Industrializing the Legal Profession

The slick marketing packet landed on my desk and, just as I was about to toss it into the circular file — which is actually rectangular but that isn’t the point of this post — the tagline for the company hit me: “Industrializing the Legal Profession.”

Ugh. I didn’t even know what the hell it did as a company and I hated it already. Because, you know, I don’t have any clients that want to be industrialized. They want to be humanized.

Being industrialized, in fact, may be one of the reasons they called me. Sometimes a simple human apology will stop a person from ever calling a lawyer. Pro tip: People like to be treated as people, not as files.

By the time folks get to my office, they may already be part of the machinery of police reports, no-fault exams, claims reps and other indices of our bureaucratic society. The series that I have been doing on quickie medical-legal exams, in fact, is one of the sick symptoms of this system.

There is a good chance they will then be funneled through a litigation system where they have to wait in long lines for their cases to be heard, and not understanding why it takes as long as it does, no matter how efficient the lawyer is.

If I told them my law practice was to “industrialize” them, as opposed to humanize them, what do you think the reaction would be?

So I cracked open the packet of materials from Lexvia — the culprit with the awful tagline — and found that they are a company that outsources legal work to India. And they were supported($) by my local bar association and listed a whole bunch of firms and lawyers that I know, some of whom I actually like and have had drinks with at lawyer functions.

Thankfully — and I hope this is a bright spot — I did not find that tagline when I Googled it — which means it may be brand new — though they do have on one of their pages “Industrializing the Litigation Process,” which isn’t a whole lot better.

So a word to Lexvia, don’t use this tagline elsewhere. The reaction, I think, will not be good to those of us that think about such things.

And as to the lawyers that use such companies, ask yourselves what your clients would think about it. You say they don’t know? But I have the list, marked “Confidential.” And you know what? I didn’t agree to that. Nor did any of the other gazillion lawyers that this packet was sent to. Any of us could easily scan this page and put this up on the web. Easy peasy.

What would your clients think if they knew that work on their cases was being outsourced to India? Do they have any idea how close you are to being exposed by being placed into a mass mailing?

And if you think they answer is, “Hey, the clients won’t mind!”, then why not put it on your website?

Here’s the tagline I like: Think humanize, not industrialize.