The eyes have it – the case for QualitySolicitors

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QualitySolicitors chief executive Craig Holt explains why lawyers need their eyes testing if they underestimate the impact of the Legal Services Act. QualitySolicitors is a Legal Futures Associate

Holt: by end of 2011, £1 in every £20 spent on SME/private client legal services will be with a QualitySolicitors firm

In the early 1980s the opticians’ market bore much closer resemblance to the current legal market than many lawyers would care to acknowledge.

Optometry was very much a medical, ‘professional’ service. The market consisted of thousands of independent opticians’ practices of varying size. There were no national brands. Advertising was prohibited. As Dame Mary Perkins, Specsavers’ owner, remarks: “You weren’t even allowed to put a sticker in the window saying you accepted credit cards.” Pricing was mysterious. Many opticians’ offices were dark, dusty first-floor places and thoroughly unwelcoming. Going to the opticians was not an experience anyone looked forward to. Sound familiar?

Then came deregulation. Just like the Legal Services Act does in the legal market, non-optometrists were allowed to own opticians’ practices. Advertising was permitted. Boots opened six opticians in 1983. Specsavers opened its very first franchise in 1984. One can imagine the debate amongst optometrists: “It won’t affect us”; “We’re very well established locally”; “We’ve been here for 200 years”; “We get all our work by recommendation and repeat business”; “These brands won’t really want to enter our market”; “It won’t appeal to our better middle-class clients”; “We’re a profession, it’ll never catch on” and so on. Again, sound familiar?

A lot of talking, but little action occurred, whilst meanwhile the new competitors went quietly about their business. Specsavers introduced such ‘innovative’ concepts as ‘Complete Price’ (displaying a total price for lenses and glasses) and ‘2 for 1’ on glasses. “We did take an awful lot of stick,” recalls Dame Mary. “The rest of the profession was very much against what we were doing.”

Fast-forward to the present. Independent opticians’ practices haven’t disappeared altogether but now account for just 10% of the total market that was once 100% theirs. According to Dame Mary, “their days are numbered” and the statistics support her view.  TV advertising and a physical presence in every UK town and city means Specsavers alone has grown from that first lone franchise to a 40% market share. They are dominant across every demographic, including the most wealthy.

The parallels to the legal market are plain to see. The legal profession is equally fragmented, with no brands. There are far too many law firms and an inability on the part of the public to differentiate between them, as well as a general reluctance to use them. It would be hard to imagine a more fertile ground for brand success.

Co-operative Legal Services have shown as much by growing, in just four years post-launch and in a difficult market, to be a top 100 UK private client law firm with a £25m turnover. They even found themselves nominated for regional law firm of the year by Bristol Law Society a couple of months ago – beaten to that title, I’m pleased to say, by QualitySolicitors Burroughs Day!

If you think your firm is immune because it is too big or too ‘niche’, or because its clients are high net-worth or SME clients, think again. There will be branded entrants appealing to all demographics: banks’ legal services for SMEs, ‘Virgin Legal’ for young professionals and ‘Tesco Law’ for, well, just about everyone.

Providing a ‘personal service’ isn’t enough of a unique selling point either; the legal desk next to the mortgage desk, upstairs in Barclays, staffed by a helpful and friendly member of the ‘legal team’ will provide that. Video conferencing technology will take care of those occasions requiring a client/lawyer discussion. Equivalent ‘revolutions’ to the Specsavers’ ‘Complete Price’? Well, watch this space…

The legal market isn’t going to change, it’s already changing – and fast. Joining the Co-op, AA and SAGA launched legal services websites a few months ago and have around 18 million members. By the end of the year there will be over 200 QualitySolicitors branded firms, a feat that took even Specsavers nine years to achieve. At that point, a combined group turnover of over £500 million will mean that £1 in every £20 spent on private client/SME legal services in the UK will be with a QualitySolicitors firm.

Our aim is to increase this 5% market share to a 30-40% one; eminently achievable in such a fragmented market.

The good news in all this? Well, your firm can apply to join QualitySolicitors and take advantage of, rather than suffer against, this forthcoming brand dominance. Failing that, the actual number of opticians hasn’t fallen, far from it, so provided you don’t mind working for the Co-op…

Craig Holt will be taking part in the plenary debate on the future of lawyers at the Legal Futures Conference, taking place on 11 April.

Readers Comments

• Louise Restell says:

  February 17, 2011 at 9:10 am

  Couldn’t agree more!

  Reply
• Scott Baldwin says:

  February 17, 2011 at 7:36 pm

  Hmm. Yes and no, Optometry is a very narrow field to say the entire legal profession will go that way is a giant leap. Will Tesco be dealing with a client charged with rape or murder, probably not but will they be dealing with wills or conveyancing almost definitley. Change is upon us but each different tradtional area of the law will change depending on the new competition, the market place it finds it operating in and the attitude of those who practice that area of law.

  Reply
• Paul verity says:

  February 17, 2011 at 11:17 pm

  I speak as a modern,progressive independent optician,successfully practicing in three towns despite the arrival of specsavers in all three. Mary Perkins is wrong,our time is not limited,the public appreciate the individual personal service that we offer, and see through the blanket coverage of so called special offers. Specsavers represent the dumbing down of our profession and are not universally well thought. I would urge you to not to succumb to the same processes but instead continue to offer your clients excellence in advice and service.

  Reply
• Richard Moorhead says:

  February 18, 2011 at 11:54 am

  The issue for me is not so much whether firms can survive but what they will have to do to do so. The brands will sell themselves on ‘service’: how will smaller competitors persuade their client base that they are better? Some clients may simply be anti-brand, some will be loyal and/or recommended by friends, but that loyalty may attenuate.

  Reply
• Terry Sutton says:

  February 18, 2011 at 12:24 pm

  While it’s an admirable ambition, I can’t see it to be honest.

  I don’t think a 30-40% market share (even with a pretty nebulous market definition) will be achievable – the brand won’t stand up against the well known corporate brands (not least because IMHO “Quality Solicitors” sounds like the equivalent of Tesco’s Value range to me as a consumer) and while I understand QS have some mass media advertising planned, I doubt the firms will have the appetite or deep enough pockets to cough up enough cash to compete with the big boys.

  That said, I wish all member firms the best of luck – at least they are doing something, unlike the ostriches!

  Reply
• Jon Busby says:

  February 18, 2011 at 12:48 pm

  Couple of points.

  ‘Will Tesco be dealing with a client charged with rape or murder, probably not”

  Hmmm I agree and disagree, for crime probably not because of the brand impact but to assume that ‘Tesco’ will not deal with complex matters and just deal with ‘easy peezy lemon squeezy’ stuff entirely misses the point.

  ‘Tesco’ will be less interested in law and more interested in client capture, leveraging legal services to generate income. Because leveraging the brand to capture clients and get income streams is what brands are all about.

  They will then farm that out to a ‘process provider’ who has all the skills needed to deliver the service. I simply cannot see value in them doing that in-house. Yes you will say Co-op but I don’t think that will be the norm. The main reason is because Tesco will say “why do we need to create a huge cost centre when we can outsource it? We are good at marketing to our customers, we are not lawyers.”

  So lets say QS build a panel (which they seem to be doing pretty well) that can serve remotely, using technology, over the phone but also the hugely valuable, local face to face. Effectively an holistic service.Then they go and white label that and take it to major brands. Brand can then market that white label and take in non-risk income.

  Brand gets a valuable holistic service offering to market with none of the cost/pain of managing lawyers
  Panel members get to surf the marketing of that.
  Fee income shared via Rule 9.

  That is why I think QS have got it spot on.

  But also there is plenty of room for everyone in this market…if you are smart. Just being there though will not be enough.

  Reply
• Julian Summerhayes says:

  February 18, 2011 at 4:52 pm

  Without doubt the legal profession can expect seismic change, but whether it will progress at the pace of optometry is doubtful. What I find staggering, or maybe I shouldn’t, having practised for 14 years, is the fact that those people who are in a position to make the biggest change seem the most resistant or the least open to it. I (absolutely) believe that lawyers are capable of change but they have to start seeing their clients in a completely different light. Not only do they have to cherish them but they need to interact with them more regularly and be prepared to act on negative criticism to reshape their business models. Innovation is very often driven by dissatisfied clients as well as technological invention (see Jon Busby’s post above) but there is no point thinking that just because you are a ‘professional’ will prevent the client drifting across to a brand which they can relate to even if the legal provision is untested. I love the independent sector but at the same time accept that mass media, commoditisation of our purchasing habits and the need to find the cheapest service will mean that only those firms who really care for their businesses will survive. Customer service is nothing more than that – caring.

  Julian

  Reply
• Simon Lewis says:

  February 19, 2011 at 12:43 am

  I wonder whether a comparision with providers of “commodity” services such as Conveyancers would be better. The legal profession should be compared with all those who provide eye medical services such as eye doctors & surgeons etc.

  Reply
• David West says:

  February 19, 2011 at 10:56 pm

  Craig, It is a shame that rather than promoting what QS have done to establish themselves in the market you take cheap shoots at the Co-op. The Co-op has been equally as sucessful in setting itself up as QS. Both Co-op and QS will have a place in the future of legal services. Both have very different stratergies. Why do you feel the need to take cheap shoots that make you look like a sulky teeanager?

  Reply
• Dave Wood says:

  February 22, 2011 at 5:00 pm

  Firstly, seems to me that Craig isn’t taking a pop at Co-op, just saying that he believes that the distribution of lawyers will shift from the curent fragmented structure to one with the majority employed by either large firms, ABS’s or franchise-like systems. In fact, by suggesting this he is implying that he thinks that Co-op etc will be very successful, an assement that I agree with as they will be targeting the market left (even more) vacant by the legal aid cuts.

  Secondly, while I think that QS has a good chance of at least partially achieving its targets, it will be dependent more on the individual firms standardising their services to an exceptionally high level than anthing else. Though this will not especially be on the legal side (as clients will not appreiciate the difference between an OK service and an excellent one) but more on the customer service side, as this is what they will remember (assuming the documents are fit for purpose). This includes friendly and efficient service as well as good value. Note good value not low price, as they will not be competing with Co-op, but with other law firms. Firms the public have not heard of…

  Reply

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