Legal Rebels

Richard Susskind sees ‘rosy future’ for law—if it embraces technology (podcast)

For more than three decades, Richard Susskind has been one of the profession's most prolific voices in support of implementing technology with legal services delivery. He's the author of more than 10 books on the topic, and his next one will focus on technology in the courtroom.

Jul 12, 2017 11:30 AM CDT

Paul Lippe’s ‘new normal’ was always about innovation (podcast)

For years, Paul Lippe has been a leader in helping corporate law departments adopt the approaches used in the best and most innovative parts of their own companies—and in doing so, significantly changing the relationships with and the work done by their outside lawyers.

Jun 14, 2017 8:30 AM CDT

Do you suffer from ‘commoditization blindness’? If others can do your work for less, open your eyes

During the past few months, I have been giving presentations all over the world. One of the things I would touch upon are the eroding effects of commoditization. I know there are a lot of misconceptions around this topic. By now, most lawyers acknowledge that commoditization exists, but most believe commoditized work equals "simple work" or "bulk work." This couldn’t be further from the truth.

Jun 8, 2017 8:30 AM CDT

Moving from Good Law to Great Law

Five years ago, a committed group of law firm leaders and law firm service providers embarked on a journey to reimagine the legal profession with a futurist’s view.

While many innovation journeys begin with an examination of the current state of a business, team, product or service in order to determine how to make what exists better, this innovation journey was different.

Jun 1, 2017 8:12 AM CDT

Nominate your ABA Journal Legal Rebels

The ABA Journal is seeking names of innovators in legal practice to be considered for its annual Legal Rebel honors. For the last seven years, the Journal has highlighted the accomplishments of lawyers and other legal professionals for their contributions to change in law practice. You can find profiles of…

May 26, 2017 2:30 PM CDT

Setting the CLOC forward on operational excellence

Last year, I wrote about the first meeting of CLOC, the Corporate Legal Operations Consortium, which had come together driven by a number of Silicon Valley (and other) legal operations folks, including Google, NetApp, Yahoo, Cisco, Oracle, Facebook and others. The group had their second big meeting in Las Vegas…

May 18, 2017 2:17 PM CDT

Not competent in basic tech? You could be overbilling your clients—and be on shaky ethical ground

No part of legal work is unaffected by the duty of competency. And now that’s true for the duty of technology competence, too. It requires lawyers to be competent in every tech tool that we use to serve our clients, not just fancy data security tools, but regular tools like…

May 15, 2017 8:21 AM CDT

Lisa Solomon found the time was right for her career in online legal research (podcast)

Plenty of lawyers hate to do legal research: It can be tedious and time-consuming, and one mistake can tank an entire case. For lawyers of a certain generation, the very sight of those two-toned, musty-smelling books that all look the same is enough to fill them with dread. For younger…

May 10, 2017 8:16 AM CDT

Are lawyers artistes or shortstops: how to measure performance?

Last month, I talked about whether doing a better job of measuring lawyer performance could unlock diversity. This month, my co-author, Gregory Richter, partner and vice-president at Major Lindsey & Africa, joins me to explore how clients are starting to measure lawyer performance transparently, just as performance in other fields…

May 10, 2017 8:00 AM CDT

Can justice be served online?

I recently had an experience with online dispute resolution. And it wasn’t pretty. I am embarrassed to admit it all came about when I clicked on an alluring ad for a face cream. I charged $4.95 on my credit card and within a few days received the product (curiously absent…

May 4, 2017 8:30 AM CDT

Rethinking rewards: What BigLaw can do about pay

I just completed a renovation that took over four months—the apartment hadn’t been touched in 40 years. Because I visited the job site almost every week, I got to know the construction crew well and gained respect for their work ethic and attention to detail. Afterwards, in appreciation, I gave…

Apr 27, 2017 8:30 AM CDT

Choosing your law firm’s optimal markets

I think many law firms historically acquired their clients first and their markets second. Somewhere early in a firm’s genesis, one of its lawyers landed a client and performed the assigned tasks well; impressed, that client hired the lawyer again and recommended the lawyer to a similar client, which also retained the lawyer, and more followed.

Apr 13, 2017 8:30 AM CDT

Justia’s Stacy Stern finds real profit in making things free (podcast)

Stacy Stern is in charge of revenues, among her other roles, at a successful for-profit company. But she tends to talk more about giving away products and services. It becomes obvious that she thinks giving is more important than receiving—not that Justia, the legal portal that she and her husband,…

Apr 12, 2017 8:30 AM CDT

What have previous Legal Rebels been up to? We talked to 8 of them to find out

We love featuring innovators in our annual Legal Rebels issues, but these creative legal minds don’t stop churning after they earn their titles. ABA Journal editor and publisher Molly McDonough sat down with eight of our Legal Rebels and Legal Rebels Trailblazer alums at the ABA Techshow in March to…

Apr 6, 2017 2:45 PM CDT

Can changing how we measure lawyer performance unlock diversity?

HP’s legal department recently announced that it will withhold up to 10 percent of fees from law firms that do not meet its diversity standards, to draw attention to law’s lagging performance in advancing diversity.

Apr 6, 2017 8:30 AM CDT