1 lawyer for every 174 Brazilians
That is the ratio of lawyers to citizens in Brazil. There are 1.2 million lawyers among 209 million inhabitants.
At the current growth rate, by 2023 there will be 2 million lawyers, resulting in a ratio of 1 lawyer for every 105 people.
Considering that 27 percent of the Brazilian population is under 18 years old, that leaves 76 people per lawyer.
In other words, the market is completely saturated in terms of the number of lawyers in the country.
And this translates into the following scenario: 30 percent of law firms opened in the last 10 years have already closed. The main reasons are a lack of clients and price competition.
It is clear that being a good professional is no longer a guarantee of success
Lawyers need to learn about business and position themselves as entrepreneurs.
Within the rules of the OAB, lawyers need to learn how to actively attract clients and must position themselves as an authority in their field, generating quality content distributed through articles and social media.
Law firms need to be seen as businesses.
And they need to learn how to manage people, understand digital marketing, embrace the entrepreneurial spirit, and recognize that being more productive is essential.
What about software? Will it replace lawyers?
This is a question I hear often, especially when we organize our conferences related to the legal field. Will lawyers be replaced by machines?
There is a quote from Brazilian Cristiano Oliveira, founder of Olívia, an artificial intelligence platform, that states: “With AI, humans will be freer to engage in human activities, while machines will handle many of the automated tasks that humans perform today“.
To put it in practical terms, there are already situations in the legal world where various briefs, documents, and case law analyses are performed by algorithms equipped with artificial intelligence, without any human interaction.
This happens because machines are capable of performing millions of analyses in just a few minutes, identifying patterns and reviewing historical data.
This means that, as in many other professions, part of what lawyers do today will be done by a machine or algorithm. But that does not directly mean a problem.
Many lawyers have seen technological advances as an opportunity rather than a threat. The more technology incorporated into daily work, the more free time lawyers have to dedicate to what truly matters.
If a professional was previously able to review a set number of cases per day, the adoption of technology can multiply that capacity, for example.
The key point is that the legal world is living in an era where not only the technical skills tied to the profession matter. Of course, a lawyer must always stay current, learn new techniques, and become a better professional every day.
But other skills, previously overlooked by these professionals, have become essential. Every lawyer is an entrepreneur and therefore needs to learn about management, technology, and innovation.
In such a competitive world, where 58 percent of decisions to hire a service begin with Google searches, professionals who do not generate meaningful content end up losing relevance.
To be a successful lawyer, one must be an excellent technical professional, but also an outstanding manager. Understanding digital marketing, learning about people management, creating relevant content online, adopting technology to boost productivity… these are all part of the modern lawyer's formula for success.
Based on all these factors — and after surveying more than 10,000 professionals who attend our events — we decided to create the course Gestão Inovadora para Advogados, which will teach management techniques that can enhance your results.
After all, as Mariana Gonçalves from the project Minutos de Direito said, “The legal profession is saturated, yes — saturated with mediocre professionals with little dedication and no desire to innovate“.
Source: Startse