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To date, this highly influential stakeholder has had very little to say.

The fierce and fascinating struggle underway in the American states over legal services reform brings to the table a large collection of interest groups.  These groups include law firms, legal aid organizations, entrepreneurs who might benefit financially from the liberalization of entry rules, and of course the gatekeeper entities, including state bar authorities and the state supreme courts, whose decisions are crucial to the evolution and shape of reform.  See Posts 239 (beginning of a four-part series on serious challenges of bar federalism).

The identity of these specific groups may differ from state to state, as the legal ecosystem has contours often tailored to a particular state’s history and objectives, but the configuration of stakeholders has some rather common elements.

What remains somewhat opaque in this robust and interconnected battle over the reform of legal services is the voice of legal educators and the law schools.  These are, after all, the places in which future lawyers are educated and professional values are instilled.  It is had to imagine a more fertile and opportune time to discuss the ambitions and philosophies of this next generation of legal professionals.
Continue Reading Legal education as a key stakeholder in legal services reform (276)

How legal services will be evaluated in 2021 and beyond

NewLaw is not what you think it is.  It is not a label to be applied only to new companies with trendy names.  It is a business model that any legal services provider can, in theory, adopt.  Cf. Post 055 (discussing clear evidence that “legal operations is a discipline” for buyers and sellers of legal services and thus not just a role within a legal department). But, while new companies built for it, others have to overcome how they created themselves in the first place.
Continue Reading Metrics of the NewLaw Model (206)

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…

“Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.”    — Albert Einstein

The members of the Delta Model working group imagine a world, not too far off, where law schools, legal employers and clients all share a common touchstone for lawyer development.  For the last two years, we’ve been working on such a touchstone, which we call the Delta Model.  Our current version is expressed in the graphic above.
Continue Reading The Delta Model: simple, accurate, versatile (125)

IFLP is proud to collaborate with the above list of innovators and early adopters.

Later this month, the Institute for the Future of Law Practice (IFLP, or “I-flip”) will celebrate its one year anniversary. Before that, it was just an idea in the minds of a few dozen lawyers, legal educators and allied professionals.  In…