Perhaps looking at what GM did to the trolley car business back in the last century to force its model onto America can be a telling tale about trying shift our current legal model. Looking at the various rules and regulations set by the bars or codified into law and how entrenched those in power are may be a telling tale of how easily the change to more consumer based power in the legal system will be.

Of course the recording industry fought change and is feeling the pain on a daily basis as the consumer is just going around the recording industry in so many ways – legal and illegally. Not wanting change, will not stop change from happening. Especially when that change is based on controlling information which is becoming increasingly open with information technology services.

I believe there will be a lot of discomfort as we learn new models. The smart ‘gas stations’ have had projects for decades on how to adapt to the change, and focusing on their core competitancy – energy distribution. They will be better at adapting to selling electricity or natural gas or petrol. The car manufactures are the one clinging to the past with every fiber in my view of the different markets.

The legal profession will need to adapt to a more client friendly model or get left in the dust. The big question is when not if, in my opinion.

When I first read the article I focused on the paradigm shift on cars. It is not so much the car that needs to be changed, but the infrastructure that supports the car’s operation.

Changing the vehicle is easy, changing the infrastructure is hard. It will take billions to develop battery changing stations across the Canada or the U.S. That’s assuming we can get agreement on the batteries and don’t end up with a battle between Blu-ray and HD-DVD (or for us older crown Betamax versus VHS).

Of course, there are already billions (trillions?) invested in the gas stations across our countries. A car can only go so far before it needs fuel, gas or electric.

So for me, I look at what infrastructure is locking us into the status quo. Is it things that are easy for an individual or a single firm to replace? Or are there multi-user infrastructures that are difficult to replace?

In the legal industry, the legal education system is hard to replace. There are so many co-dependencies and interested parties. It is that legal education system that feeds the bottom of the law firm pyramid and many of the problems that you often talk about.