Book Review – Remaking Law Firms: Why & How

When I first started writing about the need for the legal profession to reinvent itself back in 2009, that kind of thinking was considered to be heresy. Now, reinventing the legal profession has hit the main stream with media coverage, conferences, unconferences, blogs, hackathons and law school courses trying to make sense of what is going on, and trying to determine the proper direction of travel. What was missing was a neat and tidy map of the entire legal services ecosystem to give direction and guidance for those who want to re-create their law firms. Thanks to Remaking Law Firms: Why & How recently published by George Beaton and Imme Kashner, we now have that roadmap, one that provides an excellent overview of all the major structural issues facing our profession; governance and structure of law firms (including a short discussion on the Australian experience with non-lawyer investment), project management, process improvement, alternative fees, nomadic lawyering, legal process outsourcing, legal technology, knowledge management and analytics, along with insightful comments on change management.

The authors divide their book into two parts: the why and how of remaking law firms. Part one makes use of years of research on players in the legal services ecosystem in the United States and elsewhere giving the reader a firm understanding of the current playing field for legal service providers, and the problems that have begun to arise from sticking with the traditional service delivery model. The authors also provide a tool to help law firm managing partners determine their firms’ readiness for change followed by Part Two’s discussion on designing a business model to morph into a so-called, “NewLaw” firm; a model that needs to clearly and precisely “articulate, how work is won, how work is done and how the enterprise is governed.” Among much other advice, the authors argue that to be successful in this new age of legal services, law firms must be more client-centric, more efficient and more agile. Something that’s very hard to do with entrenched attitudes and competing interests. The authors counsel those who wish to re-think law firms to “be infinitely patient,” before wishing them “Godspeed” in the conclusion!

In short, Remaking Law Firms: Why & How is a well-done, easy to read, first resource for anyone trying to make sense of the pressures impacting the legal profession now and over the next decade.