Now quality, in the modern sense, is not simply the absence of defects. Instead, it reflects the user’s total experience with the product or service, including the costs, the ongoing service, and more. Renting a car from Hertz is a high-quality experience because they usually get your name on the board and you can get your vehicle quickly–it’s the same Ford that’s offered by other car rental companies. The services of your cable company usually are not a quality experience, considering you’re put on hold for twenty minutes in order to schedule an appointment that keeps you waiting for the cable guy for four hours.

So, is it possible to create the iPhone of law? You may respond, “our firm already is the iPhone of law.” Maybe a few of you are. But we recently surveyed in-house counsel. Twice as many said their company delivered higher quality to their customers than their law firms delivered to them. Again, maybe there are a few of you out there, a small segment.

Law traditionally has defined quality as most professional services define it–as a description of the provider. Ask most lawyers what quality is, and the answer will be a combination of a Potter Stewart-esque “we know it when we see it,” plus a detailing of their credentials, level of effort, absence of defects, and their anticipation of low probability events. Lawyers will sometimes talk about quality in terms of outcomes, but usually only when the outcome is good. When the case is lost, the deal goes south, or the derivatives go bust, lawyers distance themselves from responsibility even though that broader success is almost certainly what the client has in mind by quality.

Law has undergone a sea change, different from any other market for professional services. With the rise of the legal department, we no longer have the classic information asymmetry between the provider and buyer of professional services. As such, we are on a quick march to a more modern, complete notion of quality in law.

Rather than jump ahead to propose that definition, let me suggest that the way to get there is to follow the iPhone approach. Let’s start by looking at the three key steps Apple followed in creating the iPhone

1. Apple focused intensely on the user experience. It evaluated different phones and PDAs to learn what people liked and disliked. It studied whether people were using their phones for web browsing, email or voice services, or other applications. It looked at demographics and who was most mobile, who would use first. They didn’t just take people’s input as static, but tried to skate to where the puck was going to be based on anticipatable changes and what looked like unmet needs. While input came from many places, the decisions on what to prioritize came from one person with a unifying vision–Steve Jobs. In law, this might mean really focusing on a matter or a process. Is it about avoiding a problem or creating opportunity? How will people actually respond to the incentives provided? Does cost or delay create its own set of problems? And it will certainly mean moving away from the false notion of consensus as the mechanism of achieving excellence.

2. Apple really pushed the technologies. The screen resolution, network performance, typing interpretation, screen resizing and flipping, are all pretty remarkable. But the technologies are not there for their own sake, but in support of some aspect of the user experience. The technologies in law are not so sophisticated, but surely we can start to better understand how to use document automation, or collaboration, or more sophisticated search. We can use the technologies of connectivity to be closer to clients and better understand their issues. In the last generation we figured out spell checking, e-mail, and browsing, so none of this is that hard.

3. Apple worked with partners, they leveraged their ecosystem to provide complementary capabilities. No one has ever accused Apple of suffering from excess humility disorder, so the way they work with partners can be aggressive and in some cases exclusionary. But nice or aggressive, they are always mindful of their partners’ capabilities, and thoughtful of how those capabilities can enhance the customer experience. It’s never only about Apple. In law, this would mean lawyers thinking more broadly about all the aspects of the client’s world, and how their objective can be achieved, focusing on the outcome, and how to define the lawyer’s task in furtherance of it. A document, even a perfect document, is only a very small part of that solution.

Why is all this timely? Because regardless of what anyone would like, most companies are going to cut legal spending by at least 20 percent in 2009. If that cut happens in the absence of a thoughtful definition of quality, it will cause genuine harm. If that cut catalyzes a more sophisticated view of quality, it will probably do us all a world of good.

Related posts:

1. Yeah, go Steve Jobs go – Apple – Thoughts on Music
2. Law Blog – WSJ.com : Slow Typist Sues His Law School

Why would the big four music companies agree to let Apple and others distribute their music without using DRM systems to protect it? The simplest answer is because DRMs haven’t worked, and may never work, to halt music piracy. Though the big four music companies require that all their music sold online be protected with DRMs, these same music companies continue to sell billions of CDs a year which contain completely unprotected music. That’s right No DRM system was ever developed for the CD, so all the music distributed on CDs can be easily uploaded to the Internet, then illegally downloaded and played on any computer or player.

In 2006, under 2 billion DRM-protected songs were sold worldwide by online stores, while over 20 billion songs were sold completely DRM-free and unprotected on CDs by the music companies themselves. The music companies sell the vast majority of their music DRM-free, and show no signs of changing this behavior, since the overwhelming majority of their revenues depend on selling CDs which must play in CD players that support no DRM system.

So if the music companies are selling over 90 percent of their music DRM-free, what benefits do they get from selling the remaining small percentage of their music encumbered with a DRM system? There appear to be none. If anything, the technical expertise and overhead required to create, operate and update a DRM system has limited the number of participants selling DRM protected music. If such requirements were removed, the music industry might experience an influx of new companies willing to invest in innovative new stores and players. This can only be seen as a positive by the music companies.

Much of the concern over DRM systems has arisen in European countries. Perhaps those unhappy with the current situation should redirect their energies towards persuading the music companies to sell their music DRM-free. For Europeans, two and a half of the big four music companies are located right in their backyard. The largest, Universal, is 100% owned by Vivendi, a French company. EMI is a British company, and Sony BMG is 50% owned by Bertelsmann, a German company. Convincing them to license their music to Apple and others DRM-free will create a truly interoperable music marketplace. Apple will embrace this wholeheartedly.

If Itunes drops it’s DRM, then the choice between the ipod and the zune won’t be just a choice based on which one has the coolest features or design, but a more fundamental choice; to send a message to the RIAA and the music companies.

Once again, Steve Jobs may do well, by doing good, by giving the consumer what they want, and how they want it.

Related posts:

1. Is Quality Possible for Law?
2. Law.com – Virtual IP Rights Rock Online Gaming World