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After 35 Years, What’s Next for Law Firms?
Co-author Susan Raridon Lambreth wrote an article for the Report in 1989 about what’s ahead in the next 50 years1. The pace of change today is such that had we known how rapidly technology would advance, we would have significantly shortened the time horizon. Which brings us to 2024. In addition to new technologies, we could foresee an era in which innovative business models would emerge to compete with traditional law firms. We just didn’t know which business models would emerge.
There were some unexpected twists and turns. If you were in the legal community 50 years ago, did you imagine:
• The world’s largest firms would include thousands of lawyers in dozens of countries, with the largest veriens exceeding 10,000 lawyers? And the highest revenue firms would exceed $5 billion in revenue?
• Venerable institutions like Dewey Ballentine, Strook Strook & Lavan and Bingham McCutchen would no longer exist?
• Partnersintopfirmswouldcommandfeesinexcessof$2,500 an hour and associates $1,000?
By Susan Raridon Lambreth & Joseph Altonji
• Alternative legal service providers (ALSPs) would embrace advanced technologies by providing services faster, better, and cheaper, and siphon off billions of traditional law firm work?
• Legaloperationsrunningthelawfirmorthelawdepartment as a business would take on a life of its own, increasingly important for optimizing legal services and improving service delivery?
We might’ve missed some of the above advances, but some of our other predictions did materialize. We nailed it when it came to the omnipresent use of computers and the fast availability of information. With all this technology we thought society would become less litigious, but the demand for legal services has grown even as the field has become more competitive with increasingly sophisticated clients and competitors. Fortunately, innovation within the industry has come to the rescue helping law firms manage costs more effectively than ever.
THE REPORT | July/August 2024 | CincyBar.org 7
