“What they really need is leadership willing to make decisions.”
That’s what one reader feels is going to be required of the law firm of the future. And that’s true, isn’t it? Although it’s inherent in some of the responses we’ve seen from the authors included in HighQ’s book on Smart Law – in order to make changes and be ready for the future, you have to have curiosity and open-mindedness, a level of comfort with innovation. But really, you have to have guts.
It reminded me of the phrase clients have been using for years – “Change or die.” I’ve blogged about it before, so I searched Zen to see where it came up – and you might be surprised to see that we’ve been talking about this for six years already:
Law Firms: Change or Die? from Georgetown’s Law Firm Evolution Symposium of March 2010
Change or Die? A General Counsel Panel – Part I from the General Counsel Panel at the Legal Marketing Association’s Conference in March 2012
Change or Die? A General Counsel Panel – Part II
We keep talking about changing or dying, and sometimes, changing an industry like the legal industry is like turning an ocean liner – it takes time. Will we see the monolithic shifts in the industry that we hope to in the next five years? The next ten? That remains to be seen. But we do need bold, strategic thinkers with varied characteristics and guts to be leading the charge. As Will Rogers said “Even if you’re on the right track, you’ll get run over if you just sit there.”
Today, let’s look at what two more authors in HighQ’s ebook see as necessary characteristics for the law firm of the future.
Ron Friedmann: Better Service Delivery
Ron Friedmann is a consultant with Fireman & Company and President of Prism Legal Consulting. I love what he has to say about the law firm of the future, and not just because he emphasizes getting rid of the caste system within law firms. His focus for the law firm of the future is two-fold, and it all focuses on the client.
First, lawyers must learn to work better with other professionals (my recommendation – let’s stop using the term “non-lawyer”). How does this benefit the client?
Read more: http://www.zenlegalnetworking.com/2016/09/law-firm-of-the-future-move-it-or-lose-it/
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