I have over the last year spent some time thinking about what is going to happen within the legal industry (following my transition from in-house to private practice to start up within contract innovation area). I am not going to say that everything is about to change with disruption but there are some notable trends that I cannot disregard:
– in general – the ”legal” market in a wide context must be growing (I do not have any solid facts to this). More regulation, longer contracts, more international work, more complex business models.
– law firms are generally not growing anymore. In-house are not growing but finding methods to cope with ”more for less”. Contract management initiatives are being welcomed as it addresses these issues with lower cost and more efficient work methods
– technology solutions are now becoming visible on the legal arena – what you maybe can question is whether the adoption rate will be high. There may be forefront runners within the private practice area – but we will not see the major take up here. Likely more by in-house team and contract management teams.
– Legal work & contract management is still not being automatized to any major degree – there must be efficiency & quality gains to be made within this area.
All in all – for those interested in moving the frontiers this will be very interesting years to come.
Please read the interesting article by Tim Cummins – head of IACCM – on similar topic. Contracting Excellence.