John Tredennick started a focus on legal technology in 1988—back when law firms saw it as something limited to fancy computers and adding machines. He asked Holland & Hart, the Denver-based firm where he was a partner, to add the words chief information officer to his title. Inspiration came from an American Bar Association conference.
Matthew Stubenberg’s legal career is shaped by the Great Recession. In 2010, he started law school at the University of Maryland, where he “fell in love with criminal defense.” However, upon graduation in 2013, the legal market was still recovering, and he was without a job. That was when Stubenberg learned how to code.
It can be hard to feel too sorry for the lawyer reduced to a stammering mess when an opposing lawyer or judge brings up a precedent the lawyer wasn’t ready for. After all, these kinds of predicaments can be easily avoided with some proper legal research, right?
Felicity Conrad and Kristen Sonday, whose combined work experience includes international arbitration and operations management for a social club app, met at Gratitude Migration, a New Jersey shore art and global music festival.
Mindy Yocum was the mother of a 2-year-old, with another child on the way, when she got the worst kind of news. Her husband, Scott, was closing up at work when three men broke in, stabbed him nearly 30 times, cleaned out the cash register and cut the phone lines.
Call it a banner (and bandanna) Legal Rebels year: This year's 13 rebels are providing new ways to help immigrants find legal assistance; businesses comply with accessibility laws; drivers deal with parking tickets and lawyers do their time billing—painlessly.
For as long as we’ve had legal systems, prosecutors and police have needed to gather evidence. And for each new advance in communications, law enforcement has adapted.
It's common now for large law firms to have a chief knowledge officer to determine how technology can help lawyers do their jobs more effectively. When Michael Mills first took on that type of role for Davis Polk & Wardwell in 1990, hardly any others were around to imitate. The internet barely even existed.
For more than three decades, Richard Susskind has been one of the profession's most prolific voices in support of implementing technology with legal services delivery. He's the author of more than 10 books on the topic, and his next one will focus on technology in the courtroom.
For years, Paul Lippe has been a leader in helping corporate law departments adopt the approaches used in the best and most innovative parts of their own companies—and in doing so, significantly changing the relationships with and the work done by their outside lawyers.
During the past few months, I have been giving presentations all over the world. One of the things I would touch upon are the eroding effects of commoditization. I know there are a lot of misconceptions around this topic. By now, most lawyers acknowledge that commoditization exists, but most believe commoditized work equals "simple work" or "bulk work." This couldn’t be further from the truth.
Five years ago, a committed group of law firm leaders and law firm service providers embarked on a journey to reimagine the legal profession with a futurist’s view.
While many innovation journeys begin with an examination of the current state of a business, team, product or service in order to determine how to make what exists better, this innovation journey was different.
