Legal education is in the early stages of remodelling and renovation. Thus, we are living through a period of messiness. Evidence of this is a virtual Symposium at PrawfsBlawg, a forum of law professors for law professors. The symposium is called “The Futures of Legal…
“When I grow I up, I wanna be a Chief Legal Strategist” (045)
Well, that is not exactly what I used to say when I was a kid. But had I known such a thing existed, that would have been my saying. The truth is, I wanted to be a lawyer as far back as I can remember. Yet,…
Lucy Bassli shares her thought process behind her major career move (044)
Earlier this year, Lucy Bassli left her position as Assistant General Counsel of Legal Operations and Contracting at Microsoft to become Chief Legal Strategist for LawGeex, a promising legaltech start-up, and to open her own hybrid law firm-consultancy.
Why would one of the legal industry’s…
The Institute for the Future of Law Practice (043)
I am pleased to introduce readers to the Institute for the Future of Law Practice (IFLP), a new nonprofit collaboration between law schools, law firms, corporate legal departments, NewLaw service providers, and legal technology companies. Details of this new venture can be found online at…
Legal Services and the Consumer Price Index (CPI) (042)
The price of legal services is increasing faster than the CPI’s basket of goods and services. Perhaps that is not surprising to those of us working in the legal sector. However, legal services are also losing wallet share. In 1987, legal services made up 0.435% of…
Successful technology adoption: David Cambria (ADM) and Eric Elfman (Onit) discuss their collaboration (041)
When David Cambria sat down with Eric Elfman to discuss his willingness to try Onit software, he stated that if ADM in-house lawyers were required to engage “in a single unnatural act,” the implementation would fail.
Cambria elaborates, “Why are we all so comfortable…
“The Lawyer Theory of Value” by Casey Flaherty (040)
In a recent post at 3 Geeks and a Law Blog, Casey Flaherty puts his finger on a big problem. The opening paragraphs are too funny not to quote in their entirety:
My friend John Grant [of Start Here HQ]…
Can Intrapreneurship Solve the Innovator’s Dilemma? Law Firm Examples (039)
If a successful large law firm faced an Innovator’s Dilemma, what would it look like?
On the one hand, the firm has a wonderful set of endowments: (1) longstanding and lucrative relationships with industry-leading clients; (2) a business that requires very little operating capital yet generates significant cash and…
Student Capstone Presentations: Visitors Welcome (038)
On Wednesday, November 29 from 6 to 8 pm at Northwestern Law, student teams in my “How Innovation Diffuses in the Legal Industry” give their capstone presentations. Topics include Everett Rogers’ rate of adoption model (see Post 008), the role of change agents (see…
The Decline of the PeopleLaw Sector (037)
The graphic above tells a simple, painful, and important story about the U.S. legal profession that we can’t afford to ignore. The graphic compares the receipts of U.S. law firms in 2007 and 2012 based on “class of customer” data from the Economic Census,…
A Deep Dive Into Axiom (036)
In writing up the week 4 summary of “How Innovation Diffusions in the Legal Industry,” I discovered that it is near impossible to write about Axiom without referencing a larger change narrative.
Founded in late 1999, Axiom was likely the legal industry’s first venture-backed start-up. Now,…