Legal Innovation

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Big opportunities that require a big shift in mindset.

As the title plainly says, readers will find below a list of four opportunities for legal industry innovators.  But before we get to the juicy stuff—because everyone loves a list—I want to commend the source for this list: James P. Womack, Daniel T. Jones, & Daniel Roos, The Machine That Changed the World (1990).  It is among my favorite books in any genre and among the most durable contributions to 20th-century management literature.  It is also a fun and fascinating read.
Continue Reading Four opportunities for legal industry innovators (195)

Dinners, field trips, and social events connected with IU Maurer NY Externship Program [click on to enlarge]

Building relationships while opening doors for the next generation.

Breaking into a large competitive market is not easy, particularly for those with no local connections. Yet, for those of us on the inside, it is just as important to maintain and grow our network, including the next generation of up-and-coming professionals.

Professor Henderson has invited me to tell the story about how a program I created at IU Maurer Law serves both needs, creating a community of law graduates with a common set of values and real staying power. Hopefully, this is useful to alumni at other law schools who are looking for an opportunity to make a difference.
Continue Reading An alumni community in action (192)

Fortunately, there are treatments.

If you work in the legal industry, the above graph from Thomson Reuters’ 2020 Report on the State of the Legal Market should terrify you. What it shows is an industry steadily sliding towards obsolescence, not because the need for legal services is declining but because hiring a lawyer is becoming…

Scenes from my pre-law life and careers

Doing my best to make sense of the experience.

In October 2019, I was in the first session of his Innovation Diffusion in the Legal Industry class at Northwestern Law.  I was puzzled because I couldn’t figure why Professor Henderson, who was 16 years…

The story of how one legal department is using legal operations to engage stakeholders and reduce risk.

In 2019, I graduated from Northwestern’s Master of Science in Law.  After graduation, I got a job in the legal department at VillageMD, a healthcare and technology growth company. I am actually one of three graduates…

Will 2020 unleash a long-awaited wave of legal innovation?

Law firms offer a bundle of services tied tightly together, and most lawyers think of this bundle as a naturally integrated offering.  But innovators have long believed that the legal services bundle is actually composed of a series of largely unrelated capabilities, and the true flowering…

Innovation during a pandemic—an exercise in collaboration.

Per Bill’s introduction in Post 169, I’ve been invited to share Indiana University Maurer School of Law’s plans for the fall.

The most noteworthy feature, summarized in the above graphic, is a new block scheduling format for 1Ls, which reflects a mix of in-person and online modalities…

Details on Bucerius Legal Tech Essentials

Every summer since 2018, Bucerius Law School has offered a three-week, on-campus Summer Program on legal technology and operations. In total, the program has now educated nearly 70 highly selected students. The faculty has included some regular contributors to this publication and will hopefully also include others …