Recalculate the Future of Law
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We’ve been engaged in a year-long project to imagine the law firm of 2023. Dan Katz of Michigan State University has also been taking on law’s future through the ReInvent Law Laboratory. We talked with him about legal startups, incentivizing innovation, and what he tells lawyers who “don’t do math.”
Andrew Benedict-Nelson: I’d like to do a little Rip Van Winkle experiment with you. Let’s say you fall asleep for ten years. It turns out you’ve fallen asleep in a law firm. What do you imagine the place is like when you wake up and look around? How would it be different?
Daniel Katz: What type of law firm? I don’t think broad generalizations are usually right. I don’t think the strategy for a member of the AmLaw 200 is the same as a mid-size regional firm or a single hangar. The market is pretty diverse.
Andrew Benedict-Nelson: Let’s start with an easy limit on the exercise. You should pick a type of firm that will still exist ten years from now.
Daniel Katz: Well, prestigious firms like Cravath will still exist. The ratio of partners to associates may look different. But they’ve captured a certain segment of work, and it’s hard to see how it would get yanked out of their hands. Sort of like Yale will probably be the last school to be hit by change.
Read original articleTags: Law Firm, Michigan State University, Reinvent Law Laboratory, Rip Van Winkle
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