One of my favorite academic LegalTech/innovation thought leaders is Dan Linna. Dan was a practicing litigator for several years before moving over to the academic side and is now with the Northwestern Pritzker School of Law in Chicago. Dan brings good humor to every issue and never tires of pushing the needle when it comes to legal tech. He’s also very attuned to what’s going on in the marketplace. To paraphrase an old commercial: When Dan Linna talks, everyone should listen.

 

David Curle is an equally interesting and knowledgeable guy from the private sector. Curle is the Leader of Thomson Reuters Executive Institute and has one of those rare jobs we all aspire to: Curle’s job is basically to think.  Think about what’s going on in the LegalTech marketplace, what is just over the horizon and to understand the environment in which Thomson Reuters’ customers find themselves these days. If you don’t know, Thomson Reuters has the very broadest group of legal customers imaginable: everyone from a solo practitioner to the very largest global law firms, accounting firms, and world’s largest legal departments.

 

Between Linna and Curle, I can imagine no two people more knowledgeable about today’s legal environment and where it’s headed. So, when Linna recently ventured into the podcasting to interview Curle, it was a rare opportunity to learn what these guys are seeing and predicting. (I say interview in the broadest sense. It was really more of a discussion. Which is good since both gentlemen have lots to say).

 

And what are the top 5 things these guys are seeing?

 

  1. Some of the largest and more competitive law firms are finally distinguishing themselves in new and different ways, responding to competitive pressures to be more innovative. Not that long ago that most law firms were all pretty much the same: they offered standard expertise as “full service” law firms. They took problems as they came in the door, legally solved them and moved on. But that is changing as sophisticated firms are doing several new and different things:

 

  • Some firms (mostly the very large) are approaching client problems differently, treating and solving them more holistic as business problems, much like accountants do. As I have pointed out, the Big 4 looks at legal problems as business problems and attempts to build systems that fix problems long-term. I have commented before on the threat the Big 4 accounting firms pose for U.S. law firms. Perhaps it is the threat the Big 4 poses to law firms and the competition that is forcing a more client-centric philosophy within law firms.
  • Law firms are partnering with alternative legal service providers (ALSPs) to do work more efficiently. As Linna and I proposed some time ago, many legal matters can be “unbundled” with individual pieces of work being sent to lower cost ASLPs who leverage technology and use a different business model to do work more efficiently. Law firms are just now recognizing this and entering into partnerships with ASLPs (or sometimes forming their own ALSPs) to do more work better, cheaper and faster. The ALSP legal market is the fastest growing legal area right now, by the way.
  • Law firms are utilizing technology to create expert systems and automated tools to serve clients better. Firms are recognizing that their brand and competitive advantages can be used not only to market these systems but, as Linna recognized, also to pull in adjacent work with teams of lawyers on the ready. I talked about this opportunity recently in my post on the Wilson Sonsoni  ancillary business,  SixFifty. The result: more services provided to small business and others who might not otherwise be able to afford legal advice.
  • Some firms (mostly the very large) are approaching client problems differently, treating and solving them more holistic as business problems, much like accountants do. As I have pointed out, the Big 4 looks at legal problems as business problems and attempts to build systems that fix problems long-term. I have commented before on the threat the Big 4 accounting firms pose for U.S. law firms. Perhaps it is the threat the Big 4 poses to law firms and the competition that is forcing a more client-centric philosophy within law firms.

 

2.  On the in-house side, legal ops are remaking how legal problems are solved, and costs contained. In house legal departments more and more want their law firms to be flexible and offer different pricing models. In house counsel also want more collaboration with and among their law firms, particularly with respect to data collection, joint access to data, and governance (see below). However, Linna and Curle both noted the continuing philosophical and cultural distance—not between law firms and in-house counsel— but between law firms and the business people within their clients. This, in part, explains the rise of the ALSPs since these providers often speak the same business language and have a similar philosophy as business people.

 

Clients don’t always know what they want or need so it’s up to their lawyers to come up with innovations to better provide legal services

Both Linna and Curle believe that it is the law firms, however, that should take the lead offering new and innovative services and technologies to their clients. Says Linna and Curle, clients don’t always know what they want or need so it’s up to their lawyers to come up with innovations to better provide legal services. I don’t disagree, but would note the poor track record of law firms in doing just this. Perhaps ALSPs will be the competitive prod to force law firms to be more creative.

 

3. As I have noted, data—big and small—is revolutionizing law. Litigation analytic products are providing more transparency about value and exposure. We are just at the beginning of using predictive analytics to solve all sorts of legal related problems. We are seeing providers scratching the surface with programs to do deep dives on attorney bills to classify better how lawyers spend their time and using artificial intelligence to evaluate indicators and draw inferences from legal fees.

Law firms of the future will understand the importance of data to clients and try to understand their client’s data, how to improve its collection and control and the problems it can answer.

While both Linna and Curle agree as a profession we have a long way to go with data analytics, they also agree that both in house and outside counsel are recognizing the value of data and are trying to formulate good data governance policies. It may be that competitive law firms of the future will understand the importance of data to clients and try to understand their client’s data, how to improve its collection and control and the problems it can answer. It will be these firms that will be top of mind for hiring decisions: who best to represent you than the law firm that understands your data and what it can do.

 

4. Which leads to the next trend on the horizon: preventive law. Using data and analytics to predict problems and legal issues before they happen so they can be prevented. Again, as I previously commented, the law firms that can help their clients use data better to prevent problems will be in the best position to guarantee success in problems that do occur. But to do this, lawyers must become more business-centric, knowing their client’s business better so they can offer sound judgments, not just about the law but about how to solve business problems growing out of legal issues and problems. This requires, says Linna and Curle, thinking more in cross disciplinary ways. Today, too many lawyers simply don’t know their clients and can’t offer this more sophisticated advice.

Prediction, prevention and exercising legal judgment in these areas are high-value work say Linna and Curle and is where the real value for lawyers lies in the future as routine work more and more falls away.

Of course, the future is all based on data. Legal organizations need to recognize the value of the data in their organizations in ways not done in the past. But to do that, there must be good data management, and governance policies managed by qualified individuals within organizations. Law firms are just starting to understand the need for this role.

 

  1. And here is the final tidbit offered by Linna and Curle (with which I strongly agree by the way):  the mid-size law firms may be in trouble. The ones who aren’t moving in the directions described above but who are content to muddle along like always, being all things to all people, having little recognition of the value and use of data and who aren’t pushing the innovative envelope. Unless these firms somehow define themselves differently, they could go the way of the midline swiss watchmakers who were cut from below by lower cost competitors and above by higher cost competitors offering superior products. 

 

Linna and Curle offer a vision for the future whereby the tech and innovation revolution finally hit big law. It seems we may indeed be on the cusp of a sea change.

Photo Attribution

@alexandermils via Unsplash