I can’t stop watching this video – Art of the Marbler.
It’s somehow both mesmerizing and soothing to watch how the colours and the process come together to create something so beautiful.
For those who don’t have time to watch the full video, it shows the process of producing marbled paper in the 1970s.
It’s an incredibly artful process which relies on papermakers’ steady hands and wooden tools to create unique and bespoke designs.
I’m sad to report that the story has a slightly less satisfactory end.
It was less than 20 years from the bustling business that we see in the video to bankruptcy and being sold for parts.
The elapsed years saw the advent of new printers and computer designs that could replicate the human touch at a far lower cost.
I won’t bore you by drawing the parallels between the print shop in the video and the majority of law firms today.
And no, this isn’t going to be a scare piece about how computers are going to replace lawyers in the next 20 years. (They aren’t, or at least not to that extent.)
There’s actually something far more interesting going on here.
As it turns out there are a number of print shops still around today which produce hand crafted marbled paper.
They’re thriving.
The interesting question is how and why those shops are still around and the one in the video isn’t.
A quick look at those that are still around reveals the answer.
They aren’t selling paper anymore.
They’re selling art.
It’s the same product, crafted in exactly the same way.
At some point though they shifted from selling what was viewed as a commodity to something much more rarefied.
It’s obvious to say that Michelangelo’s David isn’t valued as a block of marble.
These shops managed to shift the perception of their products from what they were composed of to what they represented.
I think it’s an interesting parallel for the legal services market today.
Many firms continue to sell a commodity (the billable hour).
Some though, have shifted to outcome based pricing (take a look at how Wachtell charges).
AFAs for many firms represent a move in the right direction.
It’s a similar story on the in-house side.
The most successful GCs we work with are outcome-based.
They can walk into their CFO’s office and describe exactly what they delivered to the business in a given year (NDAs, M&A deals, strategic advice, etc.) without ever mentioning the ‘discounts’ they managed to extract from their firms.
Finding long term value means shifting from trying to cost the inputs to optimizing the delivery of outcomes.
Achieving that doesn’t have to be hard but it does require a shift in mentality and putting the right process in place to ensure results.
Do you want to be a commodity or an object d’art?
Handcrafted,
Christopher Thurn
Founder – Alacrity Law
