Begin here.
Story One
Evolutionary (or adaptive) professionalism.
Technological change, shifting financial markets, expanding and contracting labor markets, fluid trade patterns – the legal profession has seen these before, and it’s seeing related things now. The values and principles that define law, lawyers, and the profession are durable and transcend the details of specific organizational forms and educational pathways. Law schools today and law practice organizations should steer into the skid, so to speak, as they have learned to do in the past. That means accommodating new technologies and modes of education and practice into well-established pathways to professional excellence and community and client service. Innovation and disruption will come, as they should, but they lead to legal worlds that look slightly different tomorrow compared to how they look today.
If that’s your story of law and legal education, then its central strategic implication is pretty simple. You don’t need to do much except carry on, ride out the tough times and celebrate the good times. There is little need to lead. Be as distinctive as you must to maintain your competitive position. But in the spirit of E.M. Forster, only respond.
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