presented by

Stephanie Kimbro, M.A., J.D.Virtuallawpractice.org

Fall, 2012November 6, 2012

Law Practice Management

OverviewOther Industry Adaptations to Online Delivery

Medical profession Accountants Higher Education

New Law Firm RolesFuture of Legal Services Delivery

How Firms Can Innovate Unbundling Big Data

Other Industries Are Adapting

Medical professionAccountantsHigher Education

Evolution of Legal Services

Bespoke Standardized Systematized Packaged Commoditized

5 Types – Where Will you Fit In?Expert Trusted Advisor

BespokeoDanger of assuming the client always needs expert

assistanceEnhanced Practitioner

Works closer to the right hand of the spectrum o Supporting delivery of standardized, systematized and

packaged (when in-house) oMarket only tolerates this worker when their

experience as a lawyer is genuinely needed – otherwise they will be replaced with paralegals, legal execs, etc.

Legal Knowledge Engineer Large numbers of these will be needed in our profession Highly skilled lawyers who can analyze, distill and place

into standard working practices and computer systems Design and development roles Decomposition of legal work will be a primary role – they

will have to know how to unbundle services Legal Risk Manager

Lawyers that offer proactive legal services , anticipating and pre-empting legal problems

Legal Hybrid Multi-disciplinary Schooled in other areas and can expand the range of their

services to include these as well as legal guidance

The Danger Zone Work that is routine Solos and small firms that are not highly specialized Solos who are general practitioners

A Law Firm Can Innovate By…Changing the way it delivers its services

Online systems Unbundling

In the advice it offers Suggesting ODR, other forms of dispute resolution for

clientsThe way it runs its business

How lawyers are recruited and into which roles

Becoming a MaverickMaverick management as a new discipline

Individuals in the firm who pursue ideas that will be regarded in the beginning as peripheral, irrelevant and even wasteful to the firm

Firms must nurture and encourage these people.o The R&D division of a firm

You should be one whether you are a solo or in BigLaw.The Best Lawyers Will Be

Transparent in communicating with their clients Clear in exposing their work method They understand that a large latent market of legal

services can be met by delivering online commoditized services.

ConclusionsClients will drive these changes regardless. With the use of technology in law practice, empathy

and sincerity will mean more to building a legal business and with client development.

There are two ways the public sees lawyers: Benevolent custodians of the law and legal institutions Jealous guards of the law, protectionists

To survive these changes, how you implement technology in law practice to serve clients and collaborate with other lawyers will matter.

Watch for ABA & State Bar Changes to Rules Related to Tech in Law Practice!

Unbundling in the Future of Legal Services Unbundling permits the lawyer to adapt to the changes Susskind discusses

by slowly making his or her processes more cost-effective and efficient through the use of technology.

Over time as lawyers build up the quantity of unbundled work with the faster IT process, they will be able to maintain their standard of living while providing the now-expected lower fees to clients.

Unbundling may allow the lawyer to transition from inefficient traditional models of legal services delivery to newer and more cost-effective versions without making a huge initial investment.

Why will unbundling increase in popularity? It provides a delivery model that benefits both the public and the professional.

Big Data in the Future of Legal Services Collection of data from social media applications Identification of legal needs Suggestions for appropriate preventative action or solutions Who will use this data and how?

Practice areas Privacy/Confidentiality Lawyer advertising rules? Will they keep lawyers out of the

market but permit others in? Collection of data from national database?

Legal services’ existing database, open sourced with API Smaller scale collection and use? Expert systems

A Final Note “The next generation of lawyers cannot rely on the

exclusionary power of state-imposed boundaries to maintain the status, power, and distinction enjoyed by the profession in the past. If lawyers are to survive better than scribes or calligraphers did in the post-Gutenberg world, they need to do more than merely adapt new technologies to traditional practices and processes. The route to success lies in a new model of legal practice, in an understanding of the implications of shrinking distances between people and institutions.” – Ethan Katsh, Law in a Digital World (1995)

Keeping up with changes Jordan Furlong – law21.ca My blog – virtuallawpractice.org Richard Granat- elawyeringredux.com ReInventLaw Lab - reinventlaw.com Law Without Walls - lawwithoutwalls.org Elawyering Task Force – elawyering.com Alerts or # for:

Richard Susskind (@richardsusskind) #Reinventlaw Virtual law Elawyering Digital lawyering Computational legal studies or computational law Legal technology