Dispatches from a legal profession on the brink
Filed under: Law21
It’s time for my semi-regular roundup of articles and items that I’ve written for other websites and publications recently. I hope you enjoy the following entries as much as I enjoyed writing them. 1. Contributing to Stem Legal’s Law Firm Web Strategy blog, as a senior consultant to Stem, is a welcome opportunity for me… Read more »
Filed under: Governance, Innovation
Thomas Wolfe says you can’t go home again; nevertheless, I’m returning to my alma mater Queen’s Law School tomorrow to give a presentation on the future of the legal marketplace. While preparing slides for my section on networking, I noticed that examples of old-line bar associations (the volunteer kind, not mandatory or regulatory bodies like… Read more »
Filed under: Access, Competition, Innovation
Like many parents of small children, I’ve gotten to know Thomas The Tank Engine, and the peculiar universe he inhabits, far too well. As an example, I’ve now read the story James and the Red Balloon so often that I’ve begun to draw lessons for the legal profession from it. To summarize: among the trains… Read more »
Filed under: Innovation
As the year winds down and alternative fee arrangements become more widespread among lawyers, I’m finding myself doing something curious: I’m being nice to the billable hour. Not defending it, exactly — others are happy to do that — but being more nuanced in my criticism and even citing examples of billing relationships where it… Read more »
The New York Times caused quite a stir last week when it published an article that looked at a third-party litigation funding company focused on the family law market. Balance Point Divorce Funding covers the cost of a party’s divorce proceeding in exchange for a share of what it calls the “winnings.” The article describes… Read more »
Filed under: Clients, Competition, Innovation
Whatever happened to Napster? Depending on your age, you might remember it either as a piracy-enabling nuisance, a groundbreaking music-swapping service, or the dusty antecedent of iTunes. Time magazine caught up with Napster’s founder, Shawn Fanning, and three other pioneering hackers in a recent article that describes them as “The Men Who Changed The World.”… Read more »
Filed under: Law21
In addition to keeping busy with client work, I’ve had the opportunity to write a number of articles recently and to be interviewed for a few others. I thought you’d be interested in checking some of them out. As part of the newest edition of the Edge International Review – a journal of Edge partners’… Read more »
Filed under: Competition, Innovation, Publishing
Earlier this month, I wrote a blog post called “Destroying your own business” that explained why law firms, in order to adapt to the emerging marketplace, needed to blow up their own business models and essentially start over. I also lamented the fact that hardly any law firm was willing or able to do this…. Read more »
Filed under: Big Firms, Globalization
Earlier this fall, I gave a presentation to a Canadian law society that described the key trends in the current legal marketplace and forecast where they’re likely to lead in future. As part of the presentation, we discussed a series of hypothetical future developments that would require the profession’s regulators to respond. One of them… Read more »
Filed under: Big Firms, Competition, Innovation
Well before Blockbuster Video actually filed for bankruptcy protection earlier this fall, The Onion produced a prescient video about a museum tour based on the movie rental chain: Historic ‘Blockbuster’ Store Offers Glimpse Of How Movies Were Rented In The Past. One dazzled visitor remarks: “It’s like stepping into a time machine … it’s hard… Read more »
