Internet companies can amortize technology over a global market. Law firms will find they are competing against people they never heard of. Today's computer storage devices allow massive amounts of information to be stored and delivered on request. The same information is free on the Net. Computers and the Internet make the marginal cost of reproducing and delivering information negligible.
Information is so cheap that it is given away for the few cents earned from a banner ad.
Legal services that depend on lawyers acting as information gatekeepers will disappear. The Internet also enables each service to customize its offerings to the needs of each client. Services such as NewsPage Direct allow users to create their own daily newspapers from categories they select. Legal services that involve gathering information and filling in forms will change radically. Document customization software can be made available to anyone via a web-site interface.