one-to-many

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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)

Sometimes things have to get worse before they get better.

Nothing I have read over the last several years haunts me as much as the following line from Gillian Hadfield: “People who feel as though the rules don’t care about them don’t care about the rules.”  Rules for a Flat World at 79 (2017).

When I first read those words, I can remember thinking, “this explains the 2016 presidential election,” though the name Donald Trump appears nowhere in the book. Likewise, for the next four years, Professor Hadfield’s observation offered a remarkably concise explanation for the public’s growing indifference to democratic norms, democratic institutions, and the Rule of Law. Then the events of January 6th offered a disturbing punctuation point.
Continue Reading Just not good enough (226)

Photo by BP Miller via Unsplash / Clear-sighted & pragmatic teams will win the day.
Talk of disruption dominated the last decade.  In 2021, widespread change in legal markets appears elusive.  Will this time be different?

Today’s post (219) is Part IV of #GreatExpectations for the #GreatReset, a 5-part series on…

Amish barn-raising in Wayne County, Ohio.  Click on to enlarge.  Photo by Randy Fath on Unsplash

An essay for lawyers over the age of 55, plus anyone who knows one.

In his viral essay, “It’s Time to Build,” tech entrepreneur Marc Andreessen argues that the colossal institutional failures…

Lessons from the dot com implosion and the financial meltdown.

Henry Kissinger once observed that while history does not repeat itself it often offers useful lessons regarding the future.  With this in mind, I thought might be useful to see what lessons the last two periods of economic adversity – the dot com implosion and…

When lawyers come together to discuss the future — in law firms, law schools, bar associations, etc — the conversation inevitably turns to clients.  Although this is a wonderful and redeeming impulse, it almost always results in confusing and unsatisfying dialogue that goes nowhere. Why does this happen? Because lawyers focus on their detailed knowledge…