We can “rewrite the rules to keep up”, but frankly, that’s not enough. We have to rewire the culture of law.
The problem is not the practice of law, it’s the business of law. Unless and until the culture shifts away from protection and income redistribution to the intermediaries between those that need legal services and that which creates the need (aka lawyers and #LawLand) and moves to a truly customer focused delivery ecosystem, then we’re really just moving the deck chairs on the Titanic. Another Substack commentator in this space has pondered whether Clayton Christensen’s theory of disruptive innovation applies in law.
I submit it’s not a theory, it’s a law. It’s only a question of timing. To date LawLand has successfully resisted disruptive innovation and has largely maintained the status quo. This has resulted in perpetuation of bespoke, highly curated, individualistic complexification of delivery systems that create ever increasing activity to generates revenue for the lawyer as opposed to serving the customer. In other words, the legal delivery system is focused primarily on the creation and perpetuation of disputes so that those most interested in answering interesting questions of law — a classic narcissistic intermediary — exact a intermediation tax from those that actually need the service/product. This in turn results in massive unmet latent demand as the true customers are simply priced out of the market for the services they actually need. The tools emerging today provide for P3 change (Processification | Platformization | Productization) for the vast majority of the legal needs by those accessing the delivery system today as well as that latent unmet demand. But it takes massive cultural shift in LawLand to get there — and I for one am not convinced that brownfield reclamation is possible. The massive active and passive resistance to cultural change is in the way.
However, disruptive innovation will take place and those clinging to the past delivery system will change or die — my money is on the latter — as it has been for decades. The disruption is inevitable — however the timing remains uncertain. The defenders of LawLand are legion — the walls of the citadel are thick, the moats are deep. One doesn’t attack a citadel of this type frontally, no, you surround it,bypass it and starve it. As such, greenfield providers — true disruptors — are likely the ultimate answer. The disruptors need only proof of concept for the customers to defect, to vote with their fees. But that also requires the buyers — most of whom are from the same guild and suffer from the same professional narcissism to change themselves and accept that they are agents of the customer and that it is their fiduciary duty to demand disruption.
As has been the case for some time — the answer to the problem is not difficult, but it is hard, very very hard because those with the power to change struggle to get there.
We can “rewrite the rules to keep up”, but frankly, that’s not enough. We have to rewire the culture of law.
The problem is not the practice of law, it’s the business of law. Unless and until the culture shifts away from protection and income redistribution to the intermediaries between those that need legal services and that which creates the need (aka lawyers and #LawLand) and moves to a truly customer focused delivery ecosystem, then we’re really just moving the deck chairs on the Titanic. Another Substack commentator in this space has pondered whether Clayton Christensen’s theory of disruptive innovation applies in law.
I submit it’s not a theory, it’s a law. It’s only a question of timing. To date LawLand has successfully resisted disruptive innovation and has largely maintained the status quo. This has resulted in perpetuation of bespoke, highly curated, individualistic complexification of delivery systems that create ever increasing activity to generates revenue for the lawyer as opposed to serving the customer. In other words, the legal delivery system is focused primarily on the creation and perpetuation of disputes so that those most interested in answering interesting questions of law — a classic narcissistic intermediary — exact a intermediation tax from those that actually need the service/product. This in turn results in massive unmet latent demand as the true customers are simply priced out of the market for the services they actually need. The tools emerging today provide for P3 change (Processification | Platformization | Productization) for the vast majority of the legal needs by those accessing the delivery system today as well as that latent unmet demand. But it takes massive cultural shift in LawLand to get there — and I for one am not convinced that brownfield reclamation is possible. The massive active and passive resistance to cultural change is in the way.
However, disruptive innovation will take place and those clinging to the past delivery system will change or die — my money is on the latter — as it has been for decades. The disruption is inevitable — however the timing remains uncertain. The defenders of LawLand are legion — the walls of the citadel are thick, the moats are deep. One doesn’t attack a citadel of this type frontally, no, you surround it,bypass it and starve it. As such, greenfield providers — true disruptors — are likely the ultimate answer. The disruptors need only proof of concept for the customers to defect, to vote with their fees. But that also requires the buyers — most of whom are from the same guild and suffer from the same professional narcissism to change themselves and accept that they are agents of the customer and that it is their fiduciary duty to demand disruption.
As has been the case for some time — the answer to the problem is not difficult, but it is hard, very very hard because those with the power to change struggle to get there.
You know I have lots of thoughts about this, Jeff. 😺
And you’ve made huge strides forward through your approach & contributions through your enlightened students!