FL 93: Practice, Profit, Power

Reflecting on what I want to do on Fringe Legal this year, I realized I will return to the reason I started FL in the first place. To use writing and podcasting as a way to learn. So, I invite you to join me as I learn new concepts, explore ideas, and discover what others are working on working on.

So, I invite you to join me as I learn new concepts, explore ideas, and discover what others are working on working on.

Practice, Profit, Power

Back in FL#90I was reading The Legal MBA. I was thrilled to have James Markham and Darren Mee, authors of "The Legal MBA," on the podcast.

We explored how having a thorough understanding of business principles can elevate one's practice and reshape the firm. Their insights reveal the evolution of how firms approach growth, technology adoption, and service delivery. Here are selected highlights from the discussion:

The Business-Legal Intersection

Traditional legal training creates an intriguing paradox: while lawyers learn complex legal analysis, the fundamental business principles that drive sustainable growth often remain unexplored. As Darren shared,

"The benefit with traditional professional services is 'I am a corporate lawyer or I'm an employment lawyer.' But who do you work with? Anyone that's got a corporate law or employment law problem... you can't do that when you're starting to come up with more repeatable things."

Technology's Role in Modern Practice

The integration of technology in legal practice presents both opportunities and challenges. James offered an insightful perspective on technology adoption:

"Tech can be really good as a cultural change piece. If you are working in a very traditional way, it can be the thing that makes you look at that really exciting way other firms are delivering services."

Yet, the conversation uncovered a different perspective on how we review technology. As Darren noted,

"If you can read a paragraph about a particular form of legal technology and switch out the technology name with the word 'magic' and it still makes sense, that's a pretty good filter for whether there's some creative license being taken."

Strategic Implementation and ROI

I was particularly keen to discuss adoption, ROI, and a gap that's often the hardest to fill: leading with a use case. James shared his perspective:

"I don't think firms are great at framing that business case upfront. The 'what do we think this is going to do?' Let's do a pilot, test the assumptions, carry on, roll out. I think we do go 'kid in a sweet shop' - I'll have a bit of one of them, one of them, one of them, and see what sticks."

This sentiment was echoed in several conversations I had during today's (16th Jan) SKILLS summit, where there was a shift back to basics when it came to evaluating and rolling out tech. Summary of the conference coming next week.

🔖 The Sidebar

• How are companies using AI: 321 real-world gen AI use cases from the world's leading organizations
• Building effective agents: Anthrophic's offers a practical roadmap to success for developers and organizations looking to create functional and reliable AI systems.
• With AI-enabled code editors (Cursor) and app builders (Replit Agent, Bolt.new etc.) are we entering the time of software for n=1 users? Paraphrasing Replit CEO Amjad Masad.