Your Responses To 'Mapping The Obstacles To Innovation In Law'

No one will admit it but #IOLTA hampers innovation. Treating all $s as earned in receipt gives lawyers $s up front to hire & invest in efficiency. But no one will get rid of IOLTA because it pays for legal aid. Why not impose a tax instead?

— carolynelefant (@carolynelefant) July 24, 2018

+ 1 on the lack of affordable tech for solo and small firm lawyers who work with modest-means clients. Please keep us in the loop as you move forward.

— Community.lawyer (@LawyerCommunity) July 24, 2018

Go Bob! Pls add data standardization and data capture. As courts add e-filing and other e-functioanlity they need standard protocols that will allow analysis court-court, state-state, and eventually with PACER.

— Linda Tvrdy (@latvrdy) July 24, 2018

Here’s a link to a post by LTSF member, Bob Ambrogi, in which Bob solicits feedback on impediments to legal innovation. As you'll see, Bob's doing important work, here so please consider responding. https://t.co/3F6un4ghS8 #legaltech @bobambrogi

— Legal Tech StartUp Focus (@LegalTechStrtUp) July 24, 2018

Mapping The Obstacles To Innovation In Law@bobambrogi crowdsourcing reasons, offers great starting listhttps://t.co/rwQ9AvIWk8
My views from a 2006 article, Top 10 Reasons Lawyers Resist Innovation: https://t.co/jJNzdpygVl

— ronfriedmann (@ronfriedmann) July 24, 2018

Here’s the problem. Let’s say I want to offer a divorce package that costs $3000 every 6 months. If earned on receipt (and now trust account/IOLTA), I can sell 20 packages & pay $60k to hire a junior associate to work those files.

— carolynelefant (@carolynelefant) July 24, 2018

But if $s are earned on completion, I don’t get my $60k until 6 months later and I am stuck doing 20 low ball cases myself and scrambling to keep up.

— carolynelefant (@carolynelefant) July 24, 2018

I guess it’s not IOLTA per se but trust account requirements. Which are onerous. But they are being reinforced by tech rather than eliminated because trust account tech is low hanging fruit.

— carolynelefant (@carolynelefant) July 24, 2018

Help @bobambrogi crowdsource obstacles to innovation in law. https://t.co/gIHI5SVwgQ // I don't know if this is an obstacle, but we don't seem to know what innovation is or what success would look like.

— Sarah Glassmeyer (@sglassmeyer) July 24, 2018

Nice job on this list @bobambrogi! We would add the following – Law schools and the legal profession more generally need to value and recruit people with skill sets that have not been traditionally valued in the past. Entrepreneurship is one example. https://t.co/cyQQ0WeKzC

— JEP Chicago (@JEP_Chicago) July 24, 2018

It's the prohibition on accepting payment for our own services in advance of providing them. Not actually to do with trust funds. And yes, it is one of the problems. Also it's stupid, because it treats us as less trustworthy than the rest of the world.

— Jason Morris (@RoundTableLaw) July 24, 2018

Yes you have articulated the problem better than I have.

— carolynelefant (@carolynelefant) July 24, 2018

Definitely a lack of #iterative #design where #innovation in courts are concerned. Too many focus on introducing an all singing all dancing "solution" instead of working in an #agile way. A/B testing of smaller #features would produce more sustainable long term change

— Clocktimizer (@Clocktimizer) July 24, 2018

This is great. I’ve got one: ethics rules and opinions are not nimble enough to keep up with innovation. Remember when everyone was freaked out about the cloud and whether lawyers could ever trust their docs to it? (I know still some hesitance..)

— Rebecca Fordon (@theFordon) July 24, 2018

there are two different issues in "lack of ABS" that I think should be teased out. First, inability to raise capital to build things by selling equity. Second, lack of incentive to improve long-term performance of firm due to lack of a market for partner's equity shares.

— Jason Morris (@RoundTableLaw) July 24, 2018

The second one is often overlooked. Even if capital was available by other means, and it may well be, partners are not motivated to make the firm wealthy after their own departure. They can't turn that future value into present value when they leave. That's a separate problem.

— Jason Morris (@RoundTableLaw) July 24, 2018

I would also add overly proscriptive regulations that set out "how" instead of "what an why", making innovation in internal matters a regulatory breach.

— Jason Morris (@RoundTableLaw) July 24, 2018

But the big one is that everyone assumes that innovation means a different way of doing something already being done, when what we need is people to do the myriad things that aren't. Innovation must include entirely new services provided by entirely different people.

— Jason Morris (@RoundTableLaw) July 24, 2018

There is a faiure to start from "what do people need", and a tendency to start from "what do lawyers do?" Regulators need to listen to the dog that isn't barking, and ask if the existing regulations make certain categories of services impossible to provide, and as a resut, get.

— Jason Morris (@RoundTableLaw) July 24, 2018

Well observed, best way to avoid these is to whack a healthy serving of client into the system

— Maziar Jamnejad (@MaziarJamnejad) July 24, 2018

Great list @bobambrogi. I think you highlighted all the major issues. If I didn't go to @VermontLaw and take @jeicks "Hacktivist" course I never would have considered innovating in #legaltech or created #TextALawyer

— Kevin S. Gillespie (@KevinSGillespie) July 24, 2018

Bar associations need a business lesson. Investing in #legaltech #startups becomes prohibitive once you pile the overly-burdensom #RPC on top of an inherently risky #Investment. And when investors find out the bar might write an adverse advisory opinion, they run for the hills. pic.twitter.com/DizZfCEJHq

— Kevin S. Gillespie (@KevinSGillespie) July 24, 2018

I would add on to that – openness/accessibility of data. All the new analytics tools coming out, based on PACER data—How much sooner would we have seen them if each co hadn’t had to pay millions to obtain PACER docs (same true for case law, often statutes)

— Rebecca Fordon (@theFordon) July 24, 2018

Oh, and access to data on non-trial legal outcomes, plus standardized data as to factors being considered by decision-makers would help immensely to increase the scope of what it is possible to automate. Data infrastructure.

— Jason Morris (@RoundTableLaw) July 24, 2018

This is a great list! One additional, overarching regulatory obstacle: Self-governance in the form of lawyers regulating themselves and their competitors, with oversight (if any) usually provided by former (and often future) lawyers on state supreme courts.

— Responsive Law (@ResponsiveLaw) July 24, 2018

Focus on offering discrete #divorce services on a flat rate basis that have a defined scope and outcome so that you can bill each client regularly and earn more. Have associates specialize in various aspects of the journey. Most people can't afford the full service model.

— David Michaels (@davidmichaels) July 24, 2018

While it is implicit in many of your bullet points, I believe that we all just need to come out and say it explicitly: there is no single, monolithic "legal" market that we can address with tech. The various segments within legal are far too distinct.

— Michael Simon (@RoninMikeSimon) July 24, 2018

@bobambrogi At the very least, let's make clear your point on "too many solutions are aimed at big firms only" comes down to the very distinct markets for "law for big corporations" vs. "law for people." The 1st has an efficiency problem. The 2nd has an effectiveness problem. https://t.co/5yUH5JOyvB

— Michael Simon (@RoninMikeSimon) July 24, 2018

That works too. But it works better if you can lock in work at low cost & use cash paid up front to hire a lower cost employee to service those clients

— carolynelefant (@carolynelefant) July 24, 2018

SMEs are simply priced out by traditional law firms, they deserve a much better service from legal industry.@BobAmbrogi https://t.co/QbuelaRINk

— Witmart (@witmartcom) July 24, 2018

One of the most impactful ways the #legaltech community could improve the #legalsystem and bring about #innovation in #law would be to collectively develop an open source #database system complete with #APIs that state #courts can adopt for free.

— Jeff Cox (@JeffCoxEsq) July 25, 2018

In response to @bobambrogi’s crowdsourcing request: One foundational obstacle is simply having consensus on the definition of #legalinnovation — many are overwhelmed by the term innovation thinking it is all #legaltech and big, profession-wide “disruption,” & they then shy away. https://t.co/kOOmzconPN

— Anusia Gillespie (@anusiagillespie) July 25, 2018

pic.twitter.com/0LkROqcxen

— Mike Whelan (@mikewhelanjr) July 25, 2018

@bobambrogi – might be helpful to talk about how technology can improve existing processes, Hire An Esquire is using technology to connect firms that need help with contract attorneys. https://t.co/1EYpLMasbX

— HireAnEsquire (@HireAnEsquire) July 25, 2018

By referencing someone smarter, Drucker: Innovation is (1) the development of new wealth- producing resources or (2) the enhancement of existing resources with greater potential for creating wealth; & adding the PSF piece: always, in service to clients. https://t.co/y65vBlJHCq

— Anusia Gillespie (@anusiagillespie) July 26, 2018

See Attachment A, @wihender’s landscape report and message that, “the legal profession is at an inflection point that requires action by regulators,” and predicting that CA will lead. Appendix A is good too — visual of all the #legaltech companies in queue. https://t.co/tPuVrvcaBx

— Anusia Gillespie (@anusiagillespie) July 24, 2018

@wihender and @bobambrogi — what happens in the private sector, exactly, if and when Rule 5.4 changes? Are the floodgates suddenly open for the PWCs of the world and #legaltech companies? Are they only open in the states that adopt? How would this all unfold?

— Anusia Gillespie (@anusiagillespie) July 26, 2018