“The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers…”
“The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers…” Shakespeare Henry VI part II
Lawyers don’t always get good press. Given a choice, many clients prefer to spend their money on something other than legal advice. While few would nowadays see Dick the Butcher’s famous quote from Henry VI pt II as a literal incitement to homicide, in an ideal world, many would like to do without lawyers.
It might well seem to be that way, too, from the debate instigated by the recent launch of the legal add-on to Claude AI. Much has been written about the impact on legal knowledge giants such as Thomson Reuters and Relx. It is interesting, though, that the narrative has now focused on the practicalities and delivery of the benefits of legal technology, suggesting that the reports of the demise of the legal profession are premature.
In context, Shakespeare’s comment is a satirical assertion that removing the lawyers accelerates the uprising sought by his characters. Far from being an end in itself, it seeks to remove an obstacle to the desired outcome of Dick the Butcher (himself already a murderer) and his leader, Jack Cade, in their rebellion against King Henry. Their impassioned elimination is not just of lawyers themselves, but of anyone whose literacy and intellect allows the population to understand their rights and defend themselves.
Few corporate clients would advocate such wholesale destruction of the rule of law. In contrast, most will depend on a functional rule of law to allow their businesses to operate day in, day out.
Yet there is a kernel of truth in the analogy. Shakespeare’s Cade and Dick did not understand what lawyers do, merely that they saw them as an obstacle. Similarly, it may be fair to say that most corporate clients do not have a complete understanding of what their lawyers do. They may judge them on what they cost, on whether they have closed a transaction on time, or whether they find their lawyers personable. It can be much harder to know whether the lawyer is achieving the right legal outcome for them, whether the legal team is doing the ‘right thing’ or even whether the advice they are receiving is correct.
And yet we live in a world where ‘what gets measured gets managed’ – a quote often attributed to management guru Peter Drucker, although it seems clear not only that it didn’t originate from him, but that what he did say was that misuse of measurement could inflict incalculable harm by demoralising managers and seriously lowering their effectiveness.
But most would accept that – like every other function or service used by corporates – a way does need to be found to measure the effectiveness of legal work. And that should apply both to in-house teams and external firms. Substantial – sometimes very substantial – cost is incurred, and that can be matched by the need for significant resource and management time needed to support business-critical legal advice – for example in transactional or litigation work. It is perfectly reasonable that a board needs assurance that such expenditure is wise and effective, and whether the lawyers could work differently or more effectively.
So, what should you measure? What KPIs actually work for legal services? Rather than starting with hard measures such as cost, it can be better to ask why the organisation is using lawyers, what they are intending to achieve, and how best success is demonstrated. Overall, you might seek to demonstrate the value which the lawyers bring to the organisation, what they do to protect and enhance it, how they identify and manage legal risks – and how their role might be refined and adapted to new circumstances.
A whole range of key areas can be captured – cost (but not cost alone), trends, demand, risk, compliance, people, and process to name but a few. The detail of what to measure is a topic for another day, but one other element is key. Whatever you decide to measure, if you capture and report it in a format and language familiar to your organisation it will have much more value and impact. As lawyers, we tend to think in words, but if your organisation works through numbers, trends and dashboards, a written report may not do the trick.
So, should we ‘kill all the lawyers’? Hopefully not, but we should carefully consider what we do, ensure that our role is clearly understood and is what is needed, and above all is shared and agreed with the client organisation.