At PSALA’s Passing of the Gavel on March 8, outgoing President Sean Monahan handed over his position to incoming President Tara Ghannam Binge.
Attendees were treated to a presentation by Jordan Furlong on “Tomorrow’s Law Firm – Today.” This informative session focused on the impact of changing market conditions on lawyers and law firms, as “Tomorrow’s Law Firm – Today” Law is becoming a buyer’s market.
Clients have taken the upper hand with outside counsel, as law firms grapple with competition from technology companies and alternative legal services providers while coping with shrinking retainers and internal succession crises. In the coming years, law firms will generate revenue from a diverse range of sources – including technology-driven products and the contributions of skilled “non-lawyers” – rather than from the billable efforts of lawyers alone.
Yesterday’s law firm model can’t cope with these new market realities — we need tomorrow’s law firm, and we need it now.
Jordan Furlong, a leading analyst of the global legal market and forecaster of its future development, explained the forces that are remaking the legal services marketplace and recommended six strategic responses that law firms can make to remain competitive in a time of great upheaval.
A Fellow of the College of Law Practice Management, co-director of the advisory board of Suffolk University Law School’s Institute on Legal Innovation and Technology, and a member of the Advisory Board of the American Bar Association’s Center for Innovation, Jordan Furlong has given dozens of presentations to audiences in the US, Canada, Europe and Australia over the past several years. He is the author of Law Is A Buyer’s Market: Building a Client-First Law Firm, and he writes regularly about the changing legal market at his website, law21.ca.