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How can we keep up with exponential increases in demand and complexity?  Invert the pyramid.

Bill Henderson once advised me not to use the term “industrialization” to describe changes in the legal profession to attorneys. It offends us, and we disengage. But I titled this field note “industrial evolution” because we must embrace industrialization as a necessary and valuable part of our transformation that will elevate the value of our profession in a digital age. Cf. Post 231 (Henderson breaking his own advice for the same reason, comparing legal to the early days of the auto industry).

This post is part of a series that reflects my legal industry learning journey, building upon my career journey (080), professional evolution (143), focus on knowledge work (159), and future practice design theory (210). This installment examines the changes happening now that require us to evolve to serve a civilization experiencing exponential change powered by the fourth industrial revolution, and how we might get there faster, together. See Erik Brynjolfsson & Andrew McAfee, The Second Machine Age: Work, Progress, and Prosperity in a Time of Brilliant Technologies (2016) (cognitive automation will produce creative destruction).
Continue Reading Legal evolution is industrial evolution (277)

Source: Rob Saccone, Nexlaw Partners

We’re on the ground floor of digital services.

I didn’t like Alexa at first. If she were my assistant, she would have likely ended up on a performance improvement plan had our working relationship not improved.

Over time we grew to better understand each other, and we now converse multiple times a day about news, weather, sports, music, and impulse purchases. My wife and kids have also become everyday users, and in a twist of fate, I occasionally find myself scolding my teens for yelling at Alexa as if she were a family friend instead of a glowing tube of snark and overnight deliveries.
Continue Reading Platform (r)evolution: how the convergence of talent and technology will reshape service organizations (248)

Lindy’s Delicatessen, 51st & Broadway, NYC (credit: Bertil Carlson, via Wikimedia Commons)

Yes. The Cravath System. The case method.  And much more.

Here’s the technical definition of the “Lindy effect“: The robustness of an idea or technology (anything nonperishable) is proportional to its longevity.

This post examines how we can observe the Lindy effect in many facets of life, including law.  Some of these are obvious, like the Cravath System and the Langdellian case method, which are both in their second century and show no signs of fading.  But are there durable aspects of life and business we are overlooking because, rather foolishly, we’re favoring what is novel, shiny, and hyped?
Continue Reading Does the Lindy effect apply to law? (244)