This past weekend, I attended the annual meeting of the College of Law Practice Management. The attendees are a mix of lawyers and law firm managers (including chief administrators, marketers, HR, and technology). We spent an entire morning working in small teams. Each team had the task of envisioning two types of law firms in the future (e.g., a firm handling commoditized work or a 25-lawyer firm focusing exclusively on IP work) and what the critical resources would be. Teams had about one hour to think through the scenario for each firm type. While I did not keep precise count of the 16 “reports” we generated concerning what the firm would be like and the resources it would need, many of the scenarios required very heavy use of technology. In quite a few, technology was the lynch pin that would allow the firm to exist and thrive (given the constraints imposed by the facts of the exercise). It was interesting to see that a diverse group of lawyers and managers, many with several decades of experience, focusing on the importance of technology. Perhaps this bodes well for the future of legal technology.
