Sharing the roads: keeping up with the new legal traffic

There are many who firmly believe that consumers do not want to get their will or divorce from the local supermarket, a breakdown recovery service, or, even less, a logistics company famous for its iconic red and green lorries. There are concerns that these new players have a 'pile them high, sell them fast' approach that undermines the value of client care and quality of service. However, there is no debating the fact that alternative business structures (ABSs) are accelerating change in the legal sector at an unprecedented rate - these new entrants are exactly what ABSs were set up to deliver. So, are the criticisms fair and reasonable? And, as the juggernauts of companies such as the Stobart Group grow in their potential to dominate the legal landscape, is there a danger of smaller firms being forced ?off the roads?

CONSUMER PERSPECTIVE

Let's start by taking a step back to look at this from the consumer's perspective. The value of brands ?in legal services is thought to be a contentious ?one, but having run a branding agency for 14 ?years, I'm interested in how a company can be positioned to make the most of their authentically competitive advantage.

The Stobart Group is recognised as a UK super brand, based on independent research taken from the opinions of thousands of British consumers, marketing experts and business professionals. According to the 2013 Superbrand report: "the iconic 'Eddie Stobart' name is one of the brand's greatest strengths. Highly competitive pricing and renowned levels of customer service and efficiency, combined with 95% brand recognition throughout the UK, have ensured that Eddie Stobart is not only keeping pace but expanding and increasing in profitability."

The company is listed on the London Stock Exchange and in the last financial year had pre-tax profits of £36m, up 23 per cent. Stobart Transport and Distribution is trusted to deliver over 150,000 containers a year, Stobart Air to manage Southend Airport, and Stobart Infrastructure and Civils to maintain rail networks. No business expands its brand without carefully considering the risk of overextending and damaging their core business. So it's extremely unlikely that Stobart's legal offering will fail to deliver to the same high standards of quality, reliability and distinction; its shareholders wouldn't stand for anything less.

With a reported third of the UK's 12,500 self-employed barristers having already sought instruction from them, Stobart Barristers, and their newly born sibling, One Legal Ltd, are likely to become significant players in the supply of legal services. As these new ventures enter the market they have captive audiences to work with, making use of their existing client relationships - the legal challenges encountered by transport and haulage will no doubt keep Stobart's new legal business very busy in the short term.

COMPETITION INTENSIFYING

As Stobart's reputation in the legal industry grows, it is not stretching the imagination to suggest ?their brand will cross into other practice areas through their fixed pricing and expanding experience. The scale of the group's businesses will easily allow Stobart to assign marketing budgets that most traditional chambers can only envy. Stobart's legal ventures will be here for the long term and will be successful.

And the competition is only set to intensify. Direct Line Insurance's marketing is ubiquitous - they spent £86m on media advertising in 2012. If their partnership with Parabis is granted a licence, another very experienced marketing and advertising machine will come into the market.

This is not a rallying cry for traditional firms to undertake expensive national marketing campaigns to compete with these new entrants. But the question should be asked about how established firms can capitalise on these inescapable market changes. Traditional firms must think much harder about how they can invest in their marketing to keep up with, and even overtake, the behemoths.

This has to start with a desire not to look and sound like everyone else in the market. With the growing number of ABSs being granted, it's a ?good time for established practitioners to be thinking more innovatively and entrepreneurially. As many commentators have observed, there is a significant untapped market among small businesses requiring legal services which is ripe ?for the picking.

REAL-WORLD FACTS

Many traditional firms think that their marketing and communication needs to only speak about professionalism, quality, approachability and friendliness; but let's be honest, which legal practitioner would go to market saying ?anything different?

I'm convinced that most traditional firms already have an undiscovered distinct competitive advantage. It is built on the company's values and characteristics that influence a client's decision to buy. Harnessed correctly, this competitive advantage will help firms reach new audiences and enable their businesses to grow in new markets. But these values and characteristics have to move away from generic, internal assumptions to specific, evidence-based, real world facts. To discover these things, firms must reflect on two key, but often overlooked, questions: who is currently buying their services and more critically, why are their existing clients, professional or lay, buying from them?

It's only by having the answers to these questions that firms will begin to understand what makes them valuable and distinctive. This first step provides a solid foundation to build marketing on, the next challenge is to turn that advantage into a compelling company image, essentially the company brand. The brand should connect the reasons clients buy from a firm to all their marketing efforts.

Branding and marketing may be seen as necessary evils by some firms, but they are areas that can no longer be safely neglected. With firms like Stobart appearing on the horizon, the competitive landscape is getting much tougher for legal services. Traditional firms need to move into the fast lane and dramatically adapt the way they present themselves to clients in order to keep up with and overtake the new vehicles threatening to dominate the roads. SJ