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Published in Mr. Magazine, December 2017
By Hielke Bruin, Esq. (Partner, Voxius)

This issue of Mr. marks the end of the period during which we have provided business and editorial support to the magazine since its founding. Much has changed in the Dutch legal world since the first issue of Mr. in that distant past. Do you remember when lawyers used to work with a dictaphone and their own secretary? And that their services were billed based on hours multiplied by an hourly rate? And that the client’s interests were truly less relevant than the firm’s prosperity? Or that a senior in-house counsel would draft an NDA themselves? Or that said legal counsel would spend several days working on a new contract for a deal that had already taken place a week earlier in a slightly different but very similar context? And that Richard Susskind and Ben Heinemann were still all the rage and were regularly invited to client events?

Fortunately, things are better now. We now have Legal Tech, work using Lean methods, set up flex pools, and from now on provide our legal consulting services under alternative pricing arrangements to boost efficiency, with a focus on service and product optimization and client-centricity. This requires T- or Pi-shaped lawyers—who, ideally, are trained as aerospace engineers, historians, or marketers before becoming lawyers after earning their bachelor’s degree. Clients think in terms of commodities and unbundling and work closely with their attorneys and notaries on the basis of transparency and equality.

To quote a down-to-earth Rotterdam resident on the BBC regarding the prospect of a soft Brexit: “You dream at night.”

Unfortunately, most of the behaviors from that distant past are still commonplace. The difference in mindset between the legal profession and clients/companies seems to be just as deeply rooted as it was 20 years ago. You still have to look closely before you come across the word “client” in communications from service providers. Most general counsels still lament that the advice from their outside counsel is unsuitable for communication with executive management or the board of supervisory directors.

Admittedly, it is primarily up to the client to point out to their advisor that the world has changed—that the legal department within a multinational faces challenges other than managing an M&A deal. However, the risk that many lawyers and notaries take is that their clients will continue to evolve and, at some point, realize they’d be better off with a different kind of support. Hopefully, by that time, the firm will be staffed with highly skilled lawyers who, in addition to passing the bar exam, also have sufficient knowledge of business or technological processes to truly speak the language of the company.