Third Wave Law Firms

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I received a comment today from Chuck Newton on my post about the Unconference for Lawyers. His blog, Chuck Newton – Spare Room Tycoon is wonderful. One item that caught my attention is his term, “Third Wave Law Firm.” Since I could not say it better than Chuck, below is part of a post he did sometime back called The Third Wave.

Chuck’s definition of the Third Wave Law Firm:

We work from our homes or from cubicles or small shared offices free from the confines of standardization, centralization, concentration, synchonization and bureaucracy, which has primarily contributed to the disatisfaction of lawyers with the practice of law. We live, support and fight for diverse lifestyles. We do not employ other lawyers or staff so much as we operate within these adhocracies or fluid organizations in which we as attorneys and firms come together only to work on specific cases or tasks. In other words, we are freelancers. We survive not on libraries, expensive associates, in-house computer systems, and highrise offices of mable and mahogany, but off the Internet, online research, and information. In short, we do what attorneys were programned to do — we collect information, process information, analyze information, repackage information, and sell it in packages or in a means to make the lives of ordinary people and organizations better. Shorter still, Third Wave law firms and lawyers provide personalization and mass customization of the law for the consumer or prosumer in a more cost effective manner.

He goes on to tells us how to do this:

First, refuse to maintain traditional offices that most consumers typically associate with law firms. Eliminate all waiting rooms for clients to cool their heals; get rid of the receptionist area in which to ignore the client; empty all meeting rooms used for client visits; go paperless and close the file room in which to lose files; forego all of your printed texts and shut down your law library, get rid of you messy private office and move home; remove your licenses and diplomas from the wall (after all we hang these only to impress ourselves), quit going to the law firm rec room to chat with staff over coffee and donuts, and, remove your shingle from all building. You must start going about your business from where you are..whereever you are…everywhere you are. As an attorney you must refuse to be confined by time, space and the restrictions that a typical law office employs. Finally, you have got to fire or redirect your palace guards that are keeping you broke and away from the consumer. Start answering your own phones, read and respond to your own email, faxes and mail, and maintain your own schedule.

How do you, as a Third Wave law firm, accomplish such a thing?

You’ve got to be the king of the Internet. You have got to use email, Internet telephony, Internet faxing, electronic case filing, and Internet research, both to and from computers and other devices. ( If you are already doing so you must certainly have figured out by now that you do not need all of these other people and offices to make a good living for yourself). There is virtually no one that cannot be reached, and no document that cannot be received or delivered, by phone, fax, email or (if no other alternative) mail any place in the State of Texas or the world. By staying connected you can tear down the barriers that keep you from our clients and their objective. Hence customization, personalization, and a job well done and rewarded.

I have added Chuck’s blog to my RSS reader and you should too.

Related posts:

1. On The Third Wave Of Lawyering
2. Elevator Rides at Law Firms Call for Delicacy, Tact
3. Home Office – From a Third Wave Lawyer
4. Law Firms Latch on to Paperless Trend
5. Top 10 Uses for RSS in Law Firms