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At a time when AI, online service platforms, and new consulting models are reshaping the landscape of professional services, lawyers, notaries, accountants, and statutory auditors find themselves at a crossroads. Long shielded by high barriers to entry, these professions must now be able to innovate, stand out, and build a sustainable client base. They need to preserve the very essence of their mission, anchored in certified expertise, trust-based relationships, and rigorous ethics, while at the same time embracing the codes of entrepreneurship.
Chartered accountants, statutory auditors, lawyers, and notaries belong to the broad family of regulated intellectual professions (RIPs). These professionals combine certified expertise, supervised by professional orders, ethical codes, and continuing education requirements. They stand at the intersection of market-driven logic and missions of public service.
RIPs benefit from a partial monopoly over certain tasks, which seemingly distances them from traditional entrepreneurial dynamics. Competition among members of the same profession is therefore less fierce than in fields without regulatory barriers, but it certainly exists.
Even as the “uberization” of certain services takes hold, the unique dialogue between these professionals and their clients cannot be reduced to the usual laws of the market. It resembles what Louis Portes once called a “meeting of trust and conscience” to describe the relationship between doctor and patient.
A Security of Practice That Is Increasingly Relative
The apparent security of regulated intellectual professions is becoming more and more relative. The digitalization of services, the rise of agile new players such as legaltech firms and online accounting platforms, is combining with shifting client expectations and persistent communication constraints imposed by professional ethics.
In this context, the liberal professional can no longer simply be a knowledge-holder: they must also become a strategist. To endure, they must manage their practice as a full-fledged business, while preserving their ethics, independence, and clients’ trust. Professional conscience does not preclude economic lucidity, quite the opposite. And perhaps, in the end, regulated intellectual professions are destined to become entrepreneurs like any others.
Differentiation: Necessary but Subtle
In sectors where access is regulated and fees are sometimes capped, differentiation relies less on price than on perceived value. This can take the form of sector specialization, enhanced client experience, responsiveness, or turnkey services, such as a chartered accountant focusing on technology startups.
“Price fades; quality remains.” This aphorism from Michel Audiard in Les Tontons flingueurs, Georges Lautner’s cult 1963 film, is more relevant than ever for RIPs.
Partnering with Complementary Profiles and Sharing Resources
Many practitioners must learn to lead teams, set strategic direction, manage partner conflicts, and pass on knowledge. They must evolve into entrepreneur-innovators and leaders in their own right.
Choosing the right legal structure is essential when moving from a solo practice to a true professional limited company. The legal form will shape governance, investment capacity, liability, and profit-sharing. Beyond cost-sharing, the professional limited companies also facilitate capital inflows and succession planning.
Pooling scarce resources makes it possible to create new services that combine technical expertise with transversal skills in marketing and/or digital innovation.
Communicating Despite Ethical Constraints
While traditional advertising is prohibited or strictly regulated in some professions, the dissemination of neutral, educational content is allowed and enables professionals to showcase their expertise through newsletters, blogs, webinars, or thematic conferences. In the era of information overload, becoming a trusted voice is worth far more than banner ads. Retaining existing clients and leveraging word-of-mouth remain the most powerful growth drivers.
Barometers, practical guides, and carefully selected case studies are strong promotional tools, adaptable across professional social networks. Such initiatives, whether carried out solo or with complementary partners, demonstrate expertise while building a “personal brand.”
Lifelong Learning: A Vital Imperative
In a constantly changing social, cultural, economic, political, technological, environmental, and legal context, practitioners must systematically update their knowledge. This can be achieved through certified training, MOOCs, international conferences, and seminars. The easier it becomes to foster a genuine culture of monitoring fields such as data, service design, artificial intelligence, and cybersecurity, the easier it will be to design new service offerings.
Rather than being disrupted by startups, practitioners can advantageously integrate tools, especially AI-based ones that reduce repetitive tasks and free up time for higher value-added services.
Building a Business and a Brand Beyond the Individual Expert
Carrying an organization single-handedly is the surest way to never be able to transfer it, or only at a negligible price. What holds true for an SME applies even more to those practicing a regulated intellectual profession.
The great paradox of RIPs is that many professionals spend thirty years or more practicing without ever creating transferable assets. Yet brand reputation, service delivery methods, a loyal client base, and strong internal culture are all essential elements for valuing a practice. Thinking like a true entrepreneur means anticipating succession and moving from a “me, the provider” mindset to that of a sustainable organization… even without you.
Developing a genuine growth plan is a powerful opportunity to build a long-term vision, plan for succession, and prepare for transfer, whether by merger or acquisition. It will clarify strategic objectives such as external growth, service diversification, or international development. It will also enable the creation of intangible assets such as proprietary methodologies and structured packages of intellectual services.
Reconciling Paradoxical Imperatives
Long considered sheltered from market fluctuations, regulated intellectual professions are now confronted with paradoxical imperatives: protecting ethics while cultivating an entrepreneurial spirit, preserving independence while building collective structures, balancing the urgency of daily advice with the construction of enduring assets.
On the far side of the “ethical wall” lies a new landscape, one where the expert becomes a true entrepreneur, at once guardian of trust and architect of growth.
