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“Disruption does not come from industry. Disruption will not come from law firms. Disruption comes, and is already coming, from our customers.”
The topic of “disruption” has been, well, disruptive in the legal world last few weeks. On one side of the scales, events like Reinvent Law, LexThink.1, and conference on “disruptive innovation” which was held at Harvard Law.
Talk of disruptive innovation, alternative law firm business models, and the future of the legal profession filled the venerable, 131-year-old halls of Harvard Law School’s Austin Hall yesterday, as the school’s Program on the Legal Profession hosted a conference on disruptive innovation in the market for legal services.
On the other side of the scale are thinkers like Sam Glover of Lawyerist with a thoughtful, if not more slightly more tempered viewpoint:
Law practice is also, at heart, a personal-service industry. (Nobody talks about disrupting the massage industry — at least not that I have ever heard of.) Related “The Problem with Disruption and Law Practice #ABATechShow” There are a lot of reasons why it is especially hard to disrupt an industry like this. It may be impossible. And that may be a good thing.
Looking forward, there’s the likes of Gartner Research, a large technology research consulting firm, which recently published a forward looking report: IT Planning Guidance for Legal Professionals: The Gartner Legal IT 2020 Scenario. Daniel Martin Katz, an associate professor of law at Michigan State University, honed in on the report’s predictions for law schools.
In the white board video posted nearby, which runs under five minutes, Christopher T. Anderson argues, “The debate misses the real point. Disruption does not come from industry. Disruption will not come from law firms. Disruption comes, and is already coming, from our customers.”
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[…] In conjunction to the report Christopher T. Anderson argues, “The debate misses the real point. Disruption does not come from industry. Disruption will not come from law firms. Disruption comes, and is already coming, from our customers.” Source […]