ACCESSIBILITY, QUALITY, AND PROFITABILITY FOR PERSONAL PLIGHT LAW FIRMS: HITTING THE SWEET SPOT By Noel Semple Prepared for the Canadian Bar Association Futures Initiative ACCESSIBILITY, QUALITY, AND PROFITABILITY FOR PERSONAL PLIGHT LAW FIRMS: HITTING THE SWEET SPOT August 2017 © Canadian Bar Association. 865 Carling Avenue, Suite 500, Ottawa, ON K1S 5S8 Tel.: (613) 237-2925 / (800) 267-8860 / Fax: (613) 237-0185 E-mail:
[email protected] Home page: www.cba.org Website: cbafutures.org ALL RIGHTS RESERVED No portion of this paper may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the written permission of the publisher. Printed in Canada Sommaire disponible en français The views expressed in this report are those of the author only and do not necessarily reflect those of the Canadian Bar Association. ISBN: 978-1-927014-41-7 2 ACCESSIBILITY, QUALITY, AND PROFITABILITY FOR PERSONAL PLIGHT LAW FIRMS: HITTING THE SWEET SPOT ACCESSIBILITY, QUALITY, AND PROFITABILITY FOR PERSONAL PLIGHT LAW FIRMS: HITTING THE SWEET SPOT By Noel Semple1 Prepared for the Canadian Bar Association Futures Initiative. ABSTRACT Personal plight legal practice includes all legal work for individual clients whose needs arise from disputes. This is the site of our worst access to justice problems. The goal of this project is to identify sustainable innovations that can make the services of personal plight law firms more accessible to all Canadians. Accessibility is vitally important, but it is not the only thing that matters in personal plight legal practice. Thus, this book seeks out innovations that not only improve accessibility, but also preserve or enhance service quality as well as law firms’ profitability.