The title of this article is based on an open-ended question presented to more than 3,800 professionals who responded to ALM Intelligence’s recent Mental Health and Substance Abuse Survey (ALM Survey).
Granted, this is a population of very busy people, so not everyone took the time to
Today’s post covers two topics: (1) current best practices in legal matter management based upon various deployments we see in the industry today, and (2) how legal matter management systems and processes are destined to evolve over the next decade or so.
Before we begin, however, I’d be remiss if I
This post will be something of an anomaly. It is more personal in nature than my usual content and (at least for me) rather short.
I am a single Asian American woman living alone in Manhattan. As of the time of this writing, NYC has just tipped
Imagine a legal sector neatly divided into two groups: the Rule Makers and the Risk Takers. With evidence piling up that the legal market is not working for ordinary citizens, the Rule Makers come together to evaluate possible changes. After the new rules are enacted, the burden shifts
The graphic above provides a breakdown of 2018 law school graduates with diverse race/ethnicity backgrounds. Each hand represents 100 JDs. The colors represent four different categories in the U.S. News law school rankings. Thus, the Tier 3/4 schools have the largest number of diverse race/ethnicity graduates—4,500 JDs, or about 45% of all diverse 2018 JD grads. Likewise, only 1,300, or 13%, attended elite T-14 schools, which is clear, useful information for legal employers who have urgency regarding diversity.
Continue Reading How to talk data and influence people, including lawyers (137)
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).
Continue Reading Special Post: Dentons rolls out Project Golden Spike (120)
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
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.
Continue Reading Credible commitments to legal diversity (114)
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.
Continue Reading Dropping the Rock: three examples (112)
The legal industry is full of opinions – and so it is full of noise. In 2019, 🤦♂️ facepalming and 🙄 eyerolling at innovation hype is still very much in vogue, and so a lot of the noise is 😒 negative 😠 in tone.
Amidst all the noise, though, I see very clear signals of meaningful change.
Continue Reading The Current State of Play in Legal Innovation: A New Era of Evolution in the Making (109)