How legal services will be evaluated in 2021 and beyond

NewLaw is not what you think it is.  It is not a label to be applied only to new companies with trendy names.  It is a business model that any legal services provider can, in theory, adopt.  Cf. Post 055 (discussing clear evidence that “legal operations is a discipline” for buyers and sellers of legal services and thus not just a role within a legal department). But, while new companies built for it, others have to overcome how they created themselves in the first place.

Of the elements that define the new business law model—tech-intensive defined processes, lawyers and business professionals blended on teams, incentives for efficiency—it is the use of metrics that can differentiate how the results look to a corporate legal department.  And no provider wants to look like “Old Law” on a legal department’s dashboard.…
Continue Reading Metrics of the NewLaw Model (206)

Jumping as metaphor for innovating

The low bar set by an insular, self-satisfied profession.

The legal profession is stymied by an innovation crisis. We lack the bold ideas, new models, and financial commitments necessary to address our acute dilemmas and deficiencies in law firm efficiency, client satisfaction, legal education, law student indebtedness, racial injustice, lack of diversity in law firms…

For today’s feature post (205), Legal Evolution is pleased to welcome back guest contributor Randy Kiser, whom I’ve previously described as the “preeminent scholar of the U.S. legal profession” and the world’s leading authority on legal decision making. See Post 110 (reviewing Kiser’s scholarship and surprising career along with his most recent book,…

A long-game model based on expertise, access, and trust.

This post is a deep dive into LexFusion, a new go-to-market organization founded by Joe Borstein and Paul Stroka.

Longtime readers of Legal Evolution may recall Post 034, which was a profile of the legal industry’s most skillful and accomplished team of consultative…

When taught in context, one-to-many law practice is relatively simple and intuitive.

Many of my colleagues in the NewLaw elite often laugh that there’s no such thing as legal project management or data analytics for lawyers.  And I get their point.  The application of decades-old disciplines to the practice of law does not change…

Legal Evolution contributors, Summer 2020

Breadth and depth on legal innovation and the future of law.

As in prior years, after Labor Day, Legal Evolution shifts to a bi-weekly publication schedule, at least for Sunday longform content. See Post 065, 113.

Fortunately, we exit the summer of 2020 on…

For today’s feature post (200), we’re pleased to welcome guest contributor Rafael Figueiredo, who currently serves as Head of Legal for Santa Fe Natural Gas, a high-growth company that buys, sell, and manages the scheduling and logistics of natural gas and hydrocarbons in the US and Mexico.

I was introduced to Rafael through Cat Moon, as Rafael is an alumnus of Vanderbilt Law’s Certificate Program in Law and Innovation.  Indeed, in talking with Rafael, he described himself as part of the first generation of general counsels who have consciously acquired a T-shaped skillset in order to create a legal department that can fully deliver for the business.…
Continue Reading Guest contributor Rafael Figueiredo (199)

Maybe. And if so, it would an improvement over what working and middle-class people can afford now.

Most lawyers have probably seen by now the announcement that Arizona has become the first state to permit law firms to have owners that are not lawyers.  See, e.g., Bob Ambrogi, “Arizona Is First State To Eliminate Ban On Nonlawyer Ownership Of Law Firms,” Lawsites, Aug. 31, 2020.  While much of the early commentary has focused on whether this will permit the Big Four accounting firms to encroach further into the lawyers’ protected realm of practice, this new rule is a big deal for the little guy.…
Continue Reading “Everyday Low Price” for Legal Services in Arizona? (198)

Is it time to take a fresh look at how we sell legal tech?

Clients and lawyers are attracted to technology because of the enormous potential for better, faster, and more efficient legal work.  No one in the legal industry disputes that technology is integral to our future.  Despite this relatively positive and uniform outlook, however, legal tech as an industry remains notoriously risky, primarily because of long sales cycles, limited exposure to potential issues and concerns of end-users, and lengthy deployments that fail to deliver on the many promises made in order to make the sale.…
Continue Reading A product-led growth strategy for legal tech, explained (197)

Photo by Jeremy AAsum on Unsplash

If blazing a new path is your only option, it’s also your best option. Make the most of it.

[Editor’s note:  If readers pick up a copy of Richard Susskind’s Tomorrow’s Lawyers (2nd ed. 2017) and flip to page 135, they’ll see a table captioned “New jobs for lawyers.” This table is reproduced below.  Richard writes, “these are the jobs that flow quite clearly from the arguments and claims of this book.” …
Continue Reading One student’s career journey into legal tech (196)