Not so long ago, an individual would invest significant resources in education and training to become an attorney. With hard work and dedication, he or she could expect to enjoy a comfortable living.

Much of that has changed.

While attorneys may still dedicate themselves to learning their craft, nevertheless, all the hard work and sacrifice does not necessarily mean that financial comfort and professional satisfaction will be part of an attorney's experience.

It is not a cliché to say that the practice of law has undergone rapid and significant changes. First and foremost, much of the legal work product that clients paid for in the past is now readily available on the Internet. Any time of the day, someone can search the Web or log on to legalzoom.com or rocketlawyer.com (just to name two sites) where one can get for almost free a product that attorneys customarily charged their clients to prepare.

Further, there is a significant encroachment of nonlegal professionals into areas which were traditionally the province of attorneys. For example, there are many states that have title companies closing real estate transactions, and there are non-lawyers who offer help in the dividing of assets in a divorce, setting up corporations anywhere in the world, adoption assistance, etc.

This, together with the revolution associated with the Internet, has created significant downward pressure on pricing. How can a lawyer charge hundreds or thousands of dollars for something that can be had for much less?

Especially in the Western New York area, lawyers also feel extreme pressure and competition. We have a law school that generates 200-plus graduates each year. And since not all graduates join a firm or other type of organized practice, the attorney competing with a large law firm is one who perhaps practices out of his or her home with less overhead and perhaps a quicker ability to respond to clients. How is a firm to compete effectively with a single practitioner who is able to provide personalized service at a lower cost?

And while the public perception is that today's society is "over-lawyered," the reality is that the cost of resolving disputes - especially for the middle-class - often makes such resolution impractical and too expensive to pursue. How many times has an attorney had to advise a client that the cost of litigation impacted negatively on their ability to pursue a remedy, even if that client was clearly entitled to the legal relief?

The first trick for law firms is to recognize and accept the above challenges.

Before one can even talk about overcoming these obstacles, attorneys have to make peace with the fact that not only do the challenges exist, they will only gain strength as time goes on. Many attorneys prefer to stick their heads in the sand and think that hard work and perseverance will overcome these challenges. It is not enough to be an attorney these days; a successful attorney must be a marketing expert, an Internet expert, a businessperson, accountant, a psychic, a human resource specialist, an administrator, counselor and, at the same time, help make sure that a case is resolved to the satisfaction of a client whose expectations sometime far exceed what the legal system or the attorney are able to provide.

We cannot speak for all law firms, but we've tried to weather the changes by working with them.

Since the computer has brought everyone closer, we encourage the responsiveness and speed that e-mail and the Internet necessarily bring. We've outfitted attorneys with smartphones and encourage frequent checks of e-mail and voice mail. We have tried to do this in a way that does not make the attorney a slave to the computer, but rather to use it as a tool to create a positive impression for clients and to free ourselves from the old-fashioned, drawn-out method of communicating by mail or phone.

Nowadays, contracts and legal documents are effectuated within hours rather than days or weeks, and that could only happen through the influence of the computer.

We also try to recognize that in order to compete with the legal products available on the Internet, we have to be sensitive to pricing while at the same time helping a client understand the benefit of working with an attorney rather than a fill-in-the-blank form. We have developed flat rates for certain types of legal matters so the cost is predictable and known at the outset.

We then work to make certain that we are able to provide the service to clients and are doing so in an effective manner. This again involves software that allows for the streamlining of legal products, while relying on the expertise of an attorney to individualize each work product and educate the client on the value of the work product.

We have also tried to provide some relief with respect to the legal costs associated with dispute resolution. We've entered into many fee agreements where the hourly rate has been transformed. This means charging a contingency where we are ethically able to do so - either alone or in combination with an hourly rate or developing fee arrangements where a full fee is achieved in the event of success. However, that is defined with the client. We don't wait for the client to suggest such innovations to us; we try to bring out into the open the issue of fees and payment at the first opportunity.

Another building block of our philosophy that has proven successful is to understand that each attorney cannot do everything well. Thus, in our firm we have attorneys who concentrate their practices in a limited number of legal areas to hopefully achieve a higher level of competence and skill,

IT specialists, folks that are dedicated to marketing and improving our Web site, and a firm administrator - these "non-legal" experts simply do the job better than an attorney who might think he or she can. And not only do these individuals benefit the office, but they give our law firm the ability to provide value-added services to clients. We can help the client with his Web site development or the installation of software that may be helpful to the business. This helps our clients to better see us as their advisers rather than a necessary evil in the face of difficulty.

Finally, we have tried to maintain a competitive edge through attention to other, more-subtle issues. We concentrate on trying to keep our employees and support staff motivated and comfortable. We've invested in a building that is not only "green" but also provides some of the best innovations associated with employee comfort: good air quality, consistent heating and cooling, better use of natural light and more-efficient lighting.

Our employees represent our most significant investment. Payroll costs top any other expense. Since they are our most avid marketeers, promoters, representatives and cheerleaders, it would be foolish to invest in all that technology has to offer without paying attention to the value of a content and skilled employee.

Whether these strategies will work remains to be seen. But for now, we are empowered by the understanding that we are embracing the future rather than running from it. We hope that in the end this will prove fruitful not only for our law firm but, most important, for the clients who rely on us and we on them.

Corey Hogan: chogan@hoganwillig.com