This collection of new laws is updated weekly, following the publication of legislation in the New York State Law Journal and the issuance of a notice by NARA assigning public law (PL) numbers. It includes enacted, vetoed and some proposals that did not pass into law during a given legislative session. You can change the year you are viewing on the Search page or use the filters to select a particular term.
The speed of business change and the breadth of social change compel all industry stakeholders to adapt, but some are further along in their adaptation journeys than others. One such sector is the legal industry, whose traditional delivery model is rapidly eroding. Legal consumers and society at large demand a law firm or in-house legal department that is fluid, agile and on-demand, and which offers services designed to maximize customer impact and end-user experience.
Several approaches are advancing toward law new, including legal ops which has introduced established business processes, technology and multidisciplinary expertise (non-lawyers) to the legal industry. While this is good delivery hygiene, it is not innovation. Legal ops is internal-facing and tactical, while innovation is strategic, client-facing and client-centric.
A law new approach must be driven by customer/end-user outcomes and experience rather than a legal practitioner’s desire to improve the performance of a legal tool or process. It must be an element of a holistic, integrated delivery plan reverse-engineered from the end-user perspective, and it should incorporate lawyers and allied professionals, as well as technologists, process/project managers and data analysts.
Law new will consolidate the legal industry by horizontal and vertical integration, joint ventures, managed service arrangements and other collaborative mechanisms. Large law firms and in-house legal departments will continue to be the industry’s dominant provider sources, but they will operate from different economic models, cultures, remits, tech platforms, and data. This will be balanced by an integrated, platform-based delivery structure from which agile, fluid, on-demand, and verifiable, material expertise can be sourced.
Despite their vast differences, companies such as GM, Ford and Honda collaborate on a wide variety of development initiatives to create innovative products that benefit their customers and society at large. This is emblematic of the fluid, collaborative and integrative mindset that is increasingly prevalent in the business world.
As the legal industry struggles to shift to a law new paradigm, the most likely driver of change will be from two distinct sources: (1) large-scale legal buyer activism and (2) corporate Goliaths that have the brand, capital, know-how, customer-centricity, data mastery, tech platforms, agile, multidisciplinary workforces, and footprint in/familiarity with the legal industry. These forces will reshape legacy legal providers, and drive them to adopt a new business model that is more in line with its customers and society at large. Then, “new law” will be more than fresh icing on a stale cake. It will be the foundation of a new legal industry.
