Is it possible that we are seeing the demise of the big brick law office with a classic"bricks to clicks" paradigm shift?
Given my passion for paradigm shifts in the litigation market, I am absolutely fascinated with a Blog post that I found this weekend by Stephanie Kimbro called The Virtual Law Office(VLO) - It's Not Your Mother's Law Office that shows how the legal market is leveraging the power of Software-as-a-Service (SaaS).
Kimbro states, "As for the practical, a virtual law office that runs on a web-based application means minimal overhead and minimized startup costs. To open the doors to my solo, so to speak, I did not have to invest in computers, hardware or software and could use the equipment and internet connection I already had."
I hope that she takes her VLO concept to the next level by leveraging SaaS litigation technologies such as Online Review Tools (ORT) and on-Demand Electronic Data Discovery (EDD).
And, as SaaS support for the VLO matures, attorny's will soon be able to have access to better litigation techology than their big brick competitors, with little or no investment in technology infrastructure and therefore a much better Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) and Technology Delivery model.
As such, I beleive that we are wittnessing a classic "bricks to clicks" paradigm shift in the legal market. And, maybe it is a bit too early to predict the demise of the big brick legal offices. However, as some point, with the help of SaaS, as the VLO cost structure begins to put downward pressure on fees, are client's going to wonder why they are paying such high fees for the privlidge of sitting in a "brick office"?
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