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“It is no exaggeration to say that the Restatement of the common law is the most difficult as well as the most important public work ever undertaken without the aid of government by the legal profession in this or any other country.”  William Draper Lewis, “Present Status of the American Law Institute,” 11 NYU L Rev 337, 343 (1929).

This essay is about the importance and value of building shared “legal infrastructure,” which is a term coined by the eminent economist and law professor Gillian Hadfield in her book, Rules for a Flat World (2017).
Continue Reading Legal infrastructure and the forgotten story of the Restatements (207)

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 Director, Strategic Projects & Investments for ALL Energy US, Inc., a Houston-based integrated group of energy companies focused on the development and operation of energy infrastructure assets — pipelines, storage, terminals and production facilities. Rafael is also an adjunct law professor at the University of Houston Law Center, where he teaches courses on professional purpose/identity, legal innovation and the business of law.

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)

There’s a lot of cool things happening in legal innovation these days, though not all of it is high tech.  Thus, over this summer, I’ve made an effort to publish content that has nothing to do with data, process, or technology but a lot to do with lawyers living their professional values and trying to make a difference. See, e.g., Post 166 (Lori Mihalich-Levin writing about efforts to improve the attorney-parent experience); Post 181 (Neil Hamilton bringing the competency-based medical education movement to a legal audience).

Today’s guest contributor, Terrance Stroud, very much fits that mold. 
Continue Reading Guest contributor Terrance Stroud (191)

The Jim Sandman approach shows the most promise.

“The profession has a responsibility to assure that its regulations are conceived in the public interest and not in furtherance of parochial or self-interested concerns of the bar.”  This above sentence comes from ¶12 of the Preamble of the Rules of Professional Conduct.

As states increasingly…

“You’ve got your work cut out for you” by Hans-Peter Gauster on Unsplash

“There are only two ways for a manager to improve the output of an employee: motivation and training.”

— Ben Horowitz, The Hard Thing About Hard Things (2014) at 110.

Several years ago, I had the good fortune of having dinner with David Burgess, the Publishing Director of The Legal 500, a global research company that compiles detailed rankings of law firms based on jurisdiction and practice area.
Continue Reading Lawyers and teamwork, Part I: Motivation (188)