Plenary: Leaders' Visions for 2025
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Plenary: Leaders’ Visions for 2025 Presented By: Lynn Chard Institute for Continuing Legal Education Ann Arbor, Michigan Carmen Hill Connective DX Portland, Oregon Josh King Avvo, Inc. Seattle, Washington Pat Nester State Bar of Texas Austin, Texas Presented at: ACLEA 52nd Annual Meeting July 30th – August 2nd, 2016 Seattle, Washington Lynn Chard Institute for Continuing Legal Education Ann Arbor, Michigan Lynn P. Chard has been the Director of the Institute of Continuing Legal Education (ICLE) in Ann Arbor, MI since July 1, 1993. Prior to that time, she served as the Institute’s Publications Director and also practiced appellate law for several years. She has expanded ICLE’s services beyond traditional seminars and practice books to include extensive digital web and mobile services. She holds a JD, cum laude, from the University of Michigan Law School and earned a Certificate of Completion from HBX/Harvard Business School on Disruptive Business Strategy with Clay Christensen in 2015. Ms. Chard is active in the Association for Continuing Legal Education Administrators (ACLEA) and recently served as a Director‐at‐Large on the Executive Committee. In the past she has held many positions including Director‐at‐Large, Publications Committee Chair, and editor of the ACLEA Newsletter. Ms. Chard has served on the Advisory Board of the CLE Journal and on the Planning Committee for the CLE Summit. She is a member of the State Bar of Michigan, the State Bar’s 21st Century Law Practice Task Force, and the Continuing Professional Education Committee at the University of Michigan. Carmen Hill Connective DX Portland, Oregon A long‐time B2B marketer with a passion for content and digital, Carmen considers herself an early adopter, enthusiastic experimenter, grammar geek and social butterfly. As director of marketing at Connective DX, a digital experience agency headquartered in Portland, Oregon, she oversees content and digital marketing and edits the agency’s online publications. Carmen also helps organize Delight, the agency’s annual experience design conference. In her prior agency experience, Carmen built an award‐ winning content marketing practice and developed content and social marketing strategies for global clients such as Adobe, Google and Xerox. A marketing industry influencer, she has presented at SXSW and other events, as well as MarketingProfs University and Online Marketing Institute. Most recently she was recognized by Search Engine Journal as one of “50 Awesome Women in Marketing to Follow,” which you do on Twitter, LinkedIn and SlideShare: @carmenhill. Josh King Avvo, Inc. Seattle, Washington Josh King is the Chief Legal Officer for Avvo, Inc. He is responsible for Avvo's legal, government relations, and customer service functions. He is also a frequent writer and speaker on interactive media and professional ethics issues. Prior to joining Avvo in 2007, Josh spent over a decade in the wireless industry, in a mix of legal and non‐legal roles including Vice President, Corporate Development at AT&T Wireless and General Counsel for Cellular One of San Francisco. Josh started his legal career as a litigator in the San Francisco Bay Area. Josh earned a J.D. from the University of California Hastings College of the Law and a bachelor's degree from the University of Oregon. Pat Nester State Bar of Texas Austin, Texas After graduating from the University of Texas School of Law in 1975 and practicing for several years, Pat began his CLE career in 1978 as a legal editor for the Professional Development Program of the State Bar. In 1980, he migrated to the seminar side of CLE and became director of Professional Development in 1986, succeeding Gene Cavin, one of the founders of ACLEA. Pat served as president of ACLEA in 1994‐95 and as executive planning chair for the ACLEA‐ALI‐ABA CLE Summit in 2009. In addition to his CLE work for the State Bar, Pat serves as executive director of the Texas Bar College, an honorary society of lawyers created by the Texas Supreme Court for those who commit to at least twice the minimum CLE hours required. He also serves as executive director of the Texas Supreme Court Historical Society. Plenary: Leaders' Visions for 2025 Submitted by Lynn Chard, Director, ICLE Research & Analysis prepared by Mary I. Hiniker; June 2016 Copyright: ICLE, Ann Arbor, MI Trends in the Legal Profession, Technology, Communication and Marketing, Education and Publishing Introduction This paper is a resource for ACLEA members to use as you each explore your own future vision for your organization. It‘s a curated collection of links, with brief descriptions, to useful sources and examples of key trends likely to impact CLE organizations. While it includes brief analyses of possible implications of these trends, its main purpose is to save time with environmental trend research for CLE. Read it in its entirety for a high level overview or plunge into the substance by clicking on the links for an in-depth look at areas of interest. ICLE will use this to prepare for our annual SWOT analysis with our staff and our governing board; we plan to update it annually now that we‘ve gotten the base in place. We were fortunate to have Mary I Hiniker, an experienced CLE professional, willing to take on this project and bring her law background and 30+ years of CLE publishing and information service experience to the task. Trends in the Legal Profession General Resources 1. State Bar of Michigan: demographic information and lawyer income surveys; 21st Century Practice Report and further initiatives 2. ABA articles on the Future of the Legal Profession and lawyer demographics and law schools. See detailed info on Law Schools 3. Georgetown Law School Center for the Study of the Legal Profession 4. General searches and articles on competing businesses 5. Lawyer demographics o Fewer lawyers in the pipeline: law student enrollment is down 22% nationally since 2011. All MI law schools reduced enrollment last 5 years; Cooley drastically; ABA law school stats o MI Bar membership stable. Gradual increase in women members. Small increase in minorities. About 35% of members are in solo or small firm private practice. 46% are 55 or older; Source: MI Bar Demographics. 1 Internet Inroads into Legal Business Technology can save money by automating labor-intensive processes and can also reach a very large group of customers with a ―good enough‖ product. Because of this, tech-based services are encroaching on traditional legal work. A number of these tech-based services have been in business long enough to grow their content and refine their business models. Examples: o LegalZoom. In business 15 years. You can buy automated documents with enhancements (review, updating). Not rock-bottom cheap. See estate plan pricing. Also offer ―Business Advantage Pro‖ – monthly fee for consultations with a lawyer. o Nolo. Info and automated documents reviewed by legal staff. Includes lawyer ads. o Rocket Lawyer (backed by Google Ventures): Make one free document; sign up for a monthly subscription with access to lawyers ($35-$49/month). The ABA backed off a joint venture with Rocket Lawyer after complaints from lawyers. o Automated dispute resolution. Modria.com automates customer dispute resolution for e- commerce sites (geared to the business client). PeopleClaim is geared to the consumer (includes a registry for publicizing your unresolved dispute to encourage settlement). o At the high end, technology has automated parts of e-discovery and contract review. See ―Let‘s Automate All the Lawyers?‖ (WSJ 3-25-15). o At the low end of routine legal process, a free artificial intelligence lawyer chatbot successfully appealed 160,000 parking tickets across London and New York. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/jun/28/chatbot-ai-lawyer-donotpay-parking- tickets-london-new-york Law Firm Business Trends Global accounting firms can own law firms overseas, affecting large US law firms. In the US, business clients are bringing more work in-house and reducing litigation spending. Large firms cut expenses but resist change in the way they measure success. Source: Georgetown/Thomson Reuters 2015 Report on the State of the Legal Market. A few very large firms are doing very well. Regulatory Changes Unauthorized practice lawsuits are ineffective. There is pressure to allow multidisciplinary practice (MDP, ownership sharing or fee-splitting with non-lawyers) so that clients have ―one-stop shopping‖; also pressure to allow unbundled legal services to allow clients to purchase limited slices of a transaction. Most states currently don‘t permit either. Washington State does, and also licenses non-lawyers to perform aspects of legal services. Internationally, MDP is permitted. A growing number of states permit lawyers to handle a limited piece of a legal transaction (unbundled legal services). ABA and the State Bar of Michigan are studying these issues. Resources: o The Michigan State Bar 21st Century Task Force is making recommendations. o ABA Commission on the Future of Legal Services – provided summaries and are asking for comments on unregulated providers and alternative business structures Growth Areas for Practice Security/IT/privacy (worldwide, US, Michigan) 2 Legal issues in shift to use of biometric ids and other privacy issues Autonomous vehicles and related legal issues Protecting business information Personalized medicine/issues related to electronic healthcare information Influence of China Immigration issues Employment issues in the ―gig‖ economy (classification cases?) Litigation is declining because of cost and time to court Key trends to watch: shrinking and aging lawyer population; how will the small-firm business model adapt (and be allowed to adapt) to new competition; what are the key skills of the successful small-firm lawyer (tech-savvy, mobile, low-overhead, expertise in boutique areas; ways to provide full service)? 3 Trends in Technology General Resources 1.