Category Archives: Technology

Fixing the failings of new lawyer training

Last week, I contended that when it comes to the current lawyer admission process, law schools are part of the problem and show little interest in being part of the solution. Two articles published since then do give me some hope for the academy, both from Canadian law school deans: “Five new developments to reshape [...]
Also posted in Governance, New Lawyers | 2 Comments

Goodbye to all that

Last week, having written about the rise of online disruptors and the emergence of super-boutiques, I promised that the final entry in this de facto trilogy would identify how lawyers and law firms can ensure their profitability in this new environment. But then I spent three days at ILTA’s Rev-elation, the 2011 annual meeting of [...]
Also posted in Big Firms, Clients, Innovation | 12 Comments

Here come the disruptors

Lawyers used to have the Midas Touch: whatever we did, however we did it, we were profitable, because no one else could do it (and no one else was allowed to try). From now on, lawyers’ and law firms’ profitability hinges completely on what we choose to do and how we choose to do it. [...]
Also posted in Innovation | 16 Comments

The iFuture

My newest column is up at Slaw, winner for two consecutive years of Dennis Kennedy’s Best Law Blog Award. Follow the link to Canada’s best legal website.
Also posted in Publishing, Research | 8 Comments

Tr.im and the risks of social media

Shortly after starting this blog in January 2008, I copied-and-pasted my first ten posts and emailed them to my parents, who were not blog-friendly but who were very interested to see what I was writing. (Are parents great, or what?) The next month, I emailed another bunch of posts, and from then on, it became [...]
Posted in Technology | 5 Comments

At ABA TECHSHOW

I’m back in Chicago, my favourite US city, for ABA TECHSHOW. Looking forward to meeting old friends and making new ones while picking up the latest in legal technology, practice management, and innovation insights. This year, if all goes well, I’m also going to try some liveblogging, or at least, quasi-liveblogging, from various sessions, building [...]
Posted in Technology | Leave a comment

The future law book

Two thought-provoking posts from the UK shed some light on the future of the printed word in law. Nick Holmes at Binary Law notes the accelerating demise of the printed law review journal and other hard-copy forms of legal scholarship: “Where online equivalents are already paid for out of the budget or where free access [...]
Also posted in Publishing | 10 Comments

Information, innovation and a top 10 list

This is kind of a roundup post — a few things I thought might interest you on the theme of innovative information for lawyers. First, if you haven’t checked out JD Supra lately, you might have missed this handy new feature: a Facebook application for streaming your legal documents. JD Supra Docs allows legal professionals [...]
Also posted in Innovation, Publishing | 4 Comments

Decoupling price from cost in legal services

Virtually all the talk these days in client circles is about the cost of legal services. It’s well established that institutional purchasers of these services are under great pressure to reduce costs by, for example, “taking bids, asking for discounts, shopping around for lower-cost options.” Patrick J. Lamb points out that many in-house lawyers don’t [...]
Also posted in Billing, Competition | 5 Comments

E-document ethics and the rise of regulation

It’s been a great week for conversations with Law21 readers, because I’ve also had a terrific correspondence with John Gillies, head of Practice Support at Cassels Brock in Toronto. John brought to my attention an opinion issued this past summer by the New York City Bar Association regarding lawyers’ ethical obligations to retain and provide [...]
Also posted in Big Firms, Ethics | 1 Comment

Search the Archives