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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 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. These “sweet spot” opportunities emerged from interviews with 32 personal plight legal practitioners across the country, and from an extensive review of the literature. The first chapter of this book describes personal plight legal needs, clients, and law firms, and introduces the “sweet spot” frame of reference. The next chapters focus on practical opportunities for personal plight legal practice related to Price Certainty (Chapter 2); Deferred Payment (Chapter 3); Diversifying Services (Chapter 4); Vertical Division of Labour (Chapter 5); and Horizontal Division of Labour (Chapters 6 and 7). The concluding chapter (Chapter 8) compares the prospects for large personal plight law firms, and small ones, to pursue these innovations. Throughout, the book offers practical recommendations for personal plight law firms, and also for regulators and professional groups interested in helping those firms create sustainable access to justice. These recommendations are collected in the Appendix. 3 4 ACCESSIBILITY, QUALITY, AND PROFITABILITY FOR PERSONAL PLIGHT LAW FIRMS: HITTING THE SWEET SPOT TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT .....................................................................................................................................1 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY.............................................................................................................. 13 CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION ......................................................................................................................... 19 1.1. Personal Plight Legal Needs and the Inaccessibility of Justice ...................................................20 1.2. Actual and Would-Be Personal Plight Clients ...............................................................................22 1.2.1. Legally Inexperienced Clientele .................................................................................................23 1.2.2. One-Shotter Clientele ................................................................................................................24 1.2.3. Emotive and Non-Legal Dimensions of Personal Plight Legal Needs .....................................24 1.3. Personal Plight Law Firms ..............................................................................................................26 1.3.1. Innovation in Personal Plight Legal Services .............................................................................26 1.3.2. Three Aspirations for Personal Plight Law Firms .......................................................................27 1.3.3. Two out of Three: Not Good Enough ........................................................................................28 1.4. The Sweet Spot ..............................................................................................................................31 5 CHAPTER 2 PRICE CERTAINTY ....................................................................................................................... 33 2.1. Price Certainty and Labour Requirement Risk ..............................................................................34 2.2. Labour Requirement Risk ...............................................................................................................34 2.3. The Feasibility of Price Certainty ...................................................................................................36 2.4. Advantages of Price Certainty for Firms and Clients ....................................................................37 2.4.1. Price Certainty Improves Profitability .........................................................................................37 2.4.2. Price Certainty Improves Quality ...............................................................................................39 2.5. Price Certain Retainer Options ......................................................................................................40 2.5.1. Discretionary “Services Rendered” Billing ................................................................................41 2.5.2. Uncapped Time-Based Billing ...................................................................................................41 2.5.3. Flat and Capped Billing ..............................................................................................................42 2.5.4. Advertised vs. Quoted Flat Fees ...............................................................................................44 2.5.5. Escape Hatch Rider ....................................................................................................................46 2.5.6. Recovery-Proportionate Contingency Fee ................................................................................46 2.5.7. No-Win-No-Fee Rider ................................................................................................................47 2.5.8. Legal Expense Insurance ............................................................................................................48 2.6. Addressing Labour Requirement Risk ...........................................................................................49 2.6.1. Legislative Reform to Reduce Labour Requirement Risk ..........................................................49 6 ACCESSIBILITY, QUALITY, AND PROFITABILITY FOR PERSONAL PLIGHT LAW FIRMS: HITTING THE SWEET SPOT 2.6.2. Externalize the Risk : Legal Expense Insurance and Third Party Litigation Funding ................50 2.6.3. Absorb More Risk at the Firm Level ...........................................................................................50 2.7. Conclusion: Price Certainty ...........................................................................................................52 CHAPTER 3 DEFERRED PAYMENT ................................................................................................................. 53 3.1. Access to Justice and Payment Scheduling .................................................................................53 3.2. Non-Payment Risk ..........................................................................................................................54 3.3. Payment Scheduling Spectrum .....................................................................................................55 3.3.1. Pre-Payment & Large Retainer Deposits ...................................................................................55 3.3.2. Smaller Retainer Deposits; Periodic or Delayed Payment ........................................................56 3.3.3. Payment on Recovery .................................................................................................................56 3.3.4. Payment after Recovery .............................................................................................................57 3.3.5. Reverse Payment: Sale of Claim to Firm....................................................................................57 3.4. Managing Non-Payment Risk to Facilitate Deferred Payment ....................................................59 3.4.1. Give Firms More Security over their Work Product ...................................................................60 3.4.2. Reduce Unpredictable Regulation of Fees ................................................................................61 3.4.3. Allow Billed-Basis Accounting for Taxation Purposes ...............................................................62 3.4.4. Contingency Billing as Sweet Spot Price Structure ...................................................................63 3.5. Conclusion: Deferred Payment .....................................................................................................65 7 CHAPTER 4 DIVERSIFYING SERVICES ..........................................................................................................
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