CLG Goes SLEPTC

This week's post is a SLEPTC analysis of Champion Law Group.  That is, a look at the Social, Legal, Economic, Political, Technological, and Competitive factors that affect the firm's operation in some way, and a stab at what the effects of each are.

A quick overview of our little firm:  It started in 2008 in Tacoma, Washington when my wife Aimee was admitted to the Washington Bar.  While it was a general civil practice, by far the majority of clients came to Aimee with an issue involving Family Law.  Two years later when I received a scholarship to law school in Massachusetts, the firm moved with us but the practice remained centered there.  Aimee maintained clients in Washington and served them from Massachusetts, traveling back to Tacoma as court appearances required.  Phone, email, text messaging, and Skype are all ways Aimee connected with her clients.  While in Massachusetts, Aimee began working on local immigration cases and became a certified Veterans' Affairs lawyer.  Because both of these areas of law deal exclusively with an administrative agency, a lawyer must be admitted to a Bar but not necessarily the Bar of the jurisdiction in which the lawyer is practicing.  Other than Aimee the attorney, CLG has one paralegal in Tacoma and myself, the business manager. 


SOCIAL
Scores of studies show the divorce rate is increasing over time and so is the rate of children born outside of marriage.  Both of these factors increase the need for legal services in the areas of divorce settlement and litigation, parenting plan agreements and modification, and child support plans.
The increase of states recognizing same-sex marriages (as both Washington and Massachusetts do) creates a temporary, if in fact long lasting, swell of legal work associated with longtime couples and families transition to the formalities of a legally-recognized marriage.  
Immigration patterns are a factor that impacts an immigration firm.  However, at this time such a small percentage of revenue is derived from immigration work we cannot even track a causal relationship to larger patterns. 

LEGAL
When I was brainstorming this post I actually wrote "all of them" under Legal.  As a law firm, it is hard to imagine a legal factor that doesn't impact CLG at least tangentially, even in a seemingly unrelated area of law. But to get specific, first, there are the Rules of Professional Responsibility.  And while these are not 'laws' in the same way a statute or a court order is a law, they are the laws that govern a lawyer's working, and to some extent personal, life.  A lawyer can violate these Rules at any time, even if the activity has nothing to do with the practice of law and she was not acting in her role as a lawyer.
Second, change in laws.  In law school, we are taught very little Black Letter Law (translation: this is what the law is, black and white, unchanging and universal) because there is very little Black Letter Law.  Laws change regularly, which is why we are taught how to do legal research and case analysis.  Every high court opinion, every session of the legislature represents the very real possibility of a major change in the current law and you have to go learn it all over again. 

ECONOMIC
Seeing as how we've been in a down economy for the entire life of the firm, I had no trouble ticking off factors that effect CLG's operations.  It occurred to me that the combined effect of all the factors of a down economy is twofold:  One, legal needs increase during down economies.  People get laid off, businesses go under, people lose their homes, marriages fall apart, tempers shorten...you get the idea.  But, what's so handy about it is that while it's increasing people's legal needs, it's simultaneously decreasing their ability to pay for these services.  
This in turn creates a problem for the lawyer.  CLG's lawyer is a social-justice oriented bleeding heart who very much wants to help the people who need it.  Combined, these factors result in a retainer rarely being required, and flexible payment plans with low monthly payments and no interest.  While it is possible, with enough clients, to create profitability there is an obvious tipping point:  Aimee cannot take on more clients than she can competently handle. 
This results in two distinct problems I am currently working on.  The first is that firm growth is stagnated because there are no surplus funds to plow back into it, and second, the firm does not have the ability to absorb the cost of litigation to prosecute potentially lucrative cases. 

POLITICAL
Political factors are most felt in the immigration and VA cases.  For example, for a short time it looked like comprehensive immigration would be passed this legislative session, so much so that an immigration lawyer with whom Aimee formerly associated advised clients to wait to file their applications until after the overhaul package passed.  As we can see now, immigration reform passing has less than a positive outlook. 

TECHNOLOGICAL
Law has a love-hate relationship with technology, more so than other professions I think.  The Luddite lawyer is commonplace, but so it the lawyer desperate to control office clutter and work more efficiently.  Tablet-based firms are popping up and the implications of cloud storage are discussed at more and more Bar Association meetings.  Springfield's tornado destroyed more than a few client files at downtown law offices, and those attorneys are subject to a review by the Board of Bar Overseers to determine if they had adequate safeguards in place to protect their clients' interests; if they didn't they are subject to discipline.  The cloud people were very pleased with themselves. 
Technology affects our firm in other ways as well.  The success of websites like Legal Zoom (talk about innovation!) and Rocket Lawyer make it easy for people to complete simple legal procedures like executing a will or incorporating a business without an actual lawyer involved.  I think that these are mostly people who would not have used a lawyer anyway, but it may not remain the case. 
Technology also creates the ability to be accessible literally all of the time.  As I mentioned, Aimee does a lot of Family Law involving custody issues.  This means she has to be available nights, weekends, and holidays because this is when custody-sharing parents transfer kids and that has a way of creating the need for one or both to call their lawyers.
Technology also creates evidentiary issues inside the courtroom and out.  How to authenticate an email or text message in order to get it admitted has been giving judges and lawyers headaches since email began (or, actually, a few years after email began.  It takes a while for new things to work their way into the legal system, after all, these are people who reference 19th century writings regularly.)   In the office, Aimee and I just discussed whether a client could text message an authorization for a disclosure of protected information.  It would be acceptable to do it via email and when you really look at it, there is not much difference.  They are both writings transmitted electronically and both have attendant problems of identity verification. 

COMPETITIVE
This is an area that still needs to be developed for CLG.  As I've mentioned, our pricing plans mean that we have more potential clients than we can take on and living in Massachusetts means there's not much opportunity to socialize with other lawyers in the field. 
The most obvious competitive factor to affect us is pricing.  The Rules require that a lawyer's fees be "reasonable" and there are articulated factors that can or should be considered, like difficulty of case, lawyer's ability and reputation, etc.  But to really know what is reasonable, you have to know what others are charging for similar work.