The Evolution of the Legal Services Market

Jordan Furlong ^ Law21.ca ^ November 2012

....There’s no real consensus within the legal market about just what’s happening to it. We don’t appear to have a collective sense of what kind of road we’re traveling, where it’s taking us, and at what stage of the trip we currently find ourselves.

This is important, because without a shared understanding of both our journey and our destination as marketplace participants, it’s difficult to talk about how to make the trip better, shorter, and more productive.

So I thought I would set out my views on the state of the legal market and how change is rippling through it: where we’ve been, where we are, and where we’re likely to go.

It seems to me that there will be five stages in the ongoing evolution of the legal market — and by extension, the legal profession itself. By my reckoning, we’re about halfway through Stage 2. ....