Archive for the Category "Law21"
The iFuture
For the record, I don’t intend to buy one. At least, not for a few more years and not until the inevitable upgrades, improvements, fixes, and content distribution changes have run their course. But well before the iPad 3.o arrives, the original version will have had a serious impact on the computer industry, on the [...]
Posted in Law21 | 8 Comments »>
The Obsolescence Audit
Just 20 short years ago, if you wanted to buy a book, you had to go to a bookstore. If you wanted music, you had to visit a record store, and if you wanted to read the news, you had to buy a newspaper. Then Amazon.com debuted in 1994, Google was incorporated in 1998 and [...]
Posted in Law21 | 1 Comment »>
Size and the Legal Media
If you happen to subscribe to my Twitter feed, you’ll notice that I regularly post links to stories of interest in the legal press. If you look closely, you’ll notice that a great many of those stories pertain to developments in very large law firms. That’s not because I’m fascinated by BigLaw or because I [...]
Posted in Law21 | 1 Comment »>
All Good Things. . .
“Eighty percent of the poor in the United States are unable to afford a lawyer or find pro bono help for their civil legal problems, according to the American Bar Association.” That sentence, from an American Lawyer article last month, is not only embarrassing. It’s also an omen.
The article in question, titled “Unmet Needs,” was [...]
The Canary In Our Coal Mine
The legal profession is on the verge of an extremely serious problem. If you want to see what it looks like, check out what Chicago-based firm Mayer Brown has just done. According to the Chicago Tribune, the firm has offered its new associates a deal: take a $100,000 pay cut (to $60,000) and go work [...]
Posted in Law21 | 3 Comments »>
To the Class of 2012
….and so once again, best wishes from all of us on the faculty to you, the class of 2012, as your journey through law school begins.
Before I yield the microphone, I have some news to share both with you and with my colleagues: that little lottery ticket I bought on a lark at the corner [...]
What the Recession Will Bring
“Are we looking at a second Depression? I don’t think so,” said Paul Krugman, NewYork Times columnist and Nobel-Prize-winning economist, during his luncheon address to the Canadian Corporate Counsel Association’s World Summit [PDF] last week in Vancouver. Then he added: “A month ago, I would’ve said, ‘Absolutely not.’ But today, I’m going to say, ‘I [...]
Posted in Law21 | 1 Comment »>
Re-engineering Law Schools
Considering that it has the potential to profoundly reshape the nature of American legal education, I’m a little surprised that the Interim Report of the Outcome Measures Committee of the ABA’s Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar hasn’t received more attention since its release in June. Aside from brief mentions at the [...]
Posted in Law21 | 1 Comment »>
The Future of Law Firm Branding
A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about the ascendance of individual lawyer brands. Today, I want to write about the corresponding decline of law firm brands. And there’s no better place to start that discussion than with the fate of Heller Ehrman.
Heller Ehrman, if you’re not familiar with it, is a century-old California law [...]
The First Annual Blue-Sky Challenge
Okay, so here we are, in the dog days of summer. Canadian readers have just come off the August long weekend, and most probably wouldn’t object if this three-day holiday were suddenly extended to a full week by executive fiat. But no matter where you are (okay, not Australia), you’ve had your fill of daytime [...]
Posted in Law21 | 4 Comments »>
Private Knowledge Management Teams
The benefits that knowledge management can deliver to a law firm are well documented. They include reducing wasteful duplication, increasing the firm’s intellectual capital, enhancing the firm’s ability to anticipate and meet client needs, improving the firm’s recruitment and retention arsenal, and more besides. Firms that get KM right, like Morrison & Foerster, have every [...]
Posted in Law21 | No Comments »>
A Major-League Approach to New Lawyer Recruitment
Now that baseball season is (finally) with us again, I’d like you to meet Kevin Ahrens. He’s not a lawyer, judge or law professor – he’s a 19-year-old from Houston who has foregone college to start a career as a professional baseball player. Last June, the Toronto Blue Jays chose him with their first-round pick [...]
Posted in Law21 | 7 Comments »>
The Inconvenient Truth about Articling
Last week, the Law Society of Upper Canada’s Licensing and Accreditation task force delivered its Interim Report To Convocation [PDF] on the province’s bar admission scheme. I think it’s a groundbreaking report, brimming with indisputable facts and uncomfortable choices about the state of the current system and the urgent need to reform it. Other reports [...]
Posted in Law21 | 6 Comments »>
Amazon.law
If you’ve ever ordered an item from Amazon, you know that every time you log back in to the website, you’re greeted with a list of recommended books, CDs and DVDs. Amazon compiles this list based both on your product purchases and the pages you’ve recently browsed. Essentially, Amazon alters its understanding of and relationship [...]
Posted in Law21 | 6 Comments »>
Millennial Fever
During the past 50-odd years, the North American legal profession has been notable for a ready supply of labour. The post-war population boom and increased access to post-secondary education, combined with the enduring lure of a legal career, ensured that there would always be a deep pool of lawyers into which firms could dip for [...]
Posted in Law21 | No Comments »>
