How The Legal Industry Will Become Industrial: A Conversation With Axiom CEO Mark Harris

No one is happy in Biglaw. Someone is doing something about that.

happy-diverse-team-lawyers-partner-with-associates-300x205When Mark Harris started Axiom all the way back in 2000, he identified a problem that many Biglaw associates probably still encounter on a day to day basis: no one is happy. Clients aren’t happy because they are paying exorbitant prices due to constantly rising hourly rates and attorneys aren’t happy because of the quality of work and a nonexistent work-life balance. I remember having a conversation with a special counsel in early 2011, just a few months in to my stint in Biglaw, and asking him how the Biglaw firm model could possibly be sustainable. Who needed these fancy offices, personal secretaries and the other inflated costs of Biglaw firms? Why weren’t clients demanding leaner more efficient model and why wasn’t someone building this already?

Somebody was.

It turns out that Mark had identified this exact issue a good ten years earlier when he was but a baby lawyer at Davis Polk. Together with partner Alec Guettel, he set out on a mission to transform the legal services industry. I recently caught up with Mark by phone and then had a chance to meet up with him in Axiom’s hip, burnt-orange loft in Soho (I assume the coloring has something to do with the fact that Mark graduated from University of Texas School of Law). In both conversations, Mark emphasized over and over again that legal services is stuck in the artisan and apprentice model, while times are changing into the industrial model. Airplanes were once produced by artisans, but now they are built in factories by big companies like Boeing. Mark believes that this shift is the future of the legal industry.

Today, Mark joins me here on ATL for a conversation about the shifting legal industry and his advice to the next generation of lawyers and legal tech companies. As always, these aren’t “live chats,” they are real life conversations taking place asynchronously. So, for the best experience, click below the conversation to follow along like a fly on the wall.


Sponsored

Zach Abramowitz is a former Biglaw associate and currently CEO and co-founder of ReplyAll. You can follow Zach on Twitter (@zachabramowitz) or reach him by email at zach@replyall.me.

Sponsored