Technology

Why Axiom's Mark Harris Named A New CEO And His Advice To Lawyers

Disruption should be "tech-enabled but services led."

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axiomOn October 19th I kicked off a ReplyAll conversation with Axiom CEO Mark Harris. I expected that, like most conversations I post, it would run for a day or so, with each of us chiming in on our own schedule and readers following along like a fly-on-the-wall as the conversation unfolded. I did not expect that the conversation would last two weeks, and I certainly did not expect that, in the middle of our conversation, Mark would name Elena Donio as the company’s new CEO and segue into the role of Executive Chairman, a move that we ended up discussing in real time.

Elena has traveled the journey from a few hundred million to a Billion in revenue.  And that is exactly the company-building adventure that is ahead for Axiom.

But even if we made some news, there were other nuggets in that conversation that caught my attention. From a distance, we lawyers have seen revolutions taking place in the financial industry and wonder how technology and new business models are going to create those same kind of tectonic shifts in the legal industry. Close your eyes and imagine “the future.” Is it filled with fancy white shoe law firms? Are clients still paying junior associates exorbitant hourly rates for work that could often be handled better by robots?

And yet, when you look around today, it is hard to notice the change.

That’s why I found Axiom so interesting and began doing a deep dive into the company earlier this August. What makes Harris’ vision unique is his emphasis on disruption being “tech-enabled but services led.”

Technology on its own will fail to deliver legal industry disruption. Disruption in the legal industry will be tech-enabled but services led.

Why? You need a services-led change program to get people/companies operating in a new way.  Then, and only then, can you successfully introduce technology solutions that can be adopted to support and underpin that change…

In other words, before technology can change the legal industry, you would have to first rebuild legal from scratch, which is how Harris views his work last sixteen years doing. And just in case you were planning to leave your job to build a legal tech start-up, you might want to first consider Harris’ metaphor:

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By contrast, selling tech-only solutions into the legal industry today would be like selling a conveyer belt to a blacksmith in the late 1800s.  You cannot sell the instruments of industrialization to artisans!  They aren’t ready for them and have no idea what to do with them!

Now, I’m sure there are CEOs of tech companies that disagree with Harris’ assessment, but what you can say for his position is that it describes why, despite the availability of powerful new technologies, legal doesn’t seem to budge. Earlier this year, I attend the Apttus Accelerate conference in San Francisco where I spent two days learning about new innovations in legal (disclosure: I was a guest of Apttus, and they paid for my travel and hotel). After the conference, I asked a friend of mine who is a senior associate in a San Francisco firm what new technology, if any, his firm was using?

“None.”

Harris, for his part actually admits that some companies are gaining traction with law firms, but my friend’s answer still feeds right into Harris’ narrative:

I really haven’t seen meaningful traction by legal tech companies among the large enterprise corporate clients Axiom works with. It may be the case with law firms or smaller companies, but the large corporate segment is a challenged landscape for legal tech in the near future.  That’s partly because it’s hard to establish that channel (took us 15 years to build what we have today) but it’s mostly for the reasons above – the table is not yet set and the offerings are thus unlikely to get to critical mass because of that.

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So what does all this mean for lawyers?

With respect to those who are already practicing lawyers: Be unbridled in your approach to a legal career – there are now many more ways to have a really successful, rich professional life.  Understand the forces at work in this industry and how they are creating a demand for new skills (project management, large team leadership, process engineering, etc).  Seek opportunities with employers ­ –  whether  traditional firms or alternative providers – that embrace change and reject precedent for precedent¹s sake.

And last, don’t feel boxed into the industry even as it is defined today – change is the constant, so become a student of where we’re trending and build skills that will differentiate you in the future.

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.

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