Legal Commentary

Rob Millard's Insights Into The Future Of Law

By Patrick J. Lamb

Rob Millard of Edge International has authored a fantastic article the "explores some of the changes in today's world and how they might unfold, especially in the case of law firms."  Rob begins his insights with this observation:

The future is not what it used to be. In this turbulent
21st century, things change quickly and outcomes
are too uncertain for static models of strategy and
management that evolved in past decades to remain effective.
The events of 2008 were not a normal cyclical economic
downturn. The world is going through an experience more
akin to an earthquake, and assumptions upon which we base
our business models are being fundamentally challenged. This
article explores some of the changes and how they might
unfold, especially for law firms.

What follows is a discussion of a number of "vectors," including the transfer of wealth from west to east, the impact of the Legal Services Act and the resulting private investment into law firms, including the possibility of such developments in the US, and the changes in technology.

I found Rob's discussion of the role of private capital to be intriguing, suggesting the question of how private investors would view the current BigLaw model.  Likewise, the discussion of coming disruptive change from rapid technology advancements is intriguing.

Rob's real contribution is the analysis of these and other "vectors" converge, and the importance of that eventuality to a forward-thinking firm:

It is also important to realise that such thinking and such
strategy-crafting can no longer be a periodic, once-off event.
It needs to be an ongoing process, if the firm's direction is to
be fine tuned (and sometimes perhaps even radically altered) in
response to the constantly changing world.

Just a week ago, I penned a post "What happens if ....?" that inquired simply whether the experience occasioned by the economic downturn would cause people to better plan.  Rob's article identifies the stakes involved and makes clear that one fails to develop strategies for a rapidly changing environment at one's own peril.

Full post as published by In Search of Perfect Client Service on August 27, 2009 (boomark / email).