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Pretty much everything was a counterintuitive curveball.

In April of 2006, more than 15 years ago, I wrote a memo to file that would go on to exert a disproportionately large impact on my thinking and career, albeit many of the lessons took years to come into focus and were far from what I expected.

The topic was Moneyball as applied to law firm associates—in essence, sketching out the data and methodology necessary to identify under and overvalued attributes of law firm associates, akin to the selection methods used by Oakland Athletics in the famous book by Michael Lewis.
Continue Reading Moneyball for law firm associates: a 15-year retrospective (257)

Yvonne Nath shares what she’s learned (so far!).

Any good strategic planning process takes into consideration how to optimize the existing resources you have and what you will decline to pursue. You must be able to make important decisions without having all the information (i.e., you’ll need to take some risks).

The pandemic gave me some time to rethink and revise the strategic plan I have for my life. Not my entire life, of course, but I did map out how I want to live the next 1-2 years of it. You see, strategic plans need to be flexible because the future is not linear. One can plan and prepare for the future yet still be surprised and unprepared by contingencies in life. Ten years ago, I would have never dreamed I would be where I am today. Likewise, my life looks pretty different today than it looked just one year ago. Could you say the same?
Continue Reading 16 lessons learned from a digital nomad (249)

Going long on our professional relationships.

Like many things in the world, the one-two punch of automation and the pandemic have vastly altered the landscape of professional networking.  To a great extent, building relationships in the clubhouse after a glorious afternoon on the links or while sipping a Woodford while awaiting your grilled branzino has been replaced, at least temporarily, with the likes of Zoom, Microsoft Teams and, of course, the business networking platform LinkedIn.

Some in the legal industry may welcome this sudden and stark shift, while other wish we could return to the ways things worked pre-pandemic. Alas, with COVID getting under control, we are finally in a position to construct a new normal that includes a heightened appreciation for technology.
Continue Reading One legal professional’s systematic approach to LinkedIn (234)

A crowded, chaotic landscape in love with the future.

The opening graphs of Richard Susskind’s Tomorrow’s Lawyers (2nd ed. 2016) predict the revolution that is now underway:

This book is a short introduction to the future for young and aspiring lawyers.

Tomorrow’s legal world, as predicted and described here, bears little resemblance to that of the past. Legal institutions and lawyers are at a crossroads, I claim, and will change more radically in less than two decades than they have over the past two centuries. If you’re a young lawyer, this revolution will happen on your watch. (p. xvii)

Indeed, only a revolution could explain the above “market map,” which reflects literally hundreds of point solutions for a rapidly expanding one-to-many legal marketplace.
Continue Reading The best metaphor for today’s legal market is the auto industry circa 1905 (231)

In ways that are often self-interested and counterproductive.

Why do I keep banging on about inquiry (i.e., asking good questions rather than advocating an opinion or advice)?  Because it’s so important and we’re  so bad at it.

I still remember the first time I tracked dialogue in a group of lawyer-leaders.   I was working with…

Photo by Florian Klauer via Unsplash

The pandemic upended the workplace as we know it.  What does the future of work hold for the legal industry? 

Recently, I left a great job.  I did it without another job lined up, in the middle of a global pandemic and record levels of unemployment.  Many people have been kind enough to ask what’s next and a few have asked why I would do such a thing.  After some internal debate, I decided to explain both on Legal Evolution.
Continue Reading Why and how I’m unbundling my career (224)

Source: Legal Evolution PBC

T-shaped professionals building one-to-many legal solutions

If you’re a lawyer, is it worth your time to read a detailed post on the development and deployment of high-quality legal software?

Let’s rephrase the question: Do you want to develop sticky and rewarding client relationships while also developing new—and potentially large—revenue streams that have nothing to do with billing more time?
Continue Reading Strategies supporting the development and deployment of high-quality legal software (221)

Reflections on the connection between specialization and innovation

Your mother needs heart valve replacement surgery, and it’s time to choose between doctors. You will have to explain yourself to two siblings and a few other relatives, but as a practical matter the choice is in your hands. You interview two potential surgeons. Here’s what they have to say:
Continue Reading The Swiss Army Lawyer (138)

Seven steps to create a first-tier tech team

Three years ago this month, the law firm I work for was founded. See 35 Lawyers and Staff Spin Off to Launch Litigation Boutique Tanenbaum Keale LLP, BusinessWire, January 25, 2017.  To get Tanenbaum Keale (TK) off the ground, there were a ton of moving parts to manage.  But one of the most important was development of a technology support team that could fully support the firm’s strategy for being one of the nation’s premier mass tort litigation firms.
Continue Reading A roadmap to build a tech team to support legal operations (135)