As lawyers, we’re always on the lookout for new opportunities to help our clients grow and prosper. That’s why many legal professionals are exploring law new – a new approach to delivering legal services that is designed to be fast, practical, predictable and cost-effective.
Like other industry terms, “law new” has become a catchall that encompasses everything from legal technology (LT) to legal ops to ALSPs and more. But to deliver real value, law new must be rooted in a well-thought out change process that is designed to produce impactful results for legal consumers and society at large.
That change starts with the right leadership. Leaders must be bold, courageous and open to collaboration. They must be willing to challenge existing paradigms that compel their firms to focus on transactional matters rather than helping clients meet their strategic goals and objectives.
Those leaders must also be able to build and lead a team that is nimble, collaborative and diverse. This team must be made up of legal practitioners, “legal techies,” project managers, process analysts and other allied professional staff. And they must be committed to ensuring that their work is focused on addressing the most important legal challenges facing their clients and their companies.
The speed and breadth of business and social change require the legal industry to more closely resemble its corporate customers and society at large. This means it must be more cognitively, demographically and culturally diverse, as well as highly creative, tech-proficient and customer-centric. And it must be able to deliver legal products and services that are accessible, affordable, on-demand, efficient, data-backed and solutions-oriented.
Achieving these goals will require collaboration between the private sector, public entities and other stakeholders. Fortunately, this is already underway. For example, the recent Covid-19 pandemic is just one example of how different sectors are working together to tackle a complex and challenging problem.
Likewise, California is taking a small step toward gender equality by banning stores from charging more for shampoos and other personal care items marketed to women than men. The new law could eventually end the so-called “pink tax.”
The new law is a part of a broader effort by the state to reduce income inequality. Last year, lawmakers passed several bills aimed at improving the lives of poor and working-class Californians, including expanding access to free community college for low-income students.
The next step in implementing the law new vision will be to bring more transparency about pay at work. The state is considering a law that would require companies with 15 or more employees to include salary ranges on job postings. This will give job seekers a more accurate picture of what the jobs really pay and could help eliminate some of the discrepancies in pay that have been reported in recent studies. The state’s legislature will take up the issue again this fall. The legislation is expected to pass both houses of the legislature and receive Gov. Gavin Newsom’s signature.
