The opportunities for legal professionals always present.

April 9, 2019 Law

The Legal profession is a basic need and key to success in every society where people requires legal advice on day to day basis. Therefore, opportunities for legal professionals always present. But they require an update legal knowledge and well awareness of the new statutory changes. Scottish legal system based on Common law and statutes. We will discuss potential new opportunities and those already exist. Scotland’s legal market is obviously less profitable than the English market, and slowly recovering from the so-called “Recession” which badly affected the foreign investment. Also, recently fall in oil prices has triggered a decline in profits from sea oil and having a significant impact on Scotland. Therefore, the legal profession continually under some pressure and has faced certain challenges as other businesses. Especially for the new lawyers, it is hard to find out traineeship because law firms are under economic pressure, due to certain reasons such as legal aid cuts, new technology, and “Brexit”. The legal profession is also a business like other businesses. It must respond to changing circumstances in their businesses, this means to fascinate new changes, take advantage of new business innovations and opportunities, overcome and tackle developing problems to stay ahead of its competitors. Of course, law firms must negotiate if they want to flourish in one of the global economy’s most competitive sectors. In this essay, we will analyse further short-term and long-term opportunities available for legal professionals and challenges which they might face in future, such as cuts of legal aid budgets; challenges for lawyers; effective use of new technology; some alternative ways to deal with the legal cost such as “No win no fee” and issues related to post “Brexit”. However, there are some advantages and benefits for the legal profession soon after “Brexit” such as immigration issues, intellectual property rights issues, implementation, and status of EU laws. However, in the long-term, there could be serious economic impacts on law firms and other businesses due to the uncertainty of relationship between UK and EU countries. Additionally, Scottish legal professionals might face difficulties beyond the boundaries of Scotland to deal with the infringers of copyright and trademark rights and jurisdiction issues because after “Brexit” they are not sure what status would be of current statutes and laws which made by the (EU) member states.
In addition, we will discuss here, how recent changes can open new doors and opportunities for legal professionals and how they can overcome hurdles such as legal aid, cost, and jurisdiction issues and take advantage or organise their businesses accordingly. Also, we will discuss how legal firms need to be equipped and trained their staff with new technology such as WhatsApp, Twitter, Email, Facetime, Instagram, an online advice, etc……! and what possible opportunities of new lawyers in this busy and demanding field as traineeship, because all these matters are very important in the modern world and effectively used in the courts.
Let’s move now to discuss first challenges which legal professionals may face in the future.
Innovations in Legal Industry. (Alternative Business structure)
The legal profession remains facing an increasing number of challenges to its old-style operating practices. The global economy and economic activities are changing. However, bringing potentially favourable projections to those legal partnerships controlled and take benefit of the upturn in profitable activity. Moreover, for many law businesses, the introduction of Alternative Business Structure (ABS), pricing burden, effective use of fee earners, poor investment in infrastructure schemes and the on-going need to reduce costs, means that their medium-term existence is not certain. To understand and act accordingly on these changes would be a big challenge in this era. Law firms must accept this challenge if they want to compete with their opponents and survive in the legal profession.
Mergers of Law firms. (LLPs)
The rapid changing in the business industry and their urgent legal requirements, forced legal sector mergers are inevitable; because of this action, many law firms now have disappeared from the scene in recent years. However, four big law firms of Scotland also disappeared and many small firms merged with others . There is a prediction of more mergers will happen in the Scotland and rest of the UK for the next 10 years, as this is happening in the world-wide. Some English firms also expanded their businesses in another part of the country such as Tompson’s solicitors opened their branches in Scotland and England. It means new professionals can avail these opportunities to get traineeship and enhance their legal knowledge. However, there are potential for paid jobs as well.
A substantial cut into legal aid.
Generally, in Scotland, three major ways to fight the criminal or civil cases in the court are legal aid, free help if you have union membership, legal advice with home insurance policies. Legal aid is the best way to provide legal support and access to justice for people in need but legal aid continues to get reduction across Scotland. It creates a big disaster in the Scottish legal system where most people involved in criminal and family litigation, generally, cannot afford heavy fees of experienced lawyers. They relied on “no win no fee” where a substantial part of the claim went to the lawyer’s pocket. A recent survey of Scottish lawyers shows that 78 percent legal aid cuts badly affected the poor part of the society. Lorna Jack , chief executive of the Law Society, said: “The legal aid system is designed to be available to everyone who is eligible, however, there have been cuts to expenditure year after year which are just not sustainable in the long run. She further said: “The legal aid system is already under strain, and yet it was announced last December that the government’s budget allocation for legal aid would be £126.1m for 2016-17, a £10 million decrease on the previous year and lower than the total expenditure on legal assistance two decades ago.” In addition to that legal aid still has a significant impact, not only on certain types of legal areas such as immigration, divorce and dissolution, family, employment, criminal and civil matters. Also, a significant life-changing effect on the pursuers of justice (clients) who can no longer be depending on it. Some big and well-reputed law firms not accepting the legal aid cases because the fee is not covering their expenses. There could be a chance for the new lawyers and small firms to do the low paid jobs and increase their business.
Development in outsourcing.
The law firms can improve their business through the frequent address of developers in the Legal Process outsourcing business and the potential for the outsourcing of legal sector directions is yet huge. We’re seeing firms outsourcing immense measures of work to different nations for more significant competencies. The advantage of this process to save money and time because the legal actions are time-consuming and costly, therefore the firms can use this effective way to control wastage of money and time. In addition to that laws are different in every country, so, it is a requirement that a local expertise deal with the case for a positive outcome. The major problem may occur breach of confidentiality of the client. This is an important issue in the legal outsourcing process. However, this could be tackled with a strong contract term which clearly shows how to share confidential information of the client to a third party.
Fixed fee demands.
The hourly rate is being beaten by more smart types of evaluating credited to approval. Stephen Gold gave an impressive case of a £650 every hour legal advisor conceivably giving counsel worth £100,000s to a customer inside one hour and sticking to simply £650 if the feeing game plan was so resolute. Instead of the hourly rate fixed fee more attractive to potential clients, those cannot afford the heavy fee. Legal professionals must ready to tackle, and ready to compete with their competitors. To compete with, legal professionals require to accept client’s demand for fixed fee, otherwise, their survival would be difficult in this competitive industry.
Advocates vs Solicitors.
Advocates in Scotland are going up against Solicitors for more kinds of legal work. It is important numerous solicitors advocates still depend on solicitors and paralegals as their principal source of referrals. In Scotland majority of the advocates and solicitor advocates have no direct connection with their clients, they advise their client through the solicitor. Of course, they fight their case in the court and prior to that they hold some meeting with a client in the presence of their solicitor. This is a great opportunity for a new solicitor to get the benefit of the well-experienced law expert. But they must keen to learn new technology as well to improve their skills and help effectively their potential clients.

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