In my last post, Legal Education is a Data Desert (096), I described the deficiencies in data available and mobilized on behalf of clear-eyed assessment of legal education outcomes. While noting some conspicuous exceptions, I said that there’s simply not enough attention
In 2014, I was invited to lunch with Joe Andrew, the chairman of Dentons, in his DC office. The invitation came from John Fernandez, an Indiana Law alum who joined Dentons a couple of years earlier after two decades in government. Joe and John came up through the ranks together in Indiana Democratic politics, with Andrew eventually becoming Chairman of the Indiana Democratic Party (from 1995-1999) and Chairman of the Democratic National Committee (1999-2001).
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This pattern fits me and many lawyers I know: We applied to law school
This post is a data-rich progress report on the Institute for the Future of Law Practice (IFLP, “I-flip”).
For readers unfamiliar with IFLP, here are basics. IFLP is an education nonprofit that combines sophisticated training in modern law practice with paid internship for law students. Following a successful multi-year pilot at Colorado Law, see
General counsel exert an outsized influence on the legal market. Through the open letter below, some of them are taking the long view by trying to influence the health and vitality of the legal talent supply chain. They are looking for other general counsel to join them.
Want to make a difference? Encourage your general
“Legal operations” was popularized by CLOC, ACC, and a hundred vendors capitalizing on selling to newly energized corporate legal departments. It became shorthand for running legal departments as a business. Then a
Today Legal Evolution is delighted to welcome David Cunningham, Chief Information Officer at Winston & Strawn. I met David several years ago at the CLOC Institute when I asked Connie Brenton for the names of folks working in law firms who were embracing the legal operations movement. The first name she mentioned was David Cunningham.
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Since the early 2000s, law departments and law firms have advanced ambitious public initiatives to diversify the legal profession. In law firm power centers, however, the disconnect between public proclamations and empirical reality is staggering.
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Starting today, Legal Evolution will move to a biweekly Sunday publication schedule with occasional off-cycle posts connected to noteworthy developments. Then, over the summer of 2020–from Memorial Day to Labor Day–we’ll resume weekly publication. This is a publication schedule keyed to the academic year and the same as last year. See Post 065 (announcing 2018-2019 schedule).
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Everyday, when I am paying attention, the world is nudging me to let go of something wrong and unhelpful. A friend of mine calls it “dropping the rock.” The rock is an assumption about how the world operates that can’t be reconciled with an honest evaluation of facts and experience.
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Media attention shifts rapidly from law firm profitability to gender bias and from technology to new lateral partners. Yet, if we pull back to conduct a deeper analysis, what we observe is a law firm sector grappling with three interrelated threats that are seldom the focus of sustained attention: insufficient leadership, attorneys’ lack of meaning and purpose in their work, and client service. As shown in the above graphic, these three domains are the linchpins of law firm performance and sustainability.
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