Infographic Friday: The Future of Law

The infographic The Law Office of the Future has been making rounds on the web for several months, but we were reminded of it again when the National Law Review published the infographic this week.

Since we took a look at an infographic on the future of technology used in law last week, this seems like a natural progression. In examining the storyboard, which draws on data from the New York Times, Altman Weil and a series on legal services by Jordan Furlong on his Law 21 blog, it’s more about the future of law, than the future of the law office.

While we’ve frequently review data examining market trends in legal services, this infographic seems to focus on the commoditization of legal services which is being driven by the use of paralegal professionals and online self-serve tools. The case this infographic seems to be making is that law firms should either position their firms to perform higher value services or re-examine staffing ratios to employ more non-attorney legal professionals like paralegals.

Whatever conclusions we might draw from the story this infographic is pitching, the survey data indicates that firms overwhelmingly believe:

• The solution is to focus on improving efficiency
• Price competition will continue
• Legal work is facing commoditization

What would you agree with or disagree with?  What would you add?

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