"About one-third (30%) of law firms have someone dedicated to the responsibility of law firm innovation."
– Chris Cartrett, Aderanti
The commoditisation of practice, increasing automation and the rise of a new generation – who are ready to find traditional methods boring and outdated – all suggest that innovation is needed right across a law firm if it’s to survive these extraordinary times of disruptive change.
While technological innovation inevitably has its place, there are plenty of other ways in which law firms could, and should, explore new approaches. Here’s our immediate top 10:
The first four points above deal with the market, while the remaining six deal with the firm and its own methodologies. And the interesting thing about this is that quite often it’s the smaller firms, able to be more externally vigilant and internally nimble, which can innovate before the larger firms – even if they can’t match their resources. And those are the firms whose activities will be heard by, and appeal to, the brightest and most innovative graduating lawyers.
Josias Dewey is a partner at Holland & Knight in the USA, a firm of around 1,300 lawyers. With his abilities in coding, he has addressed not only technological innovation but also points (3) and (9) above. He co-created a tool which helped a client “locate and freeze $500,000 in virtual currency it had lost as the result of a hack.”ii Although Mr Dewey is at a larger firm, the confluence of non-legal skills and market disruption is equally the sort of thing which young recruits and smaller firms are well-placed to tackle. Especially given the increasingly multi-disciplinary approach of many leading law schools.
The 200 page book details all you need to know about current and future trends for your legal workplace and includes topics such as: AI, generations in the workplace, talent acquisition, work styles, client experience, and more.