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, I never knew how much I’d love it until
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 most respected legal ops professionals leave the safety and
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 www.futurelawpractice.org.
Per the picture above, IFLP (“i-flip”)
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 with Word, Excel, and Outlook? Because these tools don’t have an
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 profits; and (3) an established
“The State of Technology in the Law,” Mark Chandler speech from January 2007 (035)
On the occasion of his Lifetime Achievement Award, Legal Evolution is pleased to republish Mark Chandler’s 2007 speech, “The State of Technology in the Law.” This speech arguably marks the beginning of the current era of law practice in which large corporate clients assert more power and authority within the relationship.
At the time
Part III on Convergence: Clients Must Manage to Get Results (031)
Part I of this series (029) laid out some pervasive problems with law firm panel arrangements, and Part II (030) outlined the basics of how we believe those problems can be overcome through correct structure and active management. This final installment will go deeper into what we believe are the most
Part II on Convergence: How to Make it Work (030)
In the first part of this series (Post 029), we discussed why there are sometimes serious problems with the way law firm preferred provider panels are structured and managed. In particular, we often see that law firm panels:
- Take clients “up-market”, raising rather than lowering their legal fees;
- Reduce firms’ responsiveness, because larger
Part I on Convergence: Why Practice Falls Short of Theory (029)
We see many companies these days running law firm convergence exercises – generally resulting in a preferred law firm network with fewer “approved” firms than the company previously used. The goal of this exercise is usually to reduce total legal spending and simplify outside counsel management. This kind of effort has a long track record
Currell on Convergence and Preferred Provider Panels (028)
One of the biggest stories over the summer of 2017 was an open letter from 25 general counsel announcing that they are working together to test industry assumptions about the legal market. Although the composition of this group is very impressive, it is also not random. Each company is a member of AdvanceLaw, a