Jieyi’s strong personal style
In U.S. legal-services regulation, “alternative business structure” is a jurisdiction-specific term. Arizona defines an ABS as a licensed entity that provides legal services and includes nonlawyers with an economic interest or decision-making authority; most U.S. jurisdictions still use different ownership rules. This departure from traditional law firm ownership rules has created demand for such structures because of the access-to-justice problem — the fact that vast majority of Americans lack access to affordable legal help. The legal profession has lagged behind other industries in operational change, but there are signs that this may be changing.
Arizona’s licensing framework took effect in 2021, and its Supreme Court maintains a current directory of active ABS entities. Utah has operated a separate legal-services regulatory sandbox, so its participants should not simply be added to Arizona’s licensed ABS count. In Arizona, the program was created to let entrepreneurial lawyers and nonlawyers pilot different business forms intended to improve access to justice. There are five types of ABS entities:
Traditional law firms changing their ownership/investment structure
Law companies with nonlawyer ownership practicing law
Non-law companies expanding into law
Intermediary platforms connecting consumers with lawyers
Entities using nonlawyers and technology to practice law
Support and opposition depend on the population and wording surveyed. Arizona’s court materials cite one poll in which 62.3% supported the proposal, but that result should not be generalized to legal professionals or the whole United States. Debate about consumer protection, independence, ownership, and access continues.
Evaluating alternatives in a business case
The rationale for evaluating multiple alternative solutions systematically rather than defaulting to the first idea is a business case. Raymond Sheen’s HBR Guide to Building Your Business Case provides a good overview of the topic. Stakeholders expect evidence that you’ve thought through your options thoroughly, not just accepted the obvious answer. Even if the front-runner idea comes from the CEO or is the industry norm, you should still do a multi-option analysis. A second or third option might be faster, cheaper, or less risky. You need to demonstrate critical thinking discipline, not just check off boxes.
When evaluating alternatives, you should always include the do-nothing option as a required element. The do-nothing option means explicitly modeling the consequences of taking no action at all. When you model it rigorously, you must make concrete projections, not vague warnings about what could happen. For example, here’s how I would structure a hypothetical model of doing nothing:
Estimate how monthly downtime could change over 18 months
Estimate the resulting productivity and emergency-repair cost from the organization’s own incident data
Each alternative presented must have at least one significant advantage.
Alternative business solutions in consulting
In addition to these elements, we can add commercial consulting meaning to the term “alternative business solutions”. Alternative Business Solutions is the name of a business coaching and consulting firm, which provides business strategy, planning, and development solutions. It is an alternative to having in-house business functions.