Earlier this year, I received an invitation to write the epilogue for a book called New Suits: Appetite for Disruption in the Legal World, by Michele DeStefano (founder of the groundbreaking Law Without Walls program based at the University of Miami Law School) and Guenther Dobrauz-Saldapenna (partner and leader of PwC Legal Switzerland and leader […]| Law21
The first time I heard Richard Susskind speak was at a Canadian Bar Association conference in Montreal in 2007. That was also the first time I heard one of the best parables about professional services ever told. I’ll try to paraphrase Richard’s delivery from memory: “Black & Decker, the power tool company, had just hired […]| Law21
Last month, while writing an article about professional development in the law, I impulsively posted the following question on LinkedIn: Quick survey for those of you who began your careers as law firm associates: How many months and/or years did it take before you felt like a reasonably competent and confident lawyer? The answers came […]| Law21
In honour of Star Trek‘s 46th anniversary, let’s write a little sci-fi story. Suppose you woke up one day and found that for some reason — maybe a tear in the fabric of the space-time continuum, who knows — it had become impossible to docket time at your firm anymore. No device for tracking time […]| Law21
For several years now, I’ve been talking about the concept of a “legal market.” When I first began using the term, it wasn’t in wide circulation — when discussing big-picture issues that affected everyone in the law, lawyers tended to talk about the “legal profession,” which neatly excluded everyone who wasn’t a lawyer. Sometimes I’d […]| Law21
I’m very pleased to let you know about Lawyer Licensing and Competence in Alberta: Analysis and Recommendations, a report written by me for the Law Society of Alberta. The law society’s Benchers (the elected lawyer directors of the province’s legal services regulator) accepted the report and all of its recommendations earlier this month. Preparations are […]| Law21
Welcome news last week out of Oregon, where the state Supreme Court unanimously “approved in concept” two alternative pathways to lawyer licensure that don’t involve writing the bar exam. The potential new routes to bar admission were proposed in the July 2021 report of the Oregon State Board of Bar Examiners’ Alternatives to the Bar […]| Law21
Think about these two questions for a moment: 1. What would you want to know about a person before agreeing they should be allowed to become a lawyer? 2. What would you want to know about a person before agreeing they should be allowed to remain a lawyer? How would you answer them? These are […]| Law21
I was happy to contribute an article to the latest issue of leading European legal industry magazine Legal Innovation and Technology Today. You should read the entire issue, which includes great pieces about DEI in the legal sector by Christy Burke, agile law firms by Chris Bull, and key corporate legal trends by Ari Kaplan. […]| Law21
