New law is a wide-ranging concept that encompasses many different types of legal innovation. It is important for all lawyers to understand how to harness this concept and utilize it to their advantage. It is a growing area that is ripe for growth, and taking advantage of it can be a great way to generate new revenue for your firm.
A new law is a business solution that is not covered by existing law or precedent and requires unique analysis and a creative solution. Its development typically involves a multidisciplinary team including a lawyer and other specialists. In some cases, it may involve a client-facing technology component, but it must always be designed to meet the specific legal needs of the matter at hand.
The concept of a new law is a natural extension of the ongoing evolution of the practice of law. Increasingly, clients and businesses are seeking innovative solutions to address legal problems that require more than just traditional services. Lawyers are responding to this trend by developing new service lines that leverage a variety of techniques including e-discovery, blockchain, alternative fee arrangements and artificial intelligence. These new service lines can be offered on a standalone basis or as a supplement to traditional legal practices.
New legal products and services are more collaborative, customer-centric, accessible, affordable, on-demand, scalable, data-backed and solutions-based. The legal industry will more closely resemble its corporate customers and society at large with its diverse cognitive, demographic, cultural and experiential workforce that is more creative, tech and data-proficient, empathetic and collaborative. This workforce will work in integrated teams with cross-functional enterprise colleagues to identify, assess, mitigate and eliminate risk, free up management time for generating and capturing business opportunities, deliver cost savings to the bottom line, and enhance the experience of legal consumers.
The new law of legal innovation is a paradigm shift that moves the legal industry away from its self-serving legacy delivery models to customer impact and high net promoter scores. It is enabled by technology and powered by human adaptability. The process is driven by customer activism and accelerated by corporate Goliaths with the brand, capital, know-how, customer-centricity, collaboration capabilities, scalable technology, multidisciplinary expertise (“non-lawyers”) and footprint in/familiarity with the legal industry.
Governor Kathy Hochul signed legislation today that makes changes to the State’s alcohol laws, allowing bars and restaurants to offer alcohol to go, enabling consumers to get the drinks they want when and where they want them. The package also includes legislation to update the State’s laws on catering establishments, supporting small businesses in this sector.