Anusia Gillespie

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Legal technology is slowly becoming core to the legal business. It’s time to commit to a cross-functional team approach.

In the legal profession, attorneys with specialized subject matter expertise (e.g., discovery, trial work, corporate transactions, appellate, regulatory, and many others) provide tremendous value to their clients.  Similarly, technologists supporting the legal profession typically include accomplished programmers, skilled engineers, application experts, integration specialists, security ninjas, and the like. In both disciplines, specialized expertise is incredibly valuable.   

The premise of this post is that individual capabilities and excellence (either legal or technical) standing alone are not enough to ensure long-term, sustainable success.  No superstar technologist or lawyer is equipped to do it all, as there are too many specialties and functional roles which need to be filled.  Rather, a better approach is to construct team-based, cross-functional units that offer greater operational efficiency while building in layers of redundancy that reduce the potential for surprises, errors, or disruption.  Cf Post 323 (Patrick McKenna’s “rules of engagement” for high-performing legal teams).
Continue Reading The expanding role of technology in the law firm business model (338)

A law firm with best-in-class ALSP features

I have written before about how the lines between legal service providers are blurring, see, e.g., Lucien Pera & Yvonne Nath, “What If… Chambers Ranks Law Firms Alongside ALSPs?,” Law.com, Aug 20, 2020 (discussing implications of Chambers issuing its first ranking of ALSPs), and I especially enjoy singling out particular NewLaw business models for a closer inspection to show you exactly what I mean, see, e.g., The Post-Pandemic Law Firm (forthcoming Nov 2021).

Today, I feature Radiant Law (with which I have no affiliation).
Continue Reading Radiant Law: a closer look (265)

A resource for those in the trenches of legal industry innovation.

Here at Legal Evolution, we like to experiment.  Thus, I was intrigued when Anusia (ah-new-sha) Gillespie suggested a NewLaw explainer series in the form of a monthly Q&A column, which debuts today. See Post 243.

Over the last several years, the term “NewLaw” has taken on a remarkably broad meaning. In its original incarnation, NewLaw was meant to convey “New points of view, new perspectives, new market offerings, new tools, new ways to manage.” George Beaton, “Who coined NewLaw?,” Remaking Law Firms, Aug 18, 2018 (quoting 2009 Kerma Partners Quarterly article by Michael Huber).
Continue Reading NewLaw Fundamentals Q&A Column with Anusia Gillespie (242)

A slice is reserved for everyone who predicts the future of law.

Today is the debut of Anusia Gillespie’s monthly Q&A column on NewLaw Fundamentals.  See Post 243.  This post (241) is an explainer on why we are running Anusia’s series. One part of the explanation is practical.  A second part is deeply analytical and likely of more interest to regular Legal Evolution readers.  Both parts, however, are rooted in the value of humility.
Continue Reading Humble pie diet (241)

“I make innovation less risky and more accessible to the many brilliant lawyers in our firm.” — Anusia Gillespie

I am pleased to introduce today’s guest contributor, Anusia Gillespie, who currently serves as Director of Innovation at Eversheds Sutherland (US).  As demonstrated in Post 128, Gillespie has the full innovator’s tool box:  multiple perspectives (law, design, business operations, technology, and strategy), systems thinking, intellectual courage, astute observation, and the patience and confidence to learn through controlled trial and error.
Continue Reading Guest contributor Anusia Gillespie (127)

Marcus Arnold and Michael Lewis, © Capital Pictures

In this post, I tell an old Michael Lewis story that bears on the law. Remarkably, most of the insights come from a 15-year-old boy named Marcus Arnold, pictured above with Lewis circa 2001.  I then review the U.K.’s journey to market liberalization, including the repeal of the British version of Model Rule 5.4.  
Continue Reading Pyramids, Pancakes, and Rule 5.4 (106)