Going by comments made on the Gazette website, and letters to the editor, there are plenty of practitioners who see some of the changes in the legal landscape that we are told are in prospect as pointless, and who see no reason why a ‘brave new world’ is inevitable.

I have some instinctive sympathy with that view. I write with a fountain pen, think that some of the law firm franchise labels people have come up with sound silly, have a watch that needs winding, like small independent shops on my high street, and prefer a well-informed butcher you can have a conversation with to a supermarket fridge.

I also happen to think there are hidden costs to the supply-chain revolution that’s transformed retail, and that outsourcing and offshoring too often deliver outcomes that I dislike, and would pay extra to avoid. I may be on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn, but I have to admit some of my instincts remain, if not ‘fogey-ish’, then at least old-fashioned. And that’s the way I like it.

Relevant to the current context, I am also using a two-partner law firm for conveyancing because I like the road they are on, and they sounded nice on their informative, but unflashy, website. So far they’ve proved a good choice, but I’m not ready to write about them till we’ve completed.

Instead it’s the book trade I’ve been thinking about, where the history of the last two decades has some parallels with the challenges now facing the legal sector.

After a long period of decline in their number, I’ve noticed more independent bookshops thriving in my highly mixed corner of south-east London (five within two miles of my home), and more in several of the places I regularly visit – all of them nice, run with integrity, with a loyal client-base whose demands they know how to meet and pre-empt.

But how are these shops making a living? They are doing battle with the likes of Waterstones, with supermarkets and WHSmith, extreme discounting techniques, Amazon, and new platforms such as Kindle and tablet computers. They can’t buy in bulk, and in many there’s the additional cost of feeding the dog that sleeps underneath the counter.

The lesson is that such ‘old-fashioned’ bookshops are kept exactly how I like them through a huge amount of innovation. This was forced on them – their starting point was, of course, an open, unregulated market.

There was and is a challenge from WHSmith and the supermarkets, who do not stock many titles, but concentrate on the big-selling (or low-cost) titles that traditionally allowed independent booksellers to take a punt on stocking more unusual titles.

The likes of Waterstones, Borders, and Books etc. also played this game while stocking a wide choice, leveraging their economies of scale. You could certainly say that they did well for years at the cost of the independents. But, of course, that’s not the end of the story – enter Amazon and other e-commerce businesses.

Now it’s Borders and Books etc. that have gone from the high street, and Waterstones is in trouble. (Though for a while, Waterstones set the market with innovative arrangements such as charging publishers extra for product position and ‘recommendation’.)

Waterstones’ new owner has now called on the expertise of the head of small, well-run chain Daunt Books to turn it around – a return to booksellers’ core values.

And what are the innovations that have kept smaller independents standing?

Product knowledge of course, but they now wear this expertise very much on their sleeve – the hand-written staff recommendations that are aped, but not authentically matched, by some chains.

Many diversify into other linked products – nice, fairly individual ones that catch your eye; tasteful cards picturing local things. The sorts of items that a huge centralised operation lacks the flexibility to source, or the nuanced local knowledge to find. One large-ish prize-winning bookshop in a village in the Scottish Borders also sells a few antiques.

There are also different business and charging models at work. One second-hand bookshop in Northumberland, which has expanded from an old station cafe to fill most of what was the railway station, runs a barter system – you get a credit note for old books you bring in, that can only be redeemed at the same shop, a charming quirk that ties the customer to the place.

The economics of concentration works in Hay-on-Wye, where the proximity of competing book businesses has made the town into a destination for literate, monied visitors. Other towns are now using books in an attempt to replicate its success.

The parallels are not limitless between the book trade and legal services, and apologies if you got this far hoping for a firm action plan to save your business.

But I do think it is worth noting that in a story that involves the arrival of big brands, commercial attrition and several paradigm shifts, some of those left standing have quite an old-fashioned look, an old-fashioned feel and traditional values.

They would have seemed unlikely victors a decade ago.

What we shouldn’t underestimate, though, is how much business nous, innovation and change it takes on the part of many independent booksellers to survive, and even thrive, in an unprotected commercial environment while keeping their familiar feel.

Where they have outlived Books etc., and co-exist with Amazon, these businesses are not just lucky – they have taken change and innovation very seriously indeed.

As someone who wants them to stay the same in key respects, I’m very pleased that they did.