Legal Rebels

Managing Partner Shares Perspective on the New Normal

K&L Gates Chairman and Global Managing Partner Peter J. Kalis spoke with ABA Journal reporter Rachel M. Zahorsky on the future course of the legal profession and the broader legal industry in the context of the New Normal. On the New Normal in general, Kalis said that what the legal…

Feb 22, 2012 3:14 PM CST

10 Concrete Ways to Measure Law Performance

A few days ago, my compadre Paul Lippe wrote a thoughtful post: What if Someone Could Measure What Lawyers Do? Paul addressed the “fancy term” for the argument that what lawyers do can’t be measured: “credence good.” As good as Paul’s post was, the comments on it were particularly interesting.…

Feb 15, 2012 10:21 PM CST

Show Me the Numbers

Our thesis here at the New Normal is that the legal services that corporations buy will come to look more like other activities inside companies, and the legal services small businesses and consumers buy will come to look like other consumer activities. My thinking on this is driven by experience,…

Feb 14, 2012 9:13 PM CST

What if Someone Could Measure What Lawyers Do?

Based on what we’re seeing with sophisticated legal departments, the four horsemen of the New Normal will be: • Legal process outsourcing. • Substitution of technology for people in repetitive work. • Treating legal work as teamwork rather than individual work. • The emergence of one or several standards for…

Feb 8, 2012 6:38 PM CST

Lawyer Comp: The Third Rail of Legal Value Conversations (Part II)

In Part Two of this article, Susan Hackett, the former general counsel for the Association of Corporate Counsel, and now the CEO of her own consulting practice, Legal Executive Leadership, explores new ways to assess lawyer compensation in the New Normal. In part one, she discussed her concerns with law…

Jan 31, 2012 11:21 PM CST

Practice Group Leaders: Masters of the Legal Renaissance?

Before I left my job as general counsel at a software company, I was offered the chance to become general manager of a product group. Unlike my previous role, the GM job didn’t report to the CEO, but in corporate terms it was still viewed as more important than a…

Jan 25, 2012 10:33 PM CST

The Agile Manifesto Round Three: ‘What We Have Here Is a Failure to Communicate’

Three years ago, I was part of a law firm panel discussion on effective business development. We covered the usual topics, including alternative fee arrangements, budgeting, marketing, etc. I emphasized the importance of having lawyers who made my job as an inside counsel easier. I spoke of outside counsel who…

Jan 18, 2012 2:48 PM CST

A View from AALS: What Change Looks Like

When historians of the 31st Century convene to consider this question: How did America manage (or fail) to renew itself at the beginning of the 21st Century to continue its remarkable period of economic, political and cultural leadership? They will consider themselves quite lucky if they have comprehensive access to…

Jan 11, 2012 4:42 PM CST

Making a Commitment to Change and Opening Up ‘Endless Possibilities’

I was driving somewhere listening to ESPN on the radio. The host was John Kincade. Kincade mentioned being a cancer survivor and that the experience led him to his mantra on life—“endless possibilities.” Maybe because it was New Year’s Day, I was drawn to this phrase. It perfectly describes the…

Jan 4, 2012 2:30 PM CST

Lawyer Comp: The Third Rail of Legal Value Conversations

Note: In this two-part piece, New Normal contributor Susan Hackett, the former general counsel for the Association of Corporate Counsel, and now the CEO of her own consulting practice, Legal Executive Leadership, explores lawyer compensation in the New Normal. Here, in part one, she addresses the issue of firm comp…

Dec 21, 2011 10:11 PM CST

Getting Comfortable with Risk: The Agile Manifesto Revisited

Recently, I caught up with a college classmate who is a successful corporate lawyer at a major law firm. Although happy, he mused, “I’m not a risk-averse person. Yet I ended up being a lawyer, and you know how much lawyers don’t like risk. How did that happen?” My friend’s…

Dec 14, 2011 2:47 PM CST

How Client Complexity Will Shape the New Normal For Firms and Law Schools

Imagine you are Sally, the General Counsel of Acme Global Bio-Sciences, a $30 billion revenue biotech company headquartered in San Francisco, sitting in CEO Ken’s executive staff meeting a few weeks before the end of the quarter. • Ken mentions the threat of a proxy challenge for the upcoming annual…

Dec 8, 2011 3:40 PM CST

New Normal for Law Schools?

It was intriguing to see the New York Times masthead editorial calling for reform after a news piece on the perils of law school education. I am speaking at the American Association of Law Schools Annual Meeting (PDF) in D.C. on Jan. 5 on the topic of the Future of…

Dec 1, 2011 6:02 PM CST

Avoiding Complexity: An Agile Manifesto for Lawyers

Aspiring to be part of the New Normal, I pay attention whenever Jeff Carr writes about the legal profession. In particular, his comments on my post on the network effect and kaizen bear repeating: Lawyers, being lawyers, love to ‘complexify’ things. In part, that’s because we make money from complexity.…

Nov 15, 2011 2:51 PM CST

BigLaw Resources Can Do the Most Good

Editor’s Note: We asked readers to write an essay or record a video telling us how large firms can innovate. This was the actual question: “How can large firms change the way in which law is practiced over the next five years, in a way that no other group can?”…

Nov 10, 2011 2:35 PM CST