This article is spot-on (I'm one of the few on HN that have worked as an attorney in biglaw).
One theme it barely touched is that, like any other technology, legal innovations inevitably get commoditized. Fundamentally, law firms have been unable to properly adjust to this commoditization due to a lack of technology (outsourcing is a short term solution). The only solutions they come up with are to cut overhead costs, which only gets you so far.
The big picture for the legal industry, is that you have extremely bright young people fleeing the industry because this lack of technology forces them to do this mundane commoditized work. And like any commoditized product, the basis for competition ends up on price, which ends up just forcing these people to handle intense amounts of mundane commoditized work. This is obviously not sustainable, if you want to maintain a law firm with the best and brightest legal minds. It's my observation though, that most partners in a position to do anything either do not see this or do not care (because they'll be gone by the time things fall apart anyways).
Exactly! What I've learned, though, is that there is always a need for a human being at the end of the process. That's where lawyers will always be needed: to exercise nuanced judgment that just cannot be systematized (yet). The trick is to be a lawyer who can work as part of a bigger process that includes smart technologies and less expensive (and perhaps, less skilled) labor.
This is right - there is always a need for humans at the end of the process. The problem is, though, that in traditional law firms many things that can be done by computers are done by humans. This has a couple of effects:
1. Soul-sucking work. Want to know why so many lawyers hate what they do? Because they are doing stuff that computers can do better and faster. It kills initiative, creativity, and any sense of joy.
2. Higher bills for clients. This is all done by the billable hour, so having humans do lots of soul-sucking work is extremely lucrative. We recently had a massive all-hands-on doc review that needed to be done over the course of about three days. For those three days with everyone (and I do mean everyone) doing it, the firm billed $MM/hour in aggregate.
One theme it barely touched is that, like any other technology, legal innovations inevitably get commoditized. Fundamentally, law firms have been unable to properly adjust to this commoditization due to a lack of technology (outsourcing is a short term solution). The only solutions they come up with are to cut overhead costs, which only gets you so far.
The big picture for the legal industry, is that you have extremely bright young people fleeing the industry because this lack of technology forces them to do this mundane commoditized work. And like any commoditized product, the basis for competition ends up on price, which ends up just forcing these people to handle intense amounts of mundane commoditized work. This is obviously not sustainable, if you want to maintain a law firm with the best and brightest legal minds. It's my observation though, that most partners in a position to do anything either do not see this or do not care (because they'll be gone by the time things fall apart anyways).