Remember the good old days, when lawyers were lawyers? When everyone dressed like Captain Mainwaring and hung around El Vino talking knowledgeably about Suez and its possible influence on the Glyndebourne season? In Latin?
Well, if that’s the way you think then you’ll be one of the many appalled by the latest gizmo on offer to the partners and associates at Camerons. Called ‘Reflect’, it’s an application which gives lawyers things to talk about when entertaining clients.
The Lawyer headlined its story, ‘Camerons to generate cocktail chat from a computer’, with editor Catrin Griffiths labelling it ‘faintly depressing’ and an example of how ‘even normal business interaction has fallen prey to systematisation’.
Well, maybe. But then again, maybe not.
Yes, it would be lovely if all lawyers had the wit of Stephen Fry and the social ease of George Hamilton III. But that’s just not the case. A number of lawyers, particularly the truly ‘expert’ ones, have the social graces of a hippo with a hangover and struggle to find an answer to ‘Hello’ when you pass them in the corridor. Why not give these unfortunates a digital helping hand?
Also, lawyers are busy. Can you really expect a senior partner, for example, to have a detailed grasp of the sectors and developments of all her clients? This device of Camerons may, actually, be warmly welcomed by those it seeks to serve. Plus, if it helps grow business generically rather than via costly pitches, even better.
Perhaps too it’s a sign that the profession is still tramping insistently down the road to commercial savvy-ness. Effectively, Reflect is the hardwiring of a client relationship management tool into the everyday working experience of a firm’s senior operators.
And if that isn’t a feather in the cap of the much-maligned legal marketing community, then I’m not sure what is.
