Technology

Mapping The Obstacles To Innovation In Law

What needs to change for the legal profession to better deliver services to all who need them?

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Access to justice denied?

Allow me to crowdsource, if you will. Next month, I will be meeting with a group of state bar officials to discuss what they can do to promote legal services innovation and access to justice. In preparation for that, I have been trying to outline the barriers to innovation in law, figuring that the first step to overcoming them is to identity them.

I’ve developed this list and would greatly appreciate your thoughts on what I’ve missed. You cannot comment here, so send me your thoughts on Twitter (@bobambrogi) or by email (my last name @gmail.com). I will also put up a related post on my blog Lawsitesblog.com where you can comment.

Some of this is based on a two-part article I published here earlier this year on what I called “the innovation gap,” or why the justice system has failed to keep pace with technology.  In Part 1, I outlined six barriers to broader adoption of innovative technologies in law, and in Part 2, I offered 10 suggestions for how we “reboot” the legal system.

But that article focused on technology, and my focus now is on legal services more generally and, of course, access to justice. This is not an attempt to come up with all the answers, but simply to identify the obstacles as a first step towards overcoming them. I’ve broken them down into two groups: regulatory obstacles and socioeconomic obstacles.

Here is my list. Feedback welcome.

Regulatory Obstacles

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  • Overly restrictive and burdensome advertising rules inhibit lawyers from reaching the consumers who need their help and inhibit consumers from obtaining access to information about legal services.
  • Protectionist prohibitions against the unauthorized practice of law and non-lawyer legal assistance
  • Restrictions on non-lawyer ownership of law firms that inhibit innovations in legal services delivery
  • Restrictions on unbundling legal services
  • Restrictions on fee-splitting that block lawyers’ participation in referral services
  • Restrictions on multi-jurisdictional practice inhibit clients from hiring the best-qualified lawyers for their matters

Socioeconomic Obstacles

  • Many lawyers remain afraid — literally — of technology and so avoid it.
  • Lawyers lack competence in technology.
  • Lawyers see innovation as a threat to their business models and livelihoods.
  • The law firm business model — especially hourly billing — promotes inefficiency and is threatened by innovation.
  • Courts are stuck in a vicious cycle of underfunding and overwork that inhibits innovation.
  • Courts adhere to outmoded models of dispensing “justice” that are inherently inefficient and unsuited to the modern world.
  • Investment in legal technology is concentrated on products for large firms and corporate legal departments and not on ones that can enhance legal services for low- and moderate-income people.
  • Law schools fail to prepare law students to be innovative and entrepreneurial.
  • Most lawyers stubbornly believe that only they can effectively deliver legal services and that services delivered by anyone else or by any other means are inferior.
  • There is a gaping lack of evidence-based research into what works and what doesn’t in the delivery of legal services.
  • Lawyers who wish to innovate lack access to resources and support systems that would enable them to do so.

What other obstacles do you see? What needs to change for the legal profession to better deliver services to all who need them? Let me know your thoughts.

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Robert Ambrogi Bob AmbrogiRobert Ambrogi is a Massachusetts lawyer and journalist who has been covering legal technology and the web for more than 20 years, primarily through his blog LawSites.com. Former editor-in-chief of several legal newspapers, he is a fellow of the College of Law Practice Management and an inaugural Fastcase 50 honoree. He can be reached by email at [email protected], and you can follow him on Twitter (@BobAmbrogi).

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