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The legal profession appears to be on autopilot.

This post is for legal market analysts who are looking for updated and reliable data on the current legal services market. Collectively, its eight graphics reveal several themes that ought to give us pause, as we (the legal profession) may not have unlimited runaway to focus on strategies related to income and profit.

Most of the underlying data come from the Economic Census, which is a detailed ongoing survey of US businesses conducted every five years (years ending in 2 and 7) by the US Census Bureau.  Because of the size and scope of the data collection effort (it’s a census, not a sampling), it takes the full five-year cycle to complete the analysis and release the findings. The final—and in my view, the most interesting—installments were published last fall.
Continue Reading Eight updated graphics on the US legal services market (285)

An emerging role in legal tech companies that ties together sales, marketing, and customer success.

At Legal Evolution, we often return to the above “five stages of evolution” graphic as a reminder that the legal industry has entered a period of profound tumult and uncertainty.

The tumult is driven by the cost, quality, and service delivery advantages of systematized & packaged legal solutions, which has set off a gold rush in legal tech. See Post 255 (Zach Abramowitz tracking legal tech investment).  The uncertainty is driven by the need for new business models combined with the lack of established, sales channels that enable end-users to buy with confidence.  Cf Post 279 (Jae Um observing that legal vertical is composed of multiple markets that are both fluid and segmented in nonobvious ways).

Well, what about solutions—is anything on the horizon?
Continue Reading How Chief Revenue Officers are making legal tech better (284)

Data gives us the opportunity to be proactive in litigation, reducing costs, speeding up resolutions, and improving outcomes. But first, we need a strategy.

My name is Jennifer Buser, Anusia Gillespie’s colleague.  For those of you expecting Anusia, she’s at home in Miami enjoying maternity leave with her spouse and newborn son, Raphael Brye Gillespie. Although Anusia is a true pro with columns drafted far in advance, she thought it was important to model good work-life boundaries.

In addition to being happy for Anusia, I am pleased and honored to be her substitute columnist for this month’s edition of NewLaw Fundamentals.
Continue Reading Digital Litigation: Solving a C-Suite pain point (283)

Source: Jeff Carr

A framework for making the legal delivery system better

Hello – I’m Jeff Carr and I am not a lawyer.  Now, I was licensed to practice law in Texas and the District of Columbia and was responsible for the delivery of legal services at two Fortune 500 companies. And I’ve been doing this legal delivery thing for almost 40 years, albeit most of that time spent being pretty lonely out on the radical fringe.  Perhaps this is because, at my core, I’m a business person.  A member of the company’s executive team.  A manager.  And yes, at times, a consigliere.  But despite a JD on my resume, I don’t do interesting questions of law.

I am writing this essay because two colleagues whom I like and respect — Jason Barnwell and Bill Henderson — badgered me to do so, see Post 281, claiming that the legal profession stands to benefit from my experience and perspective.  Although this sounds very lofty, I’m willing to give it a shot.
Continue Reading Four waves of change in #LawLand (282)

In this week’s special New Year Kickoff Post (282), Legal Evolution is pleased to welcome guest contributor Jeff Carr, a recently retired Fortune 500 general counsel who has, over the years, served as informal mentor and coach to countless legal innovators.

Jeff’s influence is evidenced by the large number of LE posts that reference his ideas, experience, encouragement, and leadership skills.  See, e.g., Post 226 (discussing his business and finance module for IFLP); Post 210 (Jason Barnwell acknowledging Carr’s pioneering work in legal department management); Post 190 (discussing Carr’s diagnosis of law’s leadership gap and fundamental incentives problem); Post 112 (discussing Carr’s Leader-Manager-Operator framework); Post 078 (Carr discussing positive experience with IFLP intern); Post 056 (discussing Carr’s “hot-wash” practice and its influence in leadership course at IU Law); Post 052 (Jae Um’s discussing Carr’s “massive passive resistance,” or MPR, change management challenge);  Post 008 (citing Carr ACES model in context of diffusion theory).
Continue Reading Guest contributor Jeff Carr (281)

An honest and candid assessment of corporate legal, circa 2021

Several months ago, before we had even completed our first year of operations, Bill invited us to write a legal market year-in-review.  His reasoning was simple—our business model entails a lot of listening.  Over the past twelve months, we heard the hopes, dreams, and fears of 240 law firms and 327 law departments (corporate legal) spread over 2,600 meetings.

Perhaps you’re anticipating a conversation about what’s hot in Legal Tech and NewLaw.  And back when we accepted Bill’s invitation, that seemed like a logical direction.  Yet, much to our own surprise, we find ourselves writing a year-in-review essay that focuses on the primacy of culture and cultural adaption.
Continue Reading LexFusion’s Legal Market Year in Review (280)

Somruthai Keawjan via Unsplash

I get a lot of questions about legal market data.  Today I attempt to explain one of the most frequently asked questions: why demand and pricing seem to be uniquely uncoupled in legal markets.

By and large, 2021 was a year of anticlimactic letdowns.  In a sloggy, tiresome, gradual sort of way, most of us realized that the ravages of COVID would not be defeated in one fell swoop.

One exception has been the trade news coverage on Big Law’s bonanza.  In August, Thomson Reuters Peer Monitor rated Q2 of 2021 a record-breaking quarter in its proprietary index of law firm performance.  (Notwithstanding the battery of disclaimers and historical context provided in the fine print, many industry observers decided that this misleading picture is indeed worth a thousand explanatory words.)…
Continue Reading #BadData, Part I: (Topsy Turvy) Demand for Legal Services (279)

Answer: Be the relevant, accurate, and practical colleague

You may have noticed that I’m not one for hype and fantastical projections meant to scare actors into action. It is critical for credibility in emerging spaces to ground the noise back into reality. The key to becoming a trusted NewLaw and legal innovation advisor is to make it all very practical.

This “wait a minute, here” fire lit inside me after a doomsday litigation presentation at a conference a few years ago. After telling a room of litigation partners that they were going to be automated out of business in the next few years and thus needed the presenter’s services, it was my turn to take the stage.
Continue Reading NewLaw can be overwhelming.  How can I make it less so for the benefit of my team? (278)

How can we keep up with exponential increases in demand and complexity?  Invert the pyramid.

Bill Henderson once advised me not to use the term “industrialization” to describe changes in the legal profession to attorneys. It offends us, and we disengage. But I titled this field note “industrial evolution” because we must embrace industrialization as a necessary and valuable part of our transformation that will elevate the value of our profession in a digital age. Cf. Post 231 (Henderson breaking his own advice for the same reason, comparing legal to the early days of the auto industry).

This post is part of a series that reflects my legal industry learning journey, building upon my career journey (080), professional evolution (143), focus on knowledge work (159), and future practice design theory (210). This installment examines the changes happening now that require us to evolve to serve a civilization experiencing exponential change powered by the fourth industrial revolution, and how we might get there faster, together. See Erik Brynjolfsson & Andrew McAfee, The Second Machine Age: Work, Progress, and Prosperity in a Time of Brilliant Technologies (2016) (cognitive automation will produce creative destruction).
Continue Reading Legal evolution is industrial evolution (277)

To date, this highly influential stakeholder has had very little to say.

The fierce and fascinating struggle underway in the American states over legal services reform brings to the table a large collection of interest groups.  These groups include law firms, legal aid organizations, entrepreneurs who might benefit financially from the liberalization of entry rules, and of course the gatekeeper entities, including state bar authorities and the state supreme courts, whose decisions are crucial to the evolution and shape of reform.  See Posts 239 (beginning of a four-part series on serious challenges of bar federalism).

The identity of these specific groups may differ from state to state, as the legal ecosystem has contours often tailored to a particular state’s history and objectives, but the configuration of stakeholders has some rather common elements.

What remains somewhat opaque in this robust and interconnected battle over the reform of legal services is the voice of legal educators and the law schools.  These are, after all, the places in which future lawyers are educated and professional values are instilled.  It is had to imagine a more fertile and opportune time to discuss the ambitions and philosophies of this next generation of legal professionals.
Continue Reading Legal education as a key stakeholder in legal services reform (276)

Layering in a new set of skills and know-how in an already crowded law school curriculum.

Last week, the Law School Admission Council (LSAC) acquired the Institute for the Future of Law Practice (IFLP).  From far away, many lawyers, law professors, and law students are bound to ask, “Why is the maker of the LSAT, which has been part of the legal education landscape for 70+ years, acquiring a fledging nonprofit start-up focused future of law practice?”

The answer is that LSAC and IFLP saw a clear pathway to benefit future generations of legal professionals in their work with clients and broader society.  Although some readers may question such a lofty purpose, we believe that as a self-regulated legal profession, it is our obligation to foster and maintain a legal system that works for all citizens and upholds the rule of law.  Only then is lasting prosperity possible, both for lawyers and broader society, and the promise of equal justice more within reach.
Continue Reading Special Post: LSAC acquisition of IFLP explained (275)