Porter’s Five Forces are Actually Relevant to Law Firms

By Lisa Smith, Principal, Fairfax Associates

For years we have tried to adapt traditional business strategy to the law firm environment. Sometimes that worked and sometimes it didn’t.

Economist Michael Porter published his article on “How Competitive Forces Shape Strategy” in the Harvard Business Review in 1979. The article defined a methodology for evaluating the competitive dynamic of an industry and the resulting impact on profitability. Porter’s Five Forces quickly became a standard in corporate strategy development. And we certainly tried dutifully to apply the methodology to the legal industry. But the legal industry seemed to defy the competitive pressures ...