June 21, 2017 – How do lawyers compete with nonlawyers and other entities for legal services in today’s environment?

Madison attorneys Jeff Glazer and Erin Ogden joined moderator Tom Watson for a Facebook Live interview last week at the State Bar of Wisconsin’s Annual Meeting & Conference. This interview followed a panel discussion, “An Innovation Mindset: Think Like a Client,” in which Glazer, Ogden, and other panelists shared their thoughts about how lawyers can leverage technology and competitive disruption to be valued counselors to clients demanding innovative solutions.

Lawyers as Counselors

“I really think the future is not in competition,” said Jeff Glazer. Nonlawyers can’t compete with us as counselors. “So we need to be counselors. We have a different skill set. We help clients understand how the world around them relates to what they are trying to do.”

“Focus on being a counselor versus a scrivener,” says Glazer, a clinical professor at the U.W. Law School’s Law and Entrepreneurship Clinic. “If your practice is simply filling out forms, your practice likely won’t exist in five years.”

Automation is catching up, Glazer explains, and lawyers will need to figure out how to build these tools into their practices. You don’t need to spend two hours drafting a contract when that contract already exists, but you do have to understand your client’s needs and how to integrate those needs with these forms. 

Recognize Your Niche

“Recognize your niche, and do that,” advises Ogden, managing attorney at OgdenGlazer LLC. “Stop trying to be everything to everyone.”

When forming their practice, Ogden and Glazer decided “we’re going to do what we do really well,” and then help clients find other professionals to get the work done. What are the client’s goals, and how do we help them get there?

Ogden quickly embraced blogging as a way to deliver information in the way that clients want to get information. Listen to your clients, and they will tell you how to serve better serve them.

Are You Our Next Legal Innovator? Last Call for Nominations

Are you a Wisconsin Legal Innovator? Know one? Last year’s Wisconsin Legal Innovators, from left, William Caraher, Rebecca Scheller, Sam Owens, Mary Turke, and Colleen Ball, put new ideas to work to solve problems facing their clients and communities.

Do you know a legal innovator? Are you one? Nominate a Wisconsin Legal Innovator by June 30, 2017.

Through the “That’s a Fine Idea: Legal Innovation Wisconsin” initiative, the State Bar of Wisconsin is asking the legal community to help it tell the story of legal innovation.

Tell us about the people and ideas that are changing Wisconsin’s legal landscape. Nominate a Wisconsin Legal Innovator who breaks with tradition to do it better. The Wisconsin Lawyer will feature the people behind the best examples of legal innovation in November.

Innovation can come in many forms. It could mean:

• New ways to use technology to improve client service or serve a new market
• Best practices for promoting workplace diversity
• New marketing/business development strategies
• New ways of providing pro bono or reduced-cost services
• Changes in internal operations that result in greater efficiency

Learn more or find the nomination form at ThatsaFineIdea.com. The deadline for nominations is June 30, 2017.