What are the biggest challenges facing corporate law firms today?

With the rise of technology, a lot of change has come about in our lives. The most prominent change that the advent of technology has brought about is that people have easy access to information. Thus, when there is easy access to information, people will have a better knowledge of a particular subject matter. Not only that but also they will become more demanding because they know the matter well. Just like information has had a positive impact on the mass at a larger scale similarly when it comes to various professions, people have become a lot more demanding. For example, clients of the legal profession now demand a lot more than they used to in the yesteryears. Specifically, the realm of corporate law now faces a lot of challenges. However, before we delve into the discussion about the challenges that corporate law firms face today, it is imperative that we have a clear idea about corporate lawyers and corporate law firms in India.

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Who are corporate lawyers?

As you all know there are two broad categories of law. One is civil law and the other is criminal law. Similarly, there is corporate law. Corporate lawyers deal with issues like the incorporation of companies, the rights of the directors and the shareholders, board meetings, secretarial aspects of a corporate house, articles of association, or public listing or delisting of a company. It needs to be kept in mind that now two corporate deals are similar. They are largely dependent on factors like the type of industry, the size of the industry, and also whether the business is a single or multi-market business.

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It is true that the domain of corporate law is challenging and has an ocean of opportunities if a corporate lawyer exhibits exemplary knowledge of business laws, recent trends in the legislative and regulatory developments. Nevertheless, in recent times corporate law firms are facing quite a lot of challenges to successfully thrive in their profession.

5 Major Challenges Faced by Corporate Law Firms

When it comes to corporate laws, it is seen that clients become more demanding, they start seeking facilities like the low prices, fixed prices, superior quality legal services, quick turnaround time, transparency of communication and so on. Another problem that is being observed among corporate law firms is that the supply is higher than the demand. The result is corporate lawyers will have to become more competitive to survive their means of livelihood.

Decreased Prices

Unlike the yester years when studying corporate law was considered the realm of the elite, in the present age, the scenario has changed to a large extent. A lot of people studying corporate Law firms today have increased considerably. The result is the number of corporate lawyers at the disposal of corporate houses is more than before. Moreover, the trend of growing corporate law firms is also more than before. The result is simple economics. The supply is more and the users of the service have the choice of selecting someone with the lowest price. Hence, corporate law firms are being forced to offer services at a comparatively lower price so that they can survive in the tough competition.

Fixed Price

Corporate houses today are demanding fixed price services irrespective of the kind of services they require. Previously, depending on the complexity of the case, prices were determined. But now the scenario is a little different. Irrespective of the type, the prices are the same. This is decreasing the profitability of the corporate law firms because the legal expenditure that they incur in different cases is different, but when they have to charge a fixed price, they lose on their share of profit. However, they need to do this because they will have to sail through this immensely competitive market.

Delivering superior quality services

The irony of the story is that they have to quote lower prices, but they are expected to offer high-quality services. The result is the compensation, corporate lawyers might get is not at par with the quality of services that they offer. This, in turn, is having a negative impact on the motivation of the corporate lawyers. So to be precise, offering high-quality legal services at fixed or comparatively low prices might be a real challenge for the corporate lawyers.

Quick Delivery Time

The completion has had an impact on all the realms of a corporate law firm. It has had impact not only on the pricing structure but the delivery time as well. This means the corporate law firms today are forced to deliver high-quality services at comparatively lower prices a lot more quickly when compared to the early days. It can be really tough for them for sure because to solve legal intricacies may not be a piece of cake and it requires time. But if they want to be ahead of their competitors they will have to become super experts.

Transparency in Billing

In recent times if a corporate law firm just handovers a bill to a corporate house, they will not be sanctioned. Rather, the norm is that they will have to present a transparent billing whereby all the details of the expenditure will be involved. However, it might not always be possible on legal issues.

Besides, the ones mentioned above it is also challenging for the corporate law firm to explain to their clients all aspects of the legal terms in simple language.

This is because; there is certain verbiage, which might be difficult to explain to a person who has not studied law. So it is our turn to see whether corporate law firms are able to survive amidst the tough competitive environment.