THE BENEFICIAL EFFECTS OF EVERYONE ELSE

Former US president Jimmy Carter was making a commendation on the activities of Al Waleed Bin Talal, a member of the Saudi Arabian Royal family who has been vocal in calling for direct elections in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
The words used were in part ' the beneficial parts of western democracy' can be applied in the Monarchy that is Saudi Arabia.

Now law firms in some parts of the world (UK Legal Services Act 2007) have recently been given the alternative to have ownership by, from and with non-lawyers ( accounting firms, tech firms now own law firms and compete directly with regular law firms) and the 'beneficial aspects of this 'innovation ' come up to the following:

1. Having non-legal financing leads to better and deeper financed law firms.
2. This brings in diverse skill sets and opens the thinking on what can be possible such as R & D for law firms.
3. Law firms can now offer different combinations of services mixes previously unavailable.
4. The curtain of opaqueness in legal will be put asunder so that the general consuming public will be in a more equal relationship with legal professionals.

These things are potentially good things but whenever one lets the windows open some flies may come in with the breeze. This is the price paid for every step towards growth. You open the airwaves to foreign media and entertainment so you will be part of the global community and you also open up your people to foreign values and ways of thinking, both beneficial and harmful.

Having access to the best practices of other professionals and their different ways of approaching a problem and using these different approaches to enhance the practice of law will mean adopting investment strategies like R and D which is a regular medical expense and measuring law firm performance along more competitive levels of productivity like Turnover standards from Manufacturing companies.

Please note you may encounter the usual resistance to the current levels of operations in law firms i.e. the status quo being accepted as permanent and even the only way of operating.

In summary, great ideas come from everywhere and looking at the beneficial portions of the method of other types of businesses may not be such a bad idea.
Go and do it. Now.