legal technology pipeline
Post on 16-Apr-2017
768 Views
Preview:
TRANSCRIPT
The Legal Technology Pipeline
Ron Dolin, J.D., Ph.D.
Framework: Innovator's Dilemma
Changing Market Values
Legal Technologies and Companies
Disruptive to What, Exactly?
Identifying and Handling Disruption
Criteria for Adopting New Technology
Next Steps: Innovation and Design
If you could design a law firm from scratch, what would it be like?T.L.*, p. 155
* T.L. Tomorrow's Lawyers, Richard Susskind I.D. The Innovator's Dilemma, Clayton Christensen
Innovator's Dilemma Framework
Disruptive vs. sustainable technology
Changing market values
Diminishing high-margin market
Business structure dependencies
Market research useless
Discovery-based planning (failure IS acceptable try, try again)
Established Market Values
Comprehensiveness
Complexity
Customized (Susskind bespoke)
High Quality
Established Relationship
Risk Avoidance (stereotypical outside)
Predictability (workload, outcome) ?
Market moving to demand-driven...
Amid all the uncertainty surrounding disruptive technologies, managers can always count on one anchor: Experts' forecasts will always be wrong.I.D., p. 178
Incoming Market Values
Unbundled and selective
Systematized where possible
Efficient
Low(er) cost
Metric-based ROI (e.g. Google PPV/CPC)
Risk minimization (stereotypical in-house)
High Value* = quality / cost* value vs. Value
New Market Pricing
Context of Disruption:
Legal System Attributes (vs. Disks)
Imposed: adhesion (e-bay), small claims...
Barriers to adoption: UPL, state bars, etc.
Time span: 5, 10, 20 years?
Few metrics: quality, ROI, accuracy, etc.
Minimal standards (e.g. XML, metadata)
New associate training (vs. medicine)
Hybrid Model: AFA's and billable hours
Disruptive products tend to be simpler, cheaper, and more reliable and convenient than established products.I.D., p. 219
MS Word vs. Google Docs
Susskind: Disruptive Technologies
Document automation
AI-based problem solving
Intelligent legal search
Big data
Online dispute resolution
Online legal marketplace
Workflow and project management
Relentless connectivity
New-Look Law Firms:
They do not seek to replicate the pyramidic profit structure, or to bill by the hour, or to work from expensive city buildings...
They are less hide-bound by past practices, more flexible, and more respectful, I expect, of ideas that emanate from lawyers who are young or young in heart.
T.L., pp. 128-9
U.S. Legal Technology Sampler*
Cloud-based e-discovery (EasyESI)
Modular ODR (Modria)
Legal research (Ravel, Judicata)
Litigation outcome analysis (Lex Machina)
Legal services (Rocket Lawyer, LawGives)
Virtual practice (DirectLaw, MyCase, CLIO)
Enhanced document automation (KMSystems)* Full disclosure I invest in some of these.
Disruptive to What, Exactly?
I.D., Susskind: market based on new values
Disks: capacity size consumption cost
Legal services demand increasing Value
Law firms are hybrids, continuums:
Billable hours not likely to go away
Non-billable inefficiencies waste money
% of AFA likely to increase two types:Hourly (e.g. discounted rate)
Caps (e.g. fixed fee, max limits, contingency)
Two ways to increase Value; tech helps both
There is a big difference between the failure of an idea and the failure of a firm.I.D., p. 179
Example: Document Automation
Law firm has early-stage startup pipeline
Current model:
Each partner silo processes startups with, say, $10K deferral, repaid only if/when funded
Junior associates: interviews, paperwork, etc.
Experiment (proposed by 1st year associate):
Centralized processing for early stage work
Document automation (client/atty components)
Requires only, say, a $5K deferral
Goal: reduce losses, increase pipeline
No longer will it suffice to have mere interpreters, who explain technology matters to lawyers and legal matters to technologists.T.L., p. 112
Technologists Amongst Us
Google:
Annual employee happiness survey
Annual bring-your-kids-to-work day: impact!
20% free project time
Incentives to play and stay
Big Law:
Punishment for crime of going to law school?
Paying off loans and leaving?
Innovation tolerance, tools, etc.?
What kind of behavior is incentivized?
Identifying and Handling Disruption:
Expanding vs. Adopting
Probably useless? improbable that someone else could utilize the technology (directly) to challenge your business model?
Adoptable? is there a potential role for the technology within your organization (within the timeframe of the potential impact)?
Disruption means definitively no to both: requires a change in business model?
Easier to expand existing than to adopt new!
In most companies, however, individual managers don't have the luxury of surviving a string of trials and errors in pursuit of the strategy that works.ID, p. 179
What is the formal process by which your firm monitors emerging technologies and evaluates their potential for your various practice areas?T.L., p. 153
Criteria for Adopting New Technology*
Value: # people, degree helped, time/$ saved...
Capacity to absorb: key support, maintenance...
Cost/Risk: $ investment, risk level, migration...
Tactical: relative importance, experience...
Learning curve: implementation, upkeep, use...
* See JOLT, Vol. 26, #1, Fall 2012
They must be plans for learning rather than plans for implementation.I.D., p. 181
Stanford Design School:
Legal Innovation Program
Institutional support (e.g. CIO, senior partner, ?)
Adequate team
domain expert (associate)
implementer (programmer)
biz dev? others?
law student (future legal technologist)
Appropriate project (e.g. measurable ROI)
Appropriate technology (not bleeding edge)
Design methodology discovery-based
Advice to interviewing law students: you should view with great optimism a firm that insists that it is driven not by its competitors but by its clients' needs, that the market will clearly require fundamental changes, and that the conservatism of other firms presents an opportunity for a new market leader to emerge.T.L., p. 151
Conclusion
Evolution in foresight is revolution in hindsight
Multiple legal technology pipelines:
startups
technologists
Incentivize innovation
of
Click to edit the title text format
Click to edit the title text format
Click to edit the title text format
top related