Big Money Is Betting On Legal Industry Transformation

Big Money Is Betting On Legal Industry Transformation writes prolific contributor to Dialogue, Mark Cohen.

If “Money makes the world go ‘round,” then the legal world is spinning as never before. Law has been big business for decades, but only recently has significant venture capital, private equity, and entrepreneur money been pumped into the legal sector. Last year saw an eye-popping 718% increase in legal industry investment, and this year’s capital infusion through the third-quarter has already surpassed last year’s $1 billion total and could well double it.

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It’s the business model that matters

It’s the business model that matters is another Mark Cohen masterpiece dissecting the failings of the BigLaw business model by reference to three pioneering NewLaw model firms, particularly the little-known FisherBroyles of the US. 

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Remaking News of the Week: Harvard’s latest case study

Today’s Remaking News of the Week: Harvard’s latest case study reports on Lexoo, a NewLaw business legal services provider, and latest in a long line of law-related enterprises studied by Harvard academics.

As far as I can judge David Maister wrote Harvard Business School’s first case study on a law firm in 1983, Bennett, Strang & Farris. David was the trail-blazer of a treasure trove of work on the economics, strategy, culture and evolution of law firms and the legal services industry.   

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Ron Friedmann critiques report on Alternative Legal Service Providers

Hard on the heels of Heather Suttie’s No Alternatives Anymore post on Dialogue, Ron Friedmann critiques the recent Georgetown report on Alternative Legal Service Providers 2019.

Perhaps influenced by the subtitle, “Fast Growth, Expanding Use and Increasing Opportunity”, the many articles covering it suggested the findings portend trouble for law firms. I read the report differently.

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No ‘Alternatives’ Anymore

These days reference to ‘alphabet soup’ is frequent when speaking and writing about legal services. I recently heard Richard Susskind rattle off 20 different acronyms and names for the many and varied forms of legal services provider, which in my Remaking Law Firms book I called a ‘kaleidoscope’. In today’s post our regular contributor Heather Suttie calls for abandoning the term ‘alternative legal service provider’ (ALSP). I heartily concur. Read what Heather says and decide for yourself.

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