P2P

27 I L T A N E T . O R G T he global pandemic has come to serve as a punctuation mark in the long sentence of life. As individuals, having spent a year away from the ordinary patterns we found ourselves in before 2020, it's only natural that we are in a continual flux of assessing our priorities. For law firms, the idea of "connection" had been changing for quite some time and, as with many other industries, the pandemic accelerated trends that were already there. The impact we are seeing is similar to the Global Financial Crisis of 2008-09 that ushered in an era of efficiency for professional services firms, even though many of the ideas around investment, automation, and risk management had been simmering for quite some time. What about our previous life do we miss? What constraints and inconveniences do we refuse to carry forward into our new normal? The influence that time away from the office has had on the individual psyche cannot be underestimated. And what is an institution, corporation, or law firm if not a collection of individuals? This article will discuss the shift in cultural mindset necessary for law firms to become more adaptive, innovative organizations. The article will also address the drivers and methods for firms to adopt nimble, confident attitudes that embrace the new and developing legal tech resilience. Let's start by examining the American law firm. A singular data point serves well as an indicator of how much they learned from 2020: their workforce strategy. Every day, another law firm releases its plan to return to the office in some measure. The tone-deaf nature of these plans rings loudly in a world where geography is no longer a constraint for people or productivity. Large, established firms returning to their pre-pandemic business model appear like a horse and buggy competing with Tesla. At the same time, a new, more interesting pattern is emerging in the legal landscape, one that carries promise for real innovation to take root. Regional firms and Big Law are competing for the same clients and talent. Regional firms are welcoming Big Law talent who left the city in haste in March 2020 and discovered the Midwest towns they were bored with in their younger years aren't so bad after all. These bright, ambitious associates have happily traded the rat race for a slower pace, and they are finding an openness and optimism to their higher-tech ideas. And at the same time, the future-forward, highly adaptive Big Law firms have begun plucking regional talent to help establish their presence in these new markets. This impetus for change began with a simple appreciation for a changing cultural mindset, and those firms that are powering this shift will be the future of law firm innovation. "Regional firms and Big Law are competing for the same clients and talent."

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