BigLaw, MVPs and all that

Classic business rule: develop the product then unleash it on customers. Modern business rule: find the skinniest expression of your product, unleash it on your customers, then lever up. Startup thinking has invaded the traditional business model.

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The confusion of legal education + post-script

While The Confusion Of Legal Education is based on US experience, it’s relevant to all developed countries.

There may be one or two individuals out there who have missed the deluge of articles about what is happening in legal education. Let me bring you up to speed. The recession wrought its fury on the robust pipeline of undergraduate students going to law school, ripping it open and allowing students in that pipeline to spill out and head towards other occupations.

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Deep thinking on the theory and practice of law

Ken Grady’s exercise in deep thinking on the theory and practice of law should be read, nay imbibed, by every practicing and aspirant lawyer, law firm leader, law school teacher and all others who care about the role of lawyers in society. Remember Philip Wood’s riveting The Fall of the Priests and the Rise of the Lawyers? If Ken and his kindred spirits are not heard, we may well be reading the sequel, The Fall of the Lawyers and the Rise of the…     

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Do clients prefer lawyers who are hedgehogs or foxes?

Ken Grady leads today with his intriguingly titled post: Do clients prefer lawyers who are hedgehogs or foxes? Refresh your memory about Archilochus, the Greek lyric poet (c. 680-c. 645 BC), famous for his poetry fragment: “The fox knows many things; the hedgehog one big thing” – Πόλλ᾽ οἶδ᾽ ἀλώπηξ, ἀλλ’ ἐχῖνος ἕν μέγα – and immerse yourself in addressing this profound question.

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What real transformative change could look like

What real transformative change could look like is the sequel to Ken’s post on Dialogue two days ago, Stagnation and the legal services industry. Ken does us all a great service by painting a concrete picture of his view of what the future might look like. He’s putting it out there for the rest of us to think about, test and challenge what real transformative change might look like. Let’s go to it!

I often write about radical transformation in the legal industry and how it has not arrived. That line of reasoning begs the question: what could radical transformation look like?

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