The Latent Market for Business Legal Services

Dennis Kennedy describes The Latent Market for Business Legal Services. This is precisely the market I have envisioned targeting for years -- the business 'middle class' who don't, won't, don't know about or simply think they can't afford quality legal services. He writes:

6. The Latent Market for Business Legal Services. Richard Granat and others have spoken and written for years about the “latent” market for legal services. To drastically over-simplify, the idea is that there is a large middle class group of people who have definite needs for legal services, but who cannot afford, do not understand the benefit of, or otherwise do not use the services of lawyers. As a result, they “go it alone” or do nothing, often to their detriment.

I believe that the same idea applies in the business context. In the latent market for business legal services, you find a large number of businesses where owners, executives (often CFOs) and others make “seat of the pants” legal decisions on their own for many of the same reasons Granat and others discuss. Another portion of this market routinely “under lawyers” the problem - i.e., uses a general lawyer for issues that should be addressed by lawyers who practice in the specific area. An example would be a company that has its real estate lawyer looking over software licenses.

In either case, mistakes are likely to be made. When I describe my practice as “providing consumer protection for businesses entering into important technology contracts,” I have the picture of this latent market for business legal services in mind. These are the people I can and want to help. At the annual retreat, I want to take some time to think about this concept, its implications and approaches to target this latent market, especially in ways that take advantage of Internet delivery of services, products and collaborative efforts.