Who coined NewLaw?

I am often asked, ‘Who coined NewLaw?‘. For the record, here are the facts set out in a non-revisionist account of the circumstances from 2009 to 2016.

Contributions to deepen or set the record straighter are most welcome.

2009

Thanks to my friend Friedrich Blase, we know that in the Kerma Partners Quarterly, Issue 2 of 2009 Michael Huber wrote an article on The Emergence of “NewLaw” (Note: Michael wrote the neologism as one word with a capital ‘L’). Regrettably, the online page no longer exists but, courtesy of Friedrich, here’s an extract from the print edition that clearly shows Michael was onto the idea of a new business model as an alternative to that of traditional law firms.

“My belief is that there are a number of cross-industry views and best practices that can be utilized and applied to the NewLaw model starting with:

Managing the talent pipeline through the use of critical behavior interviewing and critical success-factor filtering, which also has the potential benefit of significantly reducing turnover and improving the retention of top performers.

Employing more of a project-management approach to estimating, managing and delivering successful outcomes, including a staffing process that reflects a more efficient way to achieve the desired outcomes and provides better associate satisfaction.

Utilizing more business acumen and intelligence to understand and deliver on the economic value added by the firm’s services.

New operational metrics to supplement the traditional backward-looking ones to provide a better sense of changes to supply and demand.

New points of view, new perspectives, new market offerings, new tools, new ways to manage — NewLaw.”

Michael cited Fred Bartlit’s Bartlit Beck (a breakaway from Kirkland & Ellis) and Pat Lamb’s Valorem Law Group (a breakaway from Katten Muchin Rosenman LLP) as examples of firms adopting these ‘new’ strategies. Clearly, Michael Huber was thinking of what I would now call ‘remade’ BigLaw (vide infra) firms.

Note: Michael Huber did not refer to non-lawyer ownership or external capital as dimensions of a NewLaw firm.

2010

The late and much loved Professor Larry Ribstein wrote ‘The Death of Big Law‘ in issue 749 of the Wisconsin Law Review. Larry Ribstein’s summary reads:

13 September 2013

On 13 September 2013, a member of our firm, Eric Chin, wrote 2018: The year Axiom becomes the world’s largest legal services firm. Based on their respective CAGRs of that time, Eric’s post speculated Axiom Law would overtake DLA Piper within five years, i.e. by 2018, as the world’s largest provider of legal services.

To find a collective noun for legal services providers like Axiom, Eric used NewLaw in his post. We both believed he had coined a neologism:  

“The meteoric rise of substitutes (in the Michael Porter sense) for traditional BigLaw firms is witnessing the emergence and growth of firms like Axiom Law, Riverview Law, Keystone Law, AdventBalance, to name but a few. To describe these substitutes I have coined the collective noun ‘NewLaw’ (emphasis added). These firms are designed around virtual work spaces and rely on the rise of super temps. Supertemps are lawyers who have been trained by traditional BigLaw firms who are now looking for flexible work arrangements. These alternative business model (ABM) legal services providers are able to provide the same or similar service levels to BigLaw – but at or below incumbents’ break-even points.” 

Note: Eric Chin (and I) thought he had invented NewLaw, unaware of Michael Huber’s earlier paper.

7 October 2013

Nearly four weeks later on 7 October 2013, I wrote The rise and rise of the NewLaw firm business model.

Within hours of posting The rise and rise of the NewLaw firm business model, my friend Joel Barolsky provocatively opened the batting in the Comments:

“Personally, I think you underestimate the strength and resilience of BigLaw and overstate the competitiveness of NewLaw. My view is based on 6 factors:
1. Semi-variable cost structure
2. Deal-driven profit – cyclical not structural
3. Globalisation – net impact is low for most
4. Labour arbitrage
5. Fixed pricing and efficiency dividend open to all
6. Reap and sow.”

As the first to comment, Joel set the tone, no doubt provoking both the many protagonists and antagonists who followed. 

In just four weeks, by November 4, I received nearly 25,000 words of Comments and Replies contributed by over 40 people from many corners of the globe.

The maelstrom was described by Richard Susskind as “a rapid-fire Socratic exchange…in the best spirit of peer production”.  

15 December 2013

Publication of NewLaw New Rules

No one can readily comprehend such a long and intricate thread. So with the help of Dr. Imme Kaschner and Eric Chin and the permission of 35 of the contributors, I turned the thread into an e-book, NewLaw New Rules – A conversation about the future of the legal services industry.

On December 15, 2013, we published NewLaw New Rules on Amazon and Smashwords, just over five weeks after closing the Comments. 

NewLaw New Rules was beautifully illustrated by Julian Jones; he used the metaphor of the flapping of a butterfly’s wings in the Amazon rain forests causing a tornado in Texas. Richard Susskind kindly wrote the Foreword.

Throughout we sprinkled Tweets gathered during the “rapid-fire Socratic exchange” to capture the energy we had unleashed (see two of these Tweets above).

7 February 2014

Aftermath: ReInvent Law, New York City 

On 7 February 2014, at the ReInvent Law conference in New York City among the 800+ delegates, I was privileged to meet many of the contributors to NewLaw New Rules.  Somewhat ironically they each kindly signed a physical copy.

This electrifying one-day event was a fitting form of e-launch of NewLaw New Rules; my thanks to Professor Dan Katz @computational, one of the organizers.  

December 2015

In anticipation of the publication of Remaking Law Firms, I launched a blog,  Dialogue on Remaking Law Firms. Dialogue has evolved to a multi-author global forum for those invested in BigLaw firms to add their voices to the remaking conversation.

March 2016

Finally, Remaking Law Firms

In the ensuing two years with Imme Kaschner as my co-author, I researched and wrote Remaking Law Firms; Why & How.

Our book was published in March 2016 by the American Bar Association. It received critical acclaim and is being widely read.  

In part Remaking Law Firms was a rejoinder to NewLaw New Rules and in part my answer to those BigLaw leaders who challenged me, saying “Now that you’ve scared the ‘s…’ out of us, what the ‘f…’ do we do?”    

Imme and I concluded their glasses are half-full and many opportunities are open to all who remake their firms.  

A month later, Ben Farrow and Ross Dawson and I published the first evidence-based on projections of market share in the legal services supply chain,  Why BigLaw firms must start remaking their business model now… “and by implication, the consequences of not doing so.” The
Delphi forecast was based on the views of 21 contributors from Australia, Canada, England & Wales, US and Western Europe. Many from BigLaw firms requested anonymity.

In summary, Who coined NewLaw?

• Michael Huber was the first to use NewLaw spelled as one word with a capital ‘L’. Michael was writing about ‘new points of view, new perspectives, new market offerings, new tools, and new ways to manage’ in traditional law firms; he did not directly address any fundamental changes in their underlying business model. (2009)
• Eric Chin was the first to apply NewLaw to a business model diametrically different to that of traditional law firms. Eric did so in the context of our team using the term BigLaw firms to characterize the business model of traditional firms. (September 2013) 
• George Beaton teased out the BigLaw–NewLaw differences and popularized NewLaw in his multi-contributor e-book NewLaw New Rules, thus enshrining the term in the world-wide lingua franca of legal services.  (October 2013)

At the end of the day, who coined NewLaw doesn’t really matter. What’s important is the delivery of legal services now has an increasing diversity of providers and is blessed with rampant innovation which will benefit consumers with access to justice.