Part II Match the attorney you pick to the decision-maker you face if a court, regulator, or prosecutor with a distinctive viewpoint will be driving the legal outcome. … An iconic statue of Lady Justice adorns many courthouses. Don’t take her blindfold too literally. For instance, a lawyer who practices…
Part I Where there’s a lot at stake in the matter at hand it’s usually best to begin with “Who’s the right lawyer?” — Not: “What’s the best law firm?” … Jane and Susan entered my office: “Jack wants us to ask you which environmental lawyer we should hire”. Jack…
Take-away #3: AI won’t replace a lawyer’s judgment. AI will drive labor-saving technology to perform law’s “manual” tasks. Jeffrey Carr put this best: Jeff Carr is that rare general counsel who reduced total legal costs and proactively headed off liability before it arose — instead of the steady, single digit increases in legal budgets that are…
Take-away #2 : The applications of artificial intelligence to legal industry tasks is robust in three areas where the relevant data is publicly available. In Part I of this series I wrote that the use of artificial intelligence (AI) to predict outcomes in civil litigation isn’t happening any time soon…
Application of artificial intelligence (AI) to business law is the subject of much hope and some hype among legal tech promoters, a handful of forward-thinking law professors, alternative legal services providers — and their avid followers in the legal media. Which brings me to the other (much larger) group —…
In Part I of this two-part series I introduced Crew Resource Management — CRM — the basic aviation safety protocol as an effective tool to stop corporate misconduct at its source. Several years ago I represented a pilot in an NTSB investigation. Working with three airline captains to prepare the…
Citing Wells Fargo & Co.’s “recent and widespread consumer abuses and other compliance breakdowns”, the Federal Reserve announced late last Friday that it, “would restrict the growth of the firm until it sufficiently improves its governance and controls”. The Wall Street Journal called the Fed’s action “unprecedented”. Ian Katz of…
Lawyers are indispensable for legal analysis. In fact, they’re so indispensable in situations that call for legal analysis that it’s dumb not to defer to them when a business decision depends on getting the law right. … Consider: While in corporate practice in early 1987, I was asked to advise…
While wrapping up Part I of this two-part series I learned through a friend about a sizable family business here in Chicago that has consistently sent its legal work to one of the most prestigious law firms in town — very capable lawyers — with whom I’ve worked directly. For…
Seth Godin’s blog post today — “The other kind of customer service” — offers an outlook pretty much foreign to the legal industry: “Reactive customer service waits until something is broken … “Perhaps we ought to spend more time being proactive. ” … Guiding the process so that most disappointments…