Legal Rebels

When will lawyers learn to take their vitamins—and other ruminations on change in the industry

Imagine you were running the British Royal Navy during the Age of Sail. One of your biggest problems is keeping crews safe from scurvy during long voyages. How long do you imagine it would take you from the time that the first British sea captain (James Lancaster in 1601) gave…

Jan 22, 2014 2:50 PM CST

9 ways firms find cash for partners—at their great peril

Each one of you who reads this is probably in some way a teacher and a mentor in addition to being a top-quality professional. You have learned and practice an important lesson at problem-solving from your experience, which Bill Lazier, the famous business professor from Stanford University, expressed thusly: “Don’t…

Jan 15, 2014 3:45 PM CST

Here’s to these lawyer-heroes of the New Normal: the system builders

Controversy has a way of driving traffic. Thus, in advance of attending ReInvent Law NYC with Paul Lippe, Patrick Lamb and other rebellious luminaries, let me take an unprovoked jab at one of our fellow speakers, the esteemed Richard Susskind. Disagreeing with Richard Susskind is not something I do often…

Jan 8, 2014 2:45 PM CST

Do lawyers have the ‘design mojo’ needed to re-think the delivery of legal services?

We’re all tuned into the fact that law seems to be changing, but we don’t all experience or understand the change in the same way. To broadly generalize, I’ll say: • 10 percent of lawyers are actively trying to manage change along the lines we’ve been advocating here at the…

Dec 31, 2013 2:45 PM CST

Saluting the hard work of innovation

I recently had an interesting Twitter conversation with Ken Grady, Ron Friedmann, Casey Flaherty and Daniel Lear. Ken Grady is the highly innovative and highly accomplished former general counsel of Wolverine Worldwide, and is now the president and CEO of Seyfarth Lean. Ron Friedmann is the author of prismlegal.com and…

Dec 18, 2013 2:30 PM CST

Is practicing law like creating art?

I’ve been in an interesting series of discussions over the last few weeks which raise the question, “is practicing the law like creating art?” Is each piece of legal work unique, and does that uniqueness add value and be largely unable to be judged by anyone other than the artist…

Nov 21, 2013 5:10 PM CST

Latest data reveals growing problems for OldLaw

Just days apart, Wells Fargo and Citibank released their commentary on the financial performance of the Am Law 200 law firms. The news was not pretty. Characterizations like “underproductivity” and “anemic” and “margins squeezed” littered the two reports. What do we learn from these two reports? We learn that demand…

Nov 14, 2013 5:27 PM CST

Law schools can’t sleep through the technological revolution

It is plain to see that technology is fundamentally changing the way we live. During a recent family trip to a lodge, I was amused to learn that my children did not know what a rotary phone was. But why should they? They were born digital and have grown up…

Nov 7, 2013 2:30 PM CST

Will continuing to ban nonlawyer ownership make US firms and clients less competitive?

I had a visit this past week from Karl Chapman, the CEO of Riverview Law, and Steve Harmon, head of legal operations at Cisco. Steve, Karl and I spent time at several law schools, with several large clients, and with one large law firm. Click here for a full video…

Nov 1, 2013 2:23 PM CDT

The smart money was never on Goliath: Does BigLaw have the same disadvantages?

I attended a program that was part of Chicago Ideas Week last week called “Lessons: The Choice Is Yours.” Among the amazing speakers (for example, the founders of both change.org and Defy Ventures), the program concluded with an appearance from Malcolm Gladwell, the noted New Yorker writer and author of…

Oct 29, 2013 5:13 PM CDT

Is your firm changing its business model, or is it in a stage of failure?

The market dictates change. Sometimes it moves toward you, sometimes away, but whichever direction, it behooves those who are beholden to the market—which is just about everybody—to get in step or get run over. The Am Law Daily (sub. req.) reported this week on a LexisNexis study indicating law firms…

Oct 24, 2013 1:30 PM CDT

Letting 3Ls earn both school credit and pay for externships could make a dent in debt crisis

When President Obama stirred debate with his observation in August that “law schools would probably be wise to think about being two years instead of three years,” a friend suggested, tongue in cheek, that Obama had simply read the New Republic’s online roundtable on How to Fix Law School, to…

Oct 16, 2013 1:30 PM CDT

Real change is here—whether you’re seeing it in your own practice area or not

I attended the “Innovations in the Law: Science and Technology” conference presented by the U.S. District Court of Oregon a few weeks ago. The conference was put together by the Honorable Ann Aiken, Chief Judge of the District of Oregon and dynamic personality if ever there was one. The conference…

Oct 9, 2013 1:54 PM CDT

Are verein-style law firms ignoring fee-splitting ethics rules?

Edwin B. Reeser Martin J. Foley The last nine years have witnessed remarkable developments in national, international and global law firm business operation constructs. Among these, since 2004, are a number of Swiss verein structures, which have been adopted by several firms: Hogan Lovells, Baker & McKenzie, DLA Piper, Squire…

Oct 1, 2013 1:30 PM CDT

15 fairly new legal industry jobs and 6 more you may see soon

The profession has evolved since we named our first Legal Rebels in 2009—and there are now positions at law firms and elsewhere that didn’t exist when we first started this project. We asked well-known legal advisers, consultants, firm leaders and innovators to give examples of some of these new jobs…

Sep 30, 2013 9:57 PM CDT