Riverview Law Applying Business Sense To The Legal Market Case Study Example

If you were Heather Larson, would you invest money in the company? Why or why not?

Investing in the Riverview Law Company seems to be a deal to invest. There are various factors that determine the essentiality of investing in the firm. First, one has to agree that as a result of changing in the legal industry, it is the appropriate time to join the trend and take the advantage of partial first mover. Secondly, investing in the Riverview Law is a strategic move because the firm is cost effective, improved inconsistency and charges lower prices without diminishing the quality of their services. The ability of the firm to cut costs and offer fixed prices, while offering the same quality is anticipated to help the firm attract a huge number of customers. As a result, this can help the firm achieve its goals of profit maximization, global expansion and the growth of the company. For instance, the company has increased number of employees from 76 employees to 107 people within a period of one year. In addition, the company Turnover in 2013 was about £2 million and the company is anticipated to break even in 2014. This can be confirmed by the fact the company has experience a substantial reduction in its Loss. By the end of September 2012, the company loss was -£261,900 which significantly reduced to £12,896. Consequently, such factors indicate that investing in the company is a strategic decision.
What do you think of Riverview Law´s business model of charging a fixed fee for everything? Can this model be applied to every type of client / business?
The fixed-fee business model in the Riverview Law seems to be a favorable and advantageous model. Although, Larson argues that it is challenging to charge fixed fee for unpredictable product such as lawsuits, the company has identified important elements to make this model effective. For example, the anticipated to use appropriate technology, rather than customized and professional legal word. Consequently, if this model is effectively implemented, the company is anticipated to attract new customers because they can be able to budget for the services in advance. This model can enable the Riverview Law Company to charge the customers with high upfront cost that can enhance cost effectiveness.
I think fixed fee model is applicable to any business, so long as the business can mitigate the disadvantages that are associated with it. Normally, the fixed fee model is applied to predictable business because the price of the product cannot be changed regardless of the cost of production fluctuation. However, by the use of appropriate technology among other technologies, the company can reduce unpredictability and hence effectiveness of the model.
What is going to be the impact of this type of new “legal services” on the “conventional” legal firms as you know them?
The applicability of the new “legal services” will be of great advantage and at the same time challenging to the conventional firms. One of the setbacks associated with these services is that they will help the firms to increase profitability through cost reduction. In addition, the low price offered as a result of the cost reduction will significantly help the firms to attract new clients. As suggested by Larson, the firms using this services will be challenged by the lack of measure to reduce the overhead cost drastically. Since the industry is unpredictable, the applicability of the fixed fee model will be a hard nut to crack. Therefore, without strategic measures to make the new “legal services” effective, the “conventional” legal firms might experience negative or challenging impacts.

How do you evaluate / assess the new model to measure “performance” of lawyers and not lawyer’s employees?

In order to apply the new legal model to determine the professionalism and performance of the lawyers, the integrated technology platform can be used. The platform can be used to measure the performance of the Lawyers in a more efficient and easy way. The platform allows the analysis of the work performed through a typical search. For example, the analysis can show all the high-risk cases and categorize them by the finance, reputation, risk and non-conforming cases with assigned contract. In this way, the issues of measuring the lawyers’ performance in the new model can be solved. The platform can determine how much amount work and the quality of work in progress or completed by the lawyers.

How would in-house counsels in typical US companies react to this new model law firm?

The in-house counsel in the typical United States’ companies will face challenges as a result of a multiyear contract associated with the model. The in-house counsels will not embrace the new model because they will feel trapped by the model. This is because they are anticipated to experience lower flexibility because they cannot negotiate or cancel the contract if they do not deem it fit. New information and changing in condition would require a change in payments the in-house counsel, which would be possibly not easy to achieve. In this case, the new legal model would be more beneficial to the law companies than the in-house counsels, and this is anticipated to see the in-house counsel reacting negatively.