The legal profession is one in which the education programs, training and practice have been anchored in the use of precedent – in stare decisis – in looking back in order to determine how to move forward. Every day, legal professionals ask: “How did we do ‘that’ for a client before, and, based on how “that” was done before, “how can we do ‘this’ for a client now?” We ask these questions to fulfill specific assignments given by clients often within a specific “legal spend” budgeted by the client. However, trends affecting the legal services industry – chief among those trends, the technological advancements of the last decade – necessitate asking different, broader questions while keeping in mind the stakeholders of the legal profession. Consider some of the technological developments: machine learning (or “AI”), cloud computing, data aggregation, online legal services, legal form documents in all practice areas and virtual (or augmented) reality, among many other advances that have already impacted, or have the potential to impact, the profession.

Lawyers spend a great deal of time “looking at precedent” and “looking back” to frame how we work so much so that looking forward, in a way that is completely separate from what has transpired in the past, may seem like a luxury or may even seem foreign. Each of us individually, as lawyers, and all of us together – lawyers, clients and other stakeholders in the legal profession – must continue to look to the future, and ask: How can, and how should, we practice differently?

We need to reframe the “precedent-based” anchors of legal practice and reformulate the way we have historically asked the questions about how we deliver legal services to clients so that (1) we are mindful of the lessons learned from precedent; (2) we are guided by client objectives; and (3) we are empowered by the boundless technological possibilities – some of which we do not yet know – that will help us curate how legal services and client work products are delivered.

A key to reframing the “precedent-based” anchors and the “client-centric questions” of practice lies in initiatives deliberately designed (A) to facilitate collaboration between lawyers and clients in meaningful ways that establish unique relationships (at all levels within the firm) and (B) to deliver legal services and client work product in the most efficient ways possible, in each case by employing existing technologies and creating new technologies, without regard to the impact on billable hours. We should embrace ways to help clients create legal work product that the client is better-suited to provide than is a lawyer (or an external lawyer). In other words, we should empower clients as much as we empower lawyers with the solutions that arise from new technologies and other forms of enhancements in the process of delivering legal services and work products.