Great post that won’t sound at all sweet to many in the legal sector.. well worth a read
Dynamex, Broken Cites, and Turbulence at the Top of the Legal Industry
Altman Weil, a management consultancy, recently published the results of their annual Law Firms In Transition survey, which collected responses from more than half of all US law firms with 50 or more attorneys. What struck me most was Altman Weil’s assessment of where the legal industry stands in 2018–10 years after the Great Recession.
As Altman Weil sees it:
- technology is a threat to the business model of these larger law firms, and
- most firms have a false sense of security because profits are currently strong.
The implication is clear: efficiency is the enemy of the current law firm business model.
Unfortunately, pretending that everything is fine won’t prevent the threat or stave off the eventual crisis. Technology-driven change is coming, and it’s coming far faster than most lawyers realize.
The reason is simple: lawyer quality is far below the standard clients think they’re paying for. The Dynamex lawsuit?—?a case where the California Supreme Court recently upended the “gig economy” at the heart of Silicon Valley?—?demonstrates this in spades.
The California 20
First, a little background. Earlier this year we ranked the litigation departments of the 20 largest law firms in California:
