Without getting bogged down on details, you can largely categorize physicians as general practitioners and specialists. Generalists are the every-day doctors that provide primary care for more routine matters, and also (hopefully) coordinate care with specialists (cardiologists, neurologists, etc.) when appropriate. Unfortunately, the U.S. healthcare system does a terrible job on that second part, but this is a blog about startup law, not healthcare. End of digression.
The practice of transactional law, including startup law, can also be categorized in this way. A “corporate lawyer” serves the role of the general practitioner. Her job is to handle the more common matters that a client is likely to encounter, and to coordinate with specialists (tax, labor, IP, etc.) when their input is needed.
Biology is Integrated
Anyone who’s studied health policy knows that, by far, the most effective and efficient healthcare delivery models in our country — Kaiser Permanente, Mayo Clinic, etc. — are what many call “integrated.” Specialists and generalists work under the same system, and share information with one another in as frictionless of a manner as possible. The reason for this is that the human body itself is an integrated system. The heart doesn’t operate in complete isolation from the brain any more than my macbook’s hard drive operates in complete isolation from the CPU. So it makes little sense that medical practitioners who specialize in different systems of the body work alone, as if the knowledge of other specialists is irrelevant to their own work.
Startup Law is Integrated
What I try to ensure that our clients appreciate is that the law itself, including the law that affects startups on a daily basis, is also integrated. Even at the most standardized of startup legal events — formation — there are at least half a dozen specialties of law that play a role in the steps a client needs to take. Securities Law, Labor Law, Intellectual Property Law, Commercial Litigation, State Corporate Governance Law, Tax Law, etc.
A view commonly heard about early-stage startup law is that it’s all become so “standardized” that large, sophisticated institutions with specialists (not just generalists) are no longer needed to properly serve clients; the end-result being a retreat to a “cottage industry” mentality where small practices of generalists have set up shops pitching themselves as delivering the same service, but without all that unnecessary “overhead.” Some have gone so far as to call this trend a “disruption” of law practice.
My response to this perspective is three-fold:
1. “Standardized” and “Simple” are not the same thing. Not even close.
Production of the iPhone is standardized; otherwise no one would be able to afford it. But that doesn’t mean the design and building of the iPhone is “simple” in a sense that it could be produced by a fragmented cottage industry lacking the resources of Apple. In the same sense, the set of twenty or so documents that we produce for our startup formations has become standardized to the point that we can produce it quickly at scale, but the expertise of at least half a dozen specialties went in to producing it, and is required to constantly update it and ensure it fits the current state of the law. A set of lone generalists, even brilliant ones, simply wouldn’t cut it.
2. The exact same process, delivered from a smaller office, while wearing denim, does not a disrupter make.
Disruption of an established industry comes from delivering what consumers want, but in a radically different, often cheaper way. Productizing the expertise of highly educated and specialized individuals and delivering it at scale so that far more people can afford it: that is disruptive – and it’s happening in startup law. Cutting off the relevant expertise of a large portion of the profession, moving into a smaller office space, and continuing to deliver the product in the exact same way: t’is not disruptive.
Because smaller legal practices often do have salary structures that lower their labor costs, they do tend to have lower hourly rates. But many (that I’ve encountered) use this lower labor cost as an excuse to avoid adopting the kinds of technology and practices that actually make the delivery of startup law efficient. In other words, “our hourly rates are lower, so it’s OK if we take longer to do something.” People operating in Big StartupLaw, particularly techies like myself, are often floored to see how backward some (not all) smaller practices are. This is not a space for “cottage” practitioners, though not all smaller practices fit that definition.
3. Specialists will need to be consulted.
Forming your startup or raising a simple seed financing might be thought of as the legal equivalent of getting a cold (simple service is fine), but actions taken at the not-that-much-later stages of the startup, like drafting executive employment agreements, developing and protecting intellectual property, issuing securities, negotiating commercial contracts to be enforced in multiple jurisdictions; these can touch on legal nuances that are a whole lot more like brain or heart surgery. Leaving everything in the hands of a generalist can end up ugly. We’ve seen this happen many times.
The high growth nature of tech startups means they can go from playing legal tee-ball to the major leagues very quickly, unlike most kinds of businesses that utilize small firms. Legal representation that can scale with the startup at all of its stages, rather than max out once the startup becomes successful, is extremely valuable; particularly because the costs of switching law firms are not insignificant. The key is to find an integrated firm that packages and prices its services appropriately for each stage of a startup.
Fragmentation v. Integration
Many smaller practices are well aware of these limitations in their model and have developed informal networks of specialists from other firms to call upon in situations when their expertise is needed. I’ve touched on this topic here. While this is definitely a good thing, thus far I’ve been unimpressed with the mechanisms (i.e. none) that smaller practices have put in place for actually drawing upon their “network” in an effective and efficient manner.
Having to formally engage a new law firm (including running a conflicts-check) to ask a question that someone under an integrated system could get answered by walking down the hall doesn’t exactly smell like progress to me. Even if it works for lengthy, project-based engagements, the kind of quick, 15-minute consults that are commonplace (and necessary) in an integrated firm will inevitably go under-utilized in a system with that much friction.
Some “multi-specialty” firms have done a little better and brought in-house the handful of types of specialists that are most likely to be needed by a startup: employment, tax, and IP seeming to be the most common. But that’s a tough model to sustain because those specialists almost invariably need to also work for large non-startup clients (the kinds that don’t work with small firms) to keep their practice profitable.
Of course, as in other industries, at some point the right platform for allowing a fragmented system of specialists to coordinate ad-hoc may emerge in a way that can match the quality and breadth of the integrated system. But for now, this “PC” of startup law is nowhere to be found. For matters beyond the absolute most basic, Apple-like integration wins. Note, however, that a smaller footprint can actually be the optimal model for attorneys/firms with enough brand recognition (gravity) to dominate a particular niche specialty (not generalist) of the market.
Conclusion: Process efficiency and technology innovation will disrupt legal practice. A “cottage mentality” will not.
Progress and innovation in the startup law space will not come from doing things the same old way, while wearing jeans in a less fancy office space. It will come from sophisticated parties that, instead of retreating from the web of specialties that make up the field, find smart ways to affordably package and productize their knowledge. This process is well underway, and it’s incredibly exciting to operate in.
