Law new is a catchall industry term used to describe innovations in legal services that are not conventionally found in the legal profession. It encompasses new ways of working, new strategies to help clients, and technology and process that are incorporated into the delivery of legal services in the most efficient way possible. It is often a means to an end in terms of client service and profitability, but it can also be a form of social activism or community engagement.
While law new is a broad concept, it is most commonly associated with alternative legal services providers (ALSPs), which are companies or startups leveraging technology to augment the services provided by traditional law firms and in-house corporate legal departments. This includes companies providing technology solutions, outsourcing, and other forms of alternative legal services. It can also refer to a specific area of legal practice that does not involve a traditional partnership track, such as corporate finance or real estate.
The evolution of law new is a complex and dynamic process. While some of these changes may be relatively minor, others will fundamentally alter the nature of legal services. In the long run, law new will lead to a legal industry that is more integrated with businesses and societies it serves and provides a broader range of services.
A recent example of this change is the introduction of a new law in California that requires employers to disclose their salary information for job postings. This is a welcome step toward greater transparency, but it is merely a small part of the overall change.
This change in the industry will include the consolidation of provider sources. Firms and in-house legal departments will still be the dominant source of legal services, but they will collaborate more with one another and with other providers to meet their needs. This will be achieved through horizontal and vertical integration, joint ventures, managed services, and other collaborative mechanisms. It will erase artificial, lawyer-created distinctions between legal provider sources and enable the industry to deliver a broader spectrum of legal services in a more cost-effective manner.
This type of integrated delivery model will also require a shift in the way lawyers and clients think about legal work. The focus will move away from focusing solely on output and billing hours to a broader view of the value of the legal product. This includes a heightened focus on risk mitigation, data analytics and business intelligence, and global enterprise collaboration with other functions in addition to legal. It will also require an advanced level of data agility, a process-driven approach to capturing, unifying, and applying human and artificial intelligence to solve complex business problems and drive value. Ultimately, this will create an ecosystem that is more aligned with the client’s business objectives and deliver legal services that are truly transformative. It will also eliminate the perverse incentive of high hourly rates for litigation and transactional work that serves only to enrich the lawyers involved.
