was inspired by reading Charles Handy’s “The Age of Unreason”.  I used it as part of my portfolio of thinking and value proposition that I might be able to offer the first consulting clients I targeted.

"1.  PowerPoint SlideShow Presentation/CD Rom for Client Instruction Letter, summarising the deal and the steps.

2.  CD Rom flyers to make presentations.

3.  Correspondence File replicated on screen with advanced search functions.

4.  Competitor Documents scanned on screen with your usual amendments to them blacklined.

5.  Productivity incentives/penalties for bible production/file closing.

6.  Incentives for extracting and codifying valuable knowledge from completed deals.

7.  Retailers’ Bar Codes used for documentation assembly.

8.  Retailers’ Loyalty Schemes for clients and employees.

9.  Dedicated Research & Development teams in place to spot future trends and maximise the firm’s local and firmwide objectives.

10.  Stopwatch facilities available to collate accurate data on how long standard pre-defined tasks and processes take / should take.

11.  Centralised delivery service among the world’s leading law firms.

12.  Separately financed and stand alone Secretarial School of Excellence.

13.  Creation of Distribution Centres in low cost locations.

14.  New Year and Summer Sales of certain products.

15.  Specialist IT team to interface with outside consultants to progress Internet Services.

16.  Video Conference Facilities at your screen – to facilitate inter office communication.

17.  More holiday time for increased productivity.

18.  Buddy/penpal system across two offices to promote integration and innovation.

19.  Global sport and other recreational competitions with finalists playing in a foreign country – does not have to be fully subsidised, only partly.

20.  Human Resources’ influence to promote alternative careers with XYZ Law Firm clients, where necessary – plus maintain strong Alumni Association."