Ron Friedmann’s highlights from the Altman Weil CLO 2018 survey

This post covers regular contributor Ron Friedmann’s highlights of the annual Altman Weil CLO Survey.

Law firm innovation takes more than talk

In Law firm innovation takes more than talk, Ron Friedmann writes the legal market remains abuzz with innovation talk and articles, but absent from that discussion is assessing the impact of innovation. I explain here the innovation buzz and assess its current state and impact.

Assessing it turns out to be hard, so I include a case study of Ogletree Deakins to illustrate one innovation approach.

Two paths to legal innovation that change how lawyers work

With growing relaistion that collaboration in the legal services supply chain is key to strategic innovation, Ron’s post – Two paths to legal innovation that change how lawyers work – is timely. 

In my last post, I wrote unless innovation changes how lawyers work, it likely delivers little benefit to firms or clients. Since publishing that post 10 days ago, three recent items suggest two ways to get lawyers to change how they work.

Snapshot of the legal market, missing link, and mystery disconnect

In Snapshot of the legal market, missing link, and mystery disconnect Ron Friedmann draws on two recent US surveys, the Altman Weil 2017 Chief Legal Officer (CLO) Survey and the 2018 Report on the State of the Legal Market by The Center for the Study of the Legal Profession at the Georgetown University Law Center and Thomson Reuters Legal Executive Institute and Peer Monitor®, respectively, to construct a snapshot of the state of the legal market.

Ron builds on his analysis to argue there is a disconnect between anecdotal information that alternative services providers (aka NewLaw firms or law companies) are growing and taking share from BigLaw and the published data.

I have a sneaking explanation but will wait to make the first Comment on this thought-provoking thought. 

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