Tuesday, January 15, 2008 5:52 PM
In the post
More Australian Law Firm Innovation,
Ron Friedmann at
Prism Consulting highlighted an interesting article in
Lawyers Weekly (The A-Bomb of Differentiation) involving the law firm
Minter Ellison.
[T]he Adelaide office [of Minter Ellison] invested $5 million in case management and other software to enable it to handle - profitably - high volume work such as “banking, claims management, franchising, leasing, medical negligence and workers compensation.”
By investing in systems, sharing risk with clients, and offering alternative pricing, the firm achieved “double-digit” revenue growth for 5 years in a market generally considered stagnant. Nigel McBride, the Minters lawyers behind this, emphasizes that while technology is essential, the key is offering clients a total solution, a whole different model. While US firms continue to merge ("bigger is better"), Australia shows how innovation - from legal technology to publicly traded law firms - can change a market.
See Mr. Friedmann's post More Australian Law Firm Innovation for more details.