FUTURE LEGAL MARKET SCENARIO REPORT

Cape Town, 30th of January 2015

Table of Contents
Executive Summary The Story of Change and What it means for Juta
Introduction: Context
Methodology: Purpose & Approach / Research Design & Data Collection
Findings: Weak Signals, Drivers, Trends / Scenarios / Competitors
Jutas future role: Marketplace / Purpose
Recommended next steps
Conclusion

We are witnessing the

last days of the
BigLaw business
model which has
been with us for
decades. This is the
most exciting time to
be in the legal
industry - if you enjoy
radical change that is.
- George Beaton (Beaton
Capital)

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY - The Story of Change and What it means for Juta
Over a long period of time now, things were quite stable in the hallways of the big law firms
with only a few global players exchanging places at the top of the league tables. Metaphors
like the Magic Circle enforced this notion of an elite club that was nearly impossible to
penetrate. But as the needs of large clients changed in tune with technology development,
new business cultures and market forces, the legal industry is becoming increasingly
dynamic - even to the point of actual disruptive change that seems imminent.
As such, the established players are starting to fragment into different entities as they
grapple with responses to alternative business structures (ABS) which are opening the doors
for new entrants - something that takes getting used to in a well regulated and lobbied
industry. As this impact is felt at the business model, level it makes far more substantial
changes to the current Big Law operating model necessary - including large scale technology
investments or driving new ventures that are difficult to fund within a partnership structure
that distributes profits out to individuals.
A new culture of transparency, efficiency and increasing collaboration is needed to compete
with New Law players. At the same time, the legal value chain is converging radically with the
tech and information industry. As a result the traditional role of the lawyer as a professional
service provider is transforming.
And this change is becoming more and more visible as the likes of global legal service
providers such as Axiom - deliberately coming in from left field - is set to overtake DLA as
the largest global law firm in due course. Other stakeholders such as governments, legal
process outsourcers (LPOs) and smaller law firms are also poised to embrace this new
market landscape - which in turn opens up new growth opportunities for anyone wanting to
offer services to the legal industry of the future.

Many of the global trends that will be unpacked in more detail throughout this report are
starting to play out at a (Southern) African level as our institutions are increasingly becoming
more aligned to global operating models. Juta has been a trusted source of valuable
information and remains an established legal industry business partner which is why it needs
to change in line with the context in which it operates to harness new growth opportunities.
Through a process of bottom-up, evidence-based aggregation of different market drivers
we identified the following Key Change Drivers thorough an impact/probability scoring
mechanism: Convergence, Fragmentation, Transformation.
From these we generated the following 4 Scenarios or alternative views of the future legal
marketplace that can be assessed from a Juta perspective:
/ BIG LAW transforms into NEW LAW
/ Artificial Intelligence: BOTS substituting HUMANS
/ OPEN ACCESS and the end of IP as we know it
/ SWARM LAW and the rise of hybrid collaboration ecosystems

These drivers need to be understood in terms of the operating principles shaping the future
competitive landscape: essentially big actors are being challenged by younger, more flexible
and tech-driven corporate cultures. Additionally the market share is being divided up by big
law firm substitutes such as ABS and LPOs that also have a more democratic, collaborative
corporate culture. Governments all over the world are starting to embrace an open access
position with regards to making the law accessible to citizens in a more down to earth way.
This dynamic tension is well summed up by an interplay between the Business of Law vs. Law
in Society which informs a potential future Juta Purpose of being a trusted business partner
that improves access to legal content, helps to better organise local legal ecosystems to
deliver justice across the African continent.
There is still some work that needs to be done in redefining the future market position of
Juta beyond that of a legal content publisher or content provider. There is some value in
looking at how direct competitors like Wolters Kluwer are managing this transition, but we
are also seeing a more unique niche role opening up for Juta. Rather than focusing only on
delivering content in the most efficient way possible to different stakeholders, there seems
to be a role for Juta of holding together an emerging community of legal professionals, and
to offer them the tools, resources, networks, opportunities to thrive on the African
continent. This view focuses efforts when engaging with critical stakeholders such as
governments, academia, law firms of all sizes, alternative legal practitioners, the broad
public as well as international partners.
We hope this document helps to stimulate the necessary internal strategic dialogue within
Juta. As such it marks the start of engaging in a change process that seeks to strengthen the
organisational capacities to capitalise on emerging opportunities. More importantly though,
we also want to encourage taking practical, experimental steps to get closer to a solid
strategy of the future by translating these insights into action.

BACKGROUND & INTRODUCTION

This Futures Report is a presentation of the legal market growth opportunities for Juta. It
offers insights and perspective into current trends and future market drivers to the Juta
leadership team as an input into the annual strategy development process.
The report aggregates research findings, expert insights, as well as the experience,
knowledge and attitudes of the leadership team. It evaluates various options for future
strategies and provides first steps to outline Jutas renewed future purpose and role in the
legal content market space - and also beyond. In so doing, this report is a first stepping stone
for any potential strategic innovation & growth effort.
CONTEXT Setting the scene
For centuries the legal profession has remained resistant to innovation to a far greater degree
than any other industry or profession (Reed, TechCrunch, 2014). While globalisation and
technology have caused disruptions across numerous industries, such as transport,
medicine, film, music and even education, the legal industry has remained largely
untouched. This is however changing.
The point of departure of this report - and the consulting project underpinning it - is the
acknowledgement that the legal industry is changing which in turn has specific impacts on
the legal content publishing industry. In order to stay ahead of competition and to prevent
loss of market share, players need to be proactive and make wiser, bolder moves. To do so
the traditional and non-traditional changes in the technology landscape as well as consumer
behaviour need to be understood at a deeper level - and how they impact Jutas current
business model.
The challenge is to manage the duality of growth: the Business of Today versus the Business
of Tomorrow. We use a pragmatic, creative approach to future market development in which
the Business of Tomorrow makes sense and ultimately drives current strategic efforts.
METHODOLOGY Purpose and Approach
We use a human-centered design (HCD) approach to solve difficult commercial challenges
such as the one outlined above. This means that a people-centric view of the future is
applied to our thinking which helps to translate often quite abstract models into concrete
customer experiences or value propositions. The philosophy behind this is to know your
audience: Who are your customers, what attitudes, beliefs and behaviours do they have what are their actual needs and how to they make decisions?
By engaging with the customer and deeply understanding their evolving habits, wants and
desires we can design the right services and products. This is how we develop innovative
solutions that align Jutas mission with its customers needs.

We believe in using a research & advisory process that capitalises on the existing and
embraces the unknown. In a methodical way we harvest from the insights of key actors and
infuse these with desk research findings and triangulate with Jutas leadership perspectives.
We balance inside and outside views of various relevant stakeholders and role players. By
distilling actionable insights we design services and strategic innovation efforts that bring
customer insights alive.

ABSTRACT
Scenarios

Consequences / Opportunities

Scenario 3

Scenario 1

Positioning 1

Positioning 3

Positioning 2

Positioning 4

Concept 1

Concept 3

Concept 2

Concept 4

Scenario 4

Scenario 2

Validation and Exploration

People

Market

Technology

Trends and Drivers

New Ventures

CONCRETE
We start with concrete data across people, market and technology to create abstract future
scenarios. From there we translate abstract insights into concrete consequences to develop
concepts that are logical and fact based. Throughout this process we use different hats:
Whats technically possible? Whats commercially viable? Whats desirable for customers?

Possible:
What s technically
possible?

Viable:
What s commercially
viable?

The Sweet Spot

Desirable:
What s desirable for
the customers?

In our problem solving-mindset we move from a naive, to an analytical, to a realistic and then
advisory attitude. Equally, we move from depth to relevance to value. During this journey
existing assumptions are uncovered to critically challenge conventional wisdom to develop
new, more appropriate assumptions. With these we can make explicit recommendations for
new courses of actions to effect a change in practice. By understanding and formulating
potential impact and consequences we can achieve our strategic objectives: growth through
innovation.
POINT OF
DEPARTURE

STRATEGIC
OBJECTIVES
Land
Sea

1. De!ne and frame

the problem

Depth

Naive

Existing
Assumptions

2. Critically challenge
conventional wisdom

Discover
(Implicit)

Advisory

Change in
Practice

Mindset

Analytical

3. Synthesize
patterns

Realistic

New Premises
(New Assumptions)

6. Articulate potential
impact and consequences

4. Prioritize
impact

Value

5. Propose a course
of action

Recommend
(Explicit)

Relevance

FACT BASE Research Design & Data Collection

This research applies qualitative and quantitative methods to achieve triangulation. Firstly,
an exploration of publicly available information, including academic and journalistic articles,
corporate reports, blog posts, etc. around legal research, legal content, legal technology,
was carried out in the form of desk research.
The scope was to investigate trends in South Africa but also in more advanced legal
industries, namely the US, UK, Europe and partly Australia. Secondly, personal interviews are
conducted to get in-depth data and insights of various legal professionals and stakeholders.
Using multiple viewpoints that complement each other create greater accuracy and
strength of data.

In addition to the trends report, field research will complement the findings here. The goal is
to conduct 30 semi-structured, face-to-face interviews. This is carried out in two phases,
using three interviewers, namely Ulrich Meyer-Hoellings, Lilian Schulze and Iain Bryant. The
questionnaire was based on preliminary research and Jutas input and problem framing.
Phase 1 (November-December 2014) focused on small and large law firms in Cape Town and
Johannesburg. As a guideline, five were targeted for each of these categories. An interim
insights report as well as raw data files will be made available to Juta as well.
Phase 2 (planned for February 2015) focuses on advocates, medium-sized firms, thoughtleaders and experts across academia, the Legal Information Institute (Lii) movement, legal
process outsourcing (LPOs), the legal tech start-up scene and/or alternative business models
(ABS).
Each interview is recorded using video or voice recording to then be analysed. To capture
more subtle sentiments, emotions, attitudes of the interviewees a reflection is documented
after each session by the interviewer. Additionally, photos are taken to capture the
individuals, the environment and artefacts.
The research process is iterative, that means that throughout the data collection the team
goes back to review and synthesise findings and improve the questions. Some of the
interview findings were included in the report, however the focus is on the desk research
and future scenarios. With completion of phase 2 of the field research another report will be
produced that covers and combines all findings.
KEY FINDINGS Weak Signals / Trends / Drivers
The following chapter discusses the findings of the trends and future research. Firstly, the
weak signals, trends and drivers are described which leads into a richer description of the 4
future scenarios. We take a quick glance at the competition before moving into the analysis
and discussion about what this means for Jutas strategic options in moving forward.
To make sense of the overwhelming world around us and its infinite future possibilities, the
first step is to identify patterns: weak signals. Weak signals are indicators of change. To
understand these we delineate trends and drivers that may or may not lead to the next
mainstream scenarios.
The desk research delivered a broad range of trends across discourses & narratives, players,
momentum, interest, hype, and other developments outside of the core legal marketplace
that are starting to impact the future rules of engagement. As such we needed to apply
different scoring tools to structure and prioritise the data. A key metric to us was probability
and impact scoring: e.g. the higher both probability and impact become, the higher a trend
moves towards becoming a Key Change Driver. After distilling the information we identified
that there are three main forces at hand:
Fragmentation, convergence and transformation.

Fragmentation. Existing big law players are threatened to splinter into smaller actors as Big
Law transforms into New Law and Legal Process Outsourcing (LPO) as well as Alternative
Business Structures (ABS) become more mainstream.
General Convergence of information & technology with legal industry. Growth in legal tech
startups and VC investment are strong symptoms for the emergence of more nontraditional players in the future legal marketplace.
Transformation. Legal services , products and business structures are under pressure and
transform into novel forms. The legal value chain is changing in nature and new players are
disintermediating traditional actors - automation is opening the doors for solutions based on
artificial intelligence (AI).
In order to make sure that we have a sound fact base, we checked the Drivers that feed into
the trends:
/ General council is a more discerning, smart buyer.
/ Client demands define direction of change.
/ Price pressures force an embrace of technology and efficiency tools.
/ Standardisation, automation and commoditisation accelerate.
/ Unbundling and disaggregation become formalised.
/ Outsourcing becomes a norm for big law.
/ Rise of ABS, LPOs, legal tech startups take up legal market share.
/ Globalisation and digitalisation makes virtual, flexible and mobile working common.
/ New collaboration models enable better access to law and legal information.
/ Democratisation of legal knowledge through cheaper and better access.
/ Open Access movement mainstreams by collaborating with academia and governments.
These underlying drivers might manifest itself in the following FUTURE TRENDS in due
course:
/ New business models will be without billable hours and partnerships.
/ The law profession is more creative, agile and multidisciplinary to serve client demands.
/ Talent retention becomes a key success factor and might lead to large firms offering junior
partner more entrepreneurial career paths.
/ Technology and processes are key in every new legal business and will drive future
investments.
/ Project management and consultancy capacities are effectively used for outsourcing and
new service delivery.
/ Firms and staff are highly specialised in most value add market segments.
As mentioned it is in the interplay between the visible trends and their respective underlying
drivers that new scenarios for a future legal marketplace emerge which we will now discuss
in more detail.

FUTURE SCENARIOS of the Legal Marketplace

Based on the trends and drivers we envision four different scenarios. These are stark
pictures of the future which help to imagine the possibilities around new business models
and growth opportunities for Juta. The desired outcome of working with scenarios is that it
enables Juta to decide how to position itself. What is Jutas purpose? Which playing field will
it be in and what is our role? How can we get there? What do we have already?

01 BIG LAW TRANSFORMS INTO NEW LAW

In this future traditional big firms have overcome the challenge of transforming their
business to becoming leaner, more dynamic, technology-enabled and customer-centric. They
may transition into what we call New Law firms like Axiom for instance. These firms are still
defined by their strong focus on key client relationships and maintaining a reputation for
premium legal service excellence to drive growth, but they are abandoning the traditional
business model (e.g. billable hours and partner bonuses) in favour of providing a richer
customer experience. They have also become better at harnessing their internal knowledge
and might use their deep subject matter expertise to split up into a multitude of boutique
firms - held together by a strong, trusted brand and the respective thought leadership
associated with it.
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New law firms employ staff with even more concentrated high-value skills. Lower value skills
are radically outsourced - maybe even in LPO business units that are spun out and
strategically placed in relevant locations (e.g. South Africa and India). The new business
model has highly specialised and more flexible teams who also carry out more of a
consulting and project management role. New law firms are more agile, less hierarchical and
function as strongly branded networks. Services have converged heavily with other
disciplines, such as tech, financial, insurance and other professional service providers - which
might also mean a re-entry into the legal service field by the likes of Big 4 accounting firms.
Current examples of actors who push boundaries in the direction of new law are Axiom, DLA
Piper and RadiantLaw.
This future is marked by a polarisation of the legal industry so that law and justice remain
exclusive and available to those that can afford these value added services. But contrary to
our next scenario, the practice of law is very much governed by human interaction,
deliberation and consultation.
___________________________________________________________________________________
Special view on ABS & LPOs/LSOs
There are two forces that challenge the established hierarchy of the legal industry - and the way
legal professionals work and create value: ABS and LPOs/LSOs. In the UK ABS are caused by the
UK The Legal Services Act, aka the Tesco Law. This allows non-legal firms to be merged with any
other area, so that any other actor - namely the big auditing firms - acquire legal licences. This
act demonstrates the outdatedness of traditional big law firms and offers a significant incentive
for legal and non-legal actors to innovate and merge with other fields. As a result we will see a
number of companies, specifically big auditing and consulting firms, become competitors to Big
Law by offering complementary services. For instance, Axiom will take over the largest law firm
today, DLA Piper, within the next 2-3 years.
On the other side we witness the rise of tech start-ups in the US. The recently increased
momentum in venture capital in the legal industry has produced numerous players that offer
more affordable services and products through automation and standardisation. Famous
examples are Rocket Lawyer and LegalZoom.
Finally, a very interesting phenomenon is the rise of legal process outsourcing firms and legal
services outsourcing firms (LPOs/LSOs). These have come into existence because the current
legal value chain has become too costly to legitimate fees: lawyers billable hours cover too many
lower-skilled activities that third party offer at much better prices. The marriage between big law
and LPOs/LSOs is interesting since there is an inherent interdependence between the law firms,
the LPOs /LPOs and the clients. LPOs such as Exigent and Cognia Law have rapid growth and
through it are acquiring substantial IP and access to clients. These firms work globally, driven by
process, technology and efficiency. While based remotely, such as South Africa or Bangalore,
their client base centres around the main legal hubs: Northern America, Europe including the UK,
Australia and increasingly the Middle East.

11

As a consequence, besides the existing big actors who are being challenged by younger, more
flexible and tech-driven corporate cultures, the market share is shaken up by substitutes such as
ABS and LPOs/LPOs.
Once the phase 2 research is completed more analysis will be dedicated on these actors.
___________________________________________________________________________________
02 ARTIFIAL INTELLIGENCE: BOTS SUBSTITUTE HUMANS
The future world of artificial intelligence is spearheaded and predicted by geeks and science
fiction. The likes of Silicon Valley are massively invested in a more bot-centric world of allpervasive man-machine-interaction. Given the recent failure of products such as Google
Glass this view needs to be well balanced in order to drive Corporate Strategy development
as it requires massive investment with very long payback periods. Tools like the Gartner Hype
Cycle model (see below) are helpful to see which technologies are nearing their
commercialisation stage.

But what this view of the world does show is that Technology and the internet have radically
enabled standardisation and automation of substantial parts of the legal value chain. The
role of the lawyer has morphed into a knowledge engineer, data manager and ethical
checker in some parts of the market. Advanced data analytics are increasing efficiencies in
some parts of the legal industry and driving integration with large enterprise software
architecture solutions like Sharepoint. Many legal services as we know them like

12

conveyancing are becoming redundant and this is making life even tougher for small law
firms.
IBMs Watson is a good example of this Scenario and there are some Use Cases that need to
be kept in mind when thinking about the future role Juta can play in this world. Given that
the legal use cases are in an early stage of development these are more like creative
stimulus about how technology can improve the future Juta customer experience.
This tech-centric world view remains elitist given the cost of access and it requires an
advanced technology infrastructure as well as operating capabilities. It also runs slightly
counter to the dynamic notion of law that is shaped by deliberation and dialogue within
society.
03 OPEN ACCESS AND THE END OF IP AS WE KNOW IT
In the world of Open Access virtually all information and data is freely and instantaneously
available. Value is not derived from the content itself, but from functionality and services and the specific community of users around it. As in the sharing economy, social networks
and the social currency are evermore important and create value - and thus business
opportunities. Smaller firms or individual legal practitioners - still the backbone of the legal
profession in most markets - become the focal point of development in this space as they
require low-cost access to most tools; also making platforms like Google Scholar their
preferred point of departure. The other bigger driver are governments e.g. also players like
the Legal Aid Board or legal services NGOs some of which are rather well funded such as the
LII movement which is driving a joint Open Access agenda across the world. When looking at
the likes of CanLII it will only be a matter of time before the functionality and sophistication
of their products become better as they start co-developing solutions in a more globally
aligned way.
Indicators of what future businesses and applications that direct progress are Bitcoin,
Ubuntu Linux, Google.
Extracting commercial value in his scenario requires new public-private-partnerships as well
as the development of alternative freemium Business Models as well as employing a variety
of crowdfunding tools.
04 SWARM LAW: HYBRID ECOSYSTEMS
In the future of swarm law the traditional law ecosystem has fragmented into a level playing
field with small, big and medium sized players. They complement each other whilst working
interdependently. The industry is marked by efficient collaboration rather than fierce
competitions. Teams are hyper virtual, super flexible and share knowledge, resources and
clients. Swarm Law is a democratic, transparent and inclusive legal landscape, where diverse,
multidisciplinary players co-exist.

13

Examples today of what swarm law will look like are LegalZoom, RocketLawyer. AirBnB is
another example if one wants to look at another industry were this platform business
models currently plays out. We are also seeing larger firms investing in this start-up space
with on-demand or pay per use options as a solution to clients more modular procurement
practices.
These last two scenarios - and possibly also parts of Scenario 01 - feel well aligned with Jutas
purpose and as such will be explored in more detail at a later stage. In order to develop a
more robust future positioning we also need to take into account what Jutas direct
competitors are doing. The next sections offers an overview.
COMPETITORS and their Big Bets
The fragmentation, convergence and transformation of law firms also changes the
landscape of competitors as they are having similar discussion about their big bets in a future
market place. Depending on their core assets and appetite for more disruptive investments,
it seems existing competitors current responses can be grouped into focusing on the needs
of the following key actors: (1) leading big law firms, (2) quickly growing LPO/LSOs who will
take up significant parts of the legal value chain due to price pressures on the big firms, and
(3) ABSs, who challenge the status of the lawyer by offering substitute services and
products.
A good example of how these new players are positioning their disruptive value proposition
can be found with the likes of AxiomLaw - soon to be the largest global legal service
provider - see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JvaMArNZl50

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Essentially the Big Idea that Axion drives is the New Law redefinition of the legal industry
into a more agile, dynamic and customer-centric marketplace. It also showcases the new
type of corporate culture that New Law firms are driving to attract a younger, always-on
talent pool.
Its useful to contrast this perspective with a snapshot of some of the archetypical value
proportions offered by Jutas traditional global/local competitors that are all trying to
capture these new mindsets with their respective stories of the future:

Thomson Reuters ambition is summarised as follows: The worlds leading source of intelligent
information for business and professionals, by combining industry expertise with innovative
technology to deliver critical information to decision makers in the finance and is, legal, tax and
accounting, intellectual property, science and media markets.
Vision: Becoming a true global platform provider through new levels of speed, simplicity and
connectivity to the financial world.
and as they say in their We Believe statement: We are trusted for the decisions that matter
most, empowering customers to act with confidence in a complex world.
Values: Integrity, reliability of news, development of the news business and related
principles.
From a storytelling perspective TRs views is closest to the picture painted in the Axiom Law
movie, so it should resonate well with this high-growth emerging market segment. See here
for further details: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XBNUCljMbRY

Wolters Kluwer aspires to the following: Providing information, technology and expertise to
offer solutions that improve legal, tax, finance and healthcare professionals to be more effective
and efficient through tools, and guidance of subject-matter experts.
The WK Vision is framed by The World of Our Customers: Customers trust Wolters Kluwer to
support them in managing their business efficiently and delivering results to their clients. The

15

next frontier for professionals is to take advantage of an ever more mobile, information-rich
world to increase their effectiveness and productivity.
Mission: Our customers face critical decisions every day; we help them move forward with
confidence.
Values: Customer focus, innovation, accountability, integrity, value creation, teamwork
Wolters Kluwers style of communicating this positioning is also well aligned to the emerging
future legal professional marketplace as can be seen here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rSB2ZQIm6po

LexisNexis describes itself as: An international information-based solutions provider serving

financial, political and legal professionals.
Their Vision is: Continue with focused solution expansion strategy across research, compliance,
risk and practice management solution lines and to maintain LN as a great place to work for.
Values: Customer focus, valuing their people, passion for winning, innovation and
boundarylessness.
Probably being the closest current competitor in the local marketplace, it is interesting to
note that LN does not yet directly address the large global trends that have been outlined
here but rather only provides a fact-driven view of how their product is superior to any other
solution: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x6IuQTN42yA
This snapshot of how key competitors paint their picture of the future marketplace provides
further stimulus for a discussion about different strategic responses that Juta needs to
incorporate and evaluate in their internal strategic dialogue in order to drive bolder, futureoriented decision-making. By having a clearer view of the road ahead - brought to live
through an engaging story - will also help to focus the internal change agenda at Juta.
The final section of this report outlines some early thinking about how Juta can define its
future role(s) in different market segments.

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ANALYSIS & DISCUSSION Jutas future role

The following section provides an analysis and discussion what the different scenarios mean
for Juta. It gives concrete examples and some first recommendations on potential business
development opportunities. From this, we identify what could be parts of Jutas core
purpose - the brand essence that needs to be distilled to underpin the future story. We then
move into strategic recommendations and the conclusion.

For Juta the Big Law/New Law world may seem like familiar territory to some extent as it
covers a significant part of the current client base, but competitors like Thomson Reuters,
Lexis Nexis and Wolter Kluwers are in fact better suited to meet the needs of globalised
New Law firms. Within the future of New Law it will be more and more difficult for Juta to
compete since the current competitors have vastly more sophisticated technology,
resources, IP and established relationships with global customers. With various new and
highly competitive substitute players moving into the legal space, such as large auditing and
consulting firms - or venture capital fuelled start-ups who attempt to cover some of those
services themselves - there will be a battle of giants. It is a global, fast and high-capital
driven game that Juta does not yet fit into but can operate successfully in certain niche
segments.
As a result, the future playing field should not be one against the traditional competitors,
but with them, as a regional collaborator. Juta can decide to partner with these firms in
order to inject an African needs perspective to their activities on the continent. Nurturing
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strategic relationship with future africa- / emerging market-focused Big Law/New Law firms,
Swarm Law firms, including LPOs/LSOs which are increasingly operating out of South Africa,
is a promising way forward because it gives Juta direct understanding of their needs.
There are also Big Law firms like Bowman Gilfillan that have deliberately embarked on an
Africa-only growth strategy who could be a better fit for bespoke solutions from Juta. Given
that access to global content is a need for bigger law firms in Africa, the other idea is to start
content syndication negotiations with other independent legal publishers across the world.
Alternative, Juta can link up with an adjacent e.g. technology service provider like Korbitec in
order to build a high-end workflow/knowledge management solution that has embedded
Juta content. Through this, Juta partners with bigger players but scales down its product
offerings for African users, such as workflow or content management software
development as a secondary revenue stream.
It also seems useful to offer publishing solutions to Big Law which drive their business
development efforts through thought leadership. (e.g. white papers and conferences).
Alternatively Juta could also offer advice on how to organise legal research processes and
also inform the wider strategic knowledge management strategy - thus creating a
consulting revenue stream.

The future of AI works towards an end-state which makes traditional lawyers and peoplecentric legal service provision more redundant and thus provides little in terms of growth
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platform development for Juta currently. The investment required is massive and the gap to
be closed from the current skills set is large, so there are some lower hanging fruits out
there before Juta is able to transform from a publisher to a tech company - if that is even
desirable of course. Also given Africas lag time in terms of advanced technology adoption,
we are looking at a less immediate scenario here. Furthermore it is technology governed and
therefore exclusive which might not suit the Juta purpose and values. What seems useful
though is to investigate partnering with leaner versions of Watson-type analytics service
providers (e.g. UK Universities or tech start-ups) as there is more of chance for Juta to
influence their R&D roadmaps. Even engaging with Jutas current technology partners (e.g.
NXT) to integrate some advanced content search and analytics functionalities seems a useful
endeavour to explore Jutas role in this scenario.
Despite ongoing hype AI has yet to reach a point where we really understand what the
impact will be on current practices. On one side, once AI is good enough there are little
barriers to entry - virtually anyone could acquire an AI system. On the other hand, creating
own AI systems will become easier too. The competitive advantage is thus not the system,
but again the access to the content and who governs or creates the channels to deliver the
AI service. With that, there may be a role that Juta can play to enable effective AI systems delivering it to current and new customers. Governments, (law) firms and the man-in-thestreet across the continent will need someone that facilitates the process of feeding the AI
system and making its outputs usable to them. Importantly but not much mentioned: some
entity will be required to monitor the systems and to deliver ethical checks to ensure the law
evolves with the system.
To get to that stage however requires several rounds of AI iterations - as yet this future is
too far, and in fact possibly undesirable as it ultimately aims towards an eradication of
human services. Currently, the costs and energy required to acquire and transform the
current organisation are disproportionate to the still unknown benefits. Instead, a further
exploration of alternative AI system providers would be useful to keep up with
developments. Simultaneously, more and better partnerships with technology providers to
catch up with best practices around the world is a better, more realistic and immediately
rewarding first step.

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The Open Access movement is symbolic for a more democratic and inclusive future - its
about collaboration and co-creation, rather than competition. And the LIIs network of panAfrican governments, academia and other progressive actors is extremely valuable. There
are ways how Open Access would benefit Juta. Making use of the movement rather than
fighting it gives a proactive stand and opens up spaces for new opportunities. Importantly,
as we already see with SafLII and others: free access alone is not sufficient to the public and
customers - there are services and functionality required to turn the content into valuable
information, as Google does so successfully.
Once a trusted relationship is established, there will certainly be functionality, models and
services that the LII movement may not have the tech, infrastructure, resources or mandate
to build. Aggregation, interpretation and translation are for instance gaps that Juta could
fill, thereby adding services with commercial value. These added value service layers potentially freemium business models - can be put on top of offering to the smaller law
firms as they transition into the Swarm Law ecosystem.
Thinking about an NGO/foundation business model might also open up new funding
opportunities and powerful channels within the future Juta ecosystem that provide for
deeper knowledge sharing as well as experiments in their pre-commercial phase.
Finally, an huge potential path forward is that Juta could offer the local but also other
African governments, courts, etc. the systems and support required to digitalise and
automate processes to accelerate and improve the access to justice. Particularly for growth
across the continent the Open Access movement offers an unconventional yet fruitful
partnership that must be explored.
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Swarm Law is a future that is well aligned with a company like Juta. Rather than competing
with the global elite of competitors, Swarm Law would mean servicing the masses of midlevel companies in their growth & professionalisation: smaller, agile and highly diverse firms
who will require affordable, localised and customisable services. There is a clear shared set
of interests between this scenario and Jutas capacities. Thoroughly understanding what
precise services Swarm Law requires will open up massive opportunities to become an
ongoing partner and service provider to firms across the board that require local services,
information, data and access to the right networks. It also enables a more transparent,
efficient national legal landscape.
The Swarm Law future brings a stronger democratisation of access to basic legal services
with decentralised legal practices that are inclusive and human governed. There is a clear
role for Juta to be the collaboration platform of choice in this space - much like
www.jurion.de from Wolters Kluwer is in Germany. Legal content provision - maybe in a pay
per click model with access to larger pool of syndicated content from other publishers - is a
basic service and entry point for additional services, such as legal marketing portals, virtual
collaboration workspace, project management tools, data sharing platforms as well as niche
publishing opportunities for very active community thought leaders. Engaging with players
like the Law Society and Universities will help to build credibility as the local community
builder across Africa.

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To conclude, there are multiple avenues that Juta could pursue - many of which complement
each other. However, a clear red thread is emerging. Managing the unknown and preparing
the organisational to develop capacities for each scenario are required. Clearly, Juta holds
various assets that are valuable in the immediate as well as far future - safeguarding these is
crucial, as much as it is important to let go of those assets that are not. Questions that open
up are:
How can Juta position itself to become a collaborator rather than a competitors to the
global giants of content, technology providers in the legal space? What can Juta offer to
become the preferred go-to place for government, medium-sized (legal) companies and the
general public? Which parts of the emerging value chain are most suited to Juta, and how
can Juta secure that position?
PURPOSE Navigating the Future
In times of change the starting point that enables a company to successfully reinvent itself is
a clear sense of purpose. It makes sense to go back to Jutas Vision which is to be The trusted
South African provider of technology-enabled learning and information solutions which enhance
performance. Its role is to support those - governments, academia and legal professionals who negotiate, define, practice, implement the law. Through technology and access to
information we are witnessing a global democratisation of law. In South Africa and many
other african countries the national vision is to make the law accessible and affordable.
Being a recognised contributor in this process will secure a role and place for Juta in the
ongoing development of nations. Becoming a partner with those actors who work to make
this a reality is a first stepping stone in building a future legal market ecosystem around
different communities of practice. It could also be the first stepping stone into building a
platform oriented business model that enhances Jutas role into that of an aggregator.
Additionally, the role of the global powerhouses is shifting too. Western domination is
challenged as the Southern hemisphere - including the quickly growing BRICS - is picking up
speed in development, expertise, economic power and strategic collaboration. A new
narrative is forming. Within that the African voice is an important one that has yet to form
and unify. One of the vital fundaments to this is a reliable and respectable rule of law as well
as a community of respected legal professionals. Contributing to this development gives
underlying meaning to Jutas role that will attract increasingly valuable partners, both
nationally and on the continent.
This more granular perspective helps Juta to refocus on the actor level by better
understanding different legal practitioners needs better - as well as the new organisational
collaboration structures that emerge from these interactions. By providing relevant
information and collaboration platforms Juta can ultimately establish itself as an enabler of
the New Law ecosystem in Africa - following legal practitioners throughout their career
paths from academia into different professional contexts.
As outlined, this new path also means changing the nature of the business that Juta
engages in by adding new skills and capabilities as well as forming new strategic alliances on
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the way. What is helpful to kick-start this change process is that the nature of publishing is
changing as we speak and it makes sense for Juta to take some conscious steps towards
embracing what is often referred to as Next-Generation Publishing.
This paradigm describes the new role of publishers in a wired world. Customers today create
their own content and interact with peers through Web 2.0 technologies such as user
communities, social networking sites, and blogs.They also expect to interact with authors
and editors, not just to purchase content.
In many ways Juta is uniquely positioned to facilitate this dialogue between customers,
experts, and editors, creating strong communities of practice. This would mean working
more closelywith different customers then ever before to co-create content, and provide
quality solutions that meet their needs.
In terms of buying behaviour, customers increasingly want to purchase on a pay-per-view or
per-transaction basis.Next-Generation Publishing is about adopting new business models
that complement these changes, and building an interactive layer onto the existing
businesses.
This focus on building an interactive content layer - we might call it UI (user interface) or UX
(user experience) - might well be the first game changer that Juta should invest in. Owning
the interface has proven to be very powerful hook into emerging communities of practice
and also makes you an integral part of legal professionals everyday routines. This first step
into building more customer-centric technologies will also give Juta the licence to slowly
change it's role into becoming more of a future-oriented legal community and market
ecosystem builder.
RECOMMENDED Next Steps
This section gives an overview of the recommended next steps to achieve a coherent and
viable strategy that may guide Juta into a successful future.
To start out, a deeper dive into the most relevant scenarios and respective customer
segments is useful in order to better understand the commercial impact. With that as solid
foundation we can start developing a renewed conceptual idea of Jutas value proposition as
it manifests itself in updated Personas and Use Cases.
A very useful exercise to complement the field research is to describe an ideal future(s):
what does the leadership dream of? Defining a GAP Analysis for Juta is an effort that is
required to get there.
A practical and much needed next step is to outline the strategic alliances and investment
needs: Who is out there already that fits into the ideal future? What opportunities can be
manifested with the right partner? And which ones are realistic given the financial frame?
To ensure a smooth and empowering transition, a constructive internal dialogue must take
place. What is possible? Why do we need to change? What can we achieve instead? Making
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this inclusive and transparent will secure the buy-in of the staff, and ideally result in
improved motivation, loyalty and performance.
As part of the internal dialogue there should be a collective review of Jutas purpose: What is
our vision, mission and what are our values? What do we want to update and what do we
stick to? Who are our stakeholders? Who else can we serve? How does this translate into new
product & service offerings?
Once a strategy is formalised, designing a change process and identifying different
mandates with clear feedback loops will make any transition smoother. One should also look
at dedicated structures to test new business models and ventures in a more protected
environment so as to give them time to mature without disrupting the current business.
CONCLUSION The Customers are in Charge
As this report hopes to show the nature of changes in the legal marketplace - both locally
and abroad - are more disruptive than in any previous phase of development. This dynamic,
if not volatile market context also requires equally substantial changes from any business
that wants to successfully operate in this environment.
Many of the more disruptive developments still take place on a global level, but as legal
markets become more aligned similar patterns start emerging. While change can already be
felt it will take a while until it trickles down to all actors in South Africa - providing an
opportunity for Juta to secure a role in the transition and to be part of directing it preparing itself to be able to capitalise on emerging opportunities.
This document is a snapshot of current developments as new market structures emerge
every week with the boundaries between well-known institutions starting to blur. It makes
sense for Juta to keep scanning the horizon in order to spot relevant weak signals that could
become key change drivers which impact the strategic business planning process.
From a solid base in sub-Saharan Africa, Juta is well positioned to play a more active role in
shaping the emerging legal market ecosystems across the African continent - sometimes
also by teaming up with partners to leverage off each others capabilities.
By focusing more strongly on different customer needs and making selective investments in
user-centric technologies, Juta will be able to secure a key role in driving collaboration and
community building which in turn paves the way for commercial success down the road.

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