Q&A: Changing times

When Russell Jones & Walker began its search for a head of public affairs to help the firm prepare for the changes of the Legal Services Act, it needed to to look no further than Louise Restell, a committed campaigner for professional services reform with more than 10 years of political, rade union and consumer experience. Here she discusses the impact of the Act on her firm and the profession as a whole.

Interview by Lucy McNulty

In your capacity as campaigns project manager at Which? [formerly the Consumers’ Association] you campaigned for changes to be made in the profession and liaised with Sir David Clementi when he was consulting on reform. Why do you feel change in the profession is so important?
The research we conducted in my time at Which? showed that consumers weren’t happy with the profession, or the advice and service they were receiving. Consumers would often cite the communication that they received from their solicitor, the problems they had in getting in touch with their solicitor, and the language that was used in billing communications as inadequate. Indeed if you look at most other modern consumer-orientated service industries the legal profession lags way behind and I think a lot could be improved. In terms of how people can access legal services alone, most people would still feel that they had to go to a solicitor in a high street to get legal advice whereas you can deal with your bank account 24 hours a day over the internet and 12 to 14 hours a day on the phone. You simply can’t do that with your solicitor. With many other service-driven industries responding to these consumer driven pressures, why should the solicitors’ profession remain a closed shop? Why shouldn’t other providers be able to enter the market? In fact such providers are increasingly seeing that there is potential market there for them so if the legal profession wants to survive then it will have to adapt to that because otherwise law firms will be squeezed out.

Do you think the Legal Services Act addresses all the areas in the profession where change is needed?
It does from a strategic level. Certain areas in which consumers highlighted problems, such as the need for an independent complaints handling service and the Legal Services Board (LSB) have obviously been dealt with but the Act itself really is only enabling legislation. It doesn’t proscribe how the legal profession should go forward – law firms must respond to consumers’ complaints regarding the quality of service for example, how they see fit.

Of course, the fact that the Act enables new providers to enter the market probably does mean that there is going to be a shake up in the structure of the profession as changes in regulation, from monitoring all individuals to regulating entities and bodies, follow. Law firms will have to adapt to these changes themselves but there is nothing in the LSA specifically about how they should do this. Even so, I don’t think there needs to be any more legislation to encourage further changes. I think the legislation has gone as far as it can go in that respect, and it is the market pressures, technology and so on that develop as a result that will instigate additional change.

What are the biggest changes the law will bring about? And what do you believe the main opportunities for law firms are in light of these changes?
There are three major planks to the act. The first, which I mentioned above, is the independent complaints handling service, which will go some way to help improve consumer confidence in the profession. The second is the establishment of the LSB, which will introduce a modern and up-to-date independent regulation of the profession for the first time and again help to restore consumer confidence in the process. The third, and in my opinion the most revolutionary, part of the Act is the introduction of alternative business structures (ABS). It is this that will enable companies like Tesco or Google to deliver legal services.

Everyone talks about ‘Tesco law’ in the sense that we imagine you will be able to log on to the Tesco website and get your will drafted, but do we really know how particular technology is going to deal with this? No. What we do know is that this is going to break down that traditional professional/client barrier in ways that we can’t even imagine at the moment.

Law firms will be able to take advantage of these changes, because they are already offering legal services and therefore they are already ahead of the game. Many new providers will have to first establish themselves in the field before they can begin to compete with the more established firms. In light of this, those law firms that are prepared to look at more innovative ways to respond to consumer demand for better quality services could go far.

What are you doing, to ensure that RJW is fully prepared for the changes the Act will bring about?
Our main concern is responding to consumer demand and as a result we have already begun to research new ways in which we can adapt our processes to better our services. All of RJW’s lawyers are focused on delivering a good consumer-focused service but as most have always done things the same way they do not automatically know how consumers will respond to certain matters. It is here that I, in my capacity as head of public affairs, adopt an advisory role - giving people some guidance about language and what is that consumers expect and want. For, having spent time at Which? I have got a reasonably good knowledge of consumer preferences. One example of the more consumer-based initiatives we are exploring at RJW, making a 24-hour contact centre available to corporate clients is one, and buying the Claims Direct brand is another. Branding is going to be particularly important once the LSA comes into effect. Consumers like brands they can trust and develop a relationship with and so if firms are to stay ahead of the competition they need to have a recognisable brand. The trouble with most law firms is that they don’t have names that are easy to remember – I mean, let’s face it, the name Russell Jones and Walker is not very likely to start tripping off peoples tongues is it? Yet the Claims Direct brand does: it is, after all, a brand consumers recognise. To really stay ahead of the game we aim to develop brands in other areas of our practice and position ourselves within a number of different markets so that any companies within these markets that wish to go into partnership with a law firm will find us in a good position to collaborate with, when the opportunity arises.

In response to external pressures, some restructuring at RJW is also planned – it is hoped this will enable us to deliver consumer services in a more modern, business-like environment. My role in this is to communicate to people why that restructure is important and what it means.

Much of this restructuring pre-empts the changes that will need to be made when ABSs come into effect. Indeed, I think it is important to not sit there waiting for change to happen, despite the fact that ABSs will not be introduced for at least another three or four years. This doesn’t necessarily mean that come the 1st January 2012, RJW are going to be the first ones to announce that we have floated ourselves on the stock market or gone into partnership with an insurer, its much more about making sure that when the LSA changes come into effect we can take advantage of them in the best way possible.

How is RJW taking advantage of marketing and business development professionals as they go through these changes?
Obviously, both our marketing and business development professionals and I are at the forefront of the changes planned at the RJW. It’s not enough to simply make changes; you must also communicate them to people if you want to make a real difference. After all, it’s no use having fantastically consumer-focused processes implemented in your firm if you are not able to inform people about them. If you cannot compete and win that business then it doesn’t really count for very much. Indeed, since I joined the firm last February we have taken on a business development professional specifically for our business and regulation department [xxxx] so there is definitely an acknowledgement that in order to compete we do need to take these roles very seriously.

What made you decide to work with RJW?
I thought it would be an interesting and meaty challenge. I had spent two and a half years in my previous role standing on platforms, telling lawyers how terrible they all were yet when RJW came to me and offered me the job it sparked my interest. Why? First, because the very fact that they had asked me indicated that they were taking the reforms seriously and second I was familiar with the firm as I had come across it in previous incarnations [before joining Which?, Restell worked with Investors in People UK, the New Opportunities Fund, the Parliamentary Labour Party and the FDA trade union]. During my time spent working in trade union, for example, I became very familiar with RJW and its ethos. I was able to understand what drove the firm. I knew that I would feel reasonably at home there and I was, of course, eager to help them respond to the new environment in which they now found themselves.

Why do you think it is important to instigate the necessary changes within your firm now?
First you cannot wait until the last minute because if you are not ready on day one then you will most certainly get left behind. Second, as we’ve seen with the Halifax Legal Solutions and the Co-op, the LSA is really only dealing with reserved legal services. Yet an awful lot of legal advice involves, not these reserved legal areas, but the basic legal skills, such as writing wills. As new providers are already offering services in these areas, it is no good waiting until we are allowed to compete more widely to respond to that challenge as we will only find that all of that unreserved work has already vanished. Firms must consider and address these challenges in the immediate future if they hope to survive in a the newly commoditised environment.

Ultimately it is about firms’ abilities to capture and to some extent keep consumers – be it individual consumers or institutions who pass on legal cases (for example, trade union or insurer). What firms need to be doing is looking at what those consumers want and responding to those demands. Consumers will simply go elsewhere if you don’t.

Louise Restell, head of public affairs at Russell Jones & Walker, promotes the firm’s public affairs profile within the profession and in the wider political, consumer and business worlds for the benefit of clients. She can be contacted at l.restell@rjw.co.uk