A few years ago, when contemplating whether to continue working full time in my law firm, perhaps as a CIO, or start my blog, I talked to Aaron Street, co-founder of The Lawyerist. Aaron told me, “There are firms that want to be innovative, and then there are firms that just want to say they are innovative.”
I was reminded of this insight when I read the recent Thomson Reuters Report released in late June entitled The Digital Strategy Report. The Report compiled and summarized several statistics on whether law firms had formal strategies. Strategies to innovate their digital operations and move forward into the future. The Report was written by my friend Zach Warren of Thomson Reuters. Zach was formerly with ALM and a panelist on our weekly LegalTech Week roundtable.
The conclusions from the statistics were both depressing and downright scary.
The conclusions from the statistics were both depressing and downright scary. Depressing because of all the hoopla about how the pandemic has moved law firms forward from a technology standpoint. The Study, however, suggests to the contrary. When it comes to whether law firms look at tech and innovation with a long-term view, law firms haven’t changed much.
Scary because large language models and generative AI can potentially be disruptive. These technologies are almost daily morphing into different forms and present new abilities. But the Report confirms that too many law firms still have no plan or strategy for systemically dealing with and evaluating even existing technology, let alone new potential game changers like generative AI. Frankly, I think many firms that say they have a formal strategy to deal with digital transformation and potential disruption don’t. Or at least don’t have a plan that is in