We have a monopoly on legal advice, yet we're giving away our most valuable services

Let me blow your mind: The legal profession is the only industry where competitors literally cannot enter the market (thanks, Law Societies!), yet we consistently undervalue and underprice our core services.

Here's the paradox killing our industry: 

⚖️ Only lawyers can give legal advice (protected). 

⚖️ Most of what we do isn't actually "legal advice" (unprotected); some of it is high-value, while some of it is not.

⚖️ We don't differentiate in how we charge for high-value work (i.e. integrated legal and business advice) versus how we charge for lower-level work (i.e. basic legal information and administrative activities)

Think about it: Strategic business guidance, risk assessment, negotiation strategy...This isn't technically "legal advice," but it's often worth more to clients than the actual legal opinions we obsess over.

Meanwhile, we're competing on price for commoditized legal work while giving away our strategic insights in "business development" meetings. The result? Clients see us as an expensive necessity rather than valuable partners.

Here's my (perhaps unpopular) take: We need to completely unbundle legal services. Charge premium rates for strategic counsel (protected or not), use innovation and technology to deliver routine legal work efficiently, and stop pretending that our law degrees make us more valuable than the results we provide.

The future belongs to lawyers who price their expertise, not their credentials.

Agree? Disagree? Let's debate this in the comments.