Raj Abhyanker, LegalForce RAPC Worldwide founder
Image: Jason Doiy/The Recorder
With knowledge management officers leading the way, law firms like Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati and Littler Mendelson are jumping on the Big Data train that much of their clientele is already aboard. Wilson is leveraging its market position in venture funding with a quarterly data dive that anyone can access. Littler has given clients a dashboard so they can follow — and analyze — every agency charge the firm is handling at a low fixed fee enabled by some serious process engineering.
Attorney recruiting and development is another area where the troves of data that exist within firms can be tapped to guide and improve decision making. Some firms are turning to an outfit called Lawyer Metrics that offers a "moneyball" approach to attorney recruitment.
And then there are lawyers like Raj Abhyanker, a serial disrupter of legal business models. In 2009 he started the Trademarkia website to make it easy and cheap to file trademark applications. His latest idea seems crazy — a beautiful storefront bookstore-slash-lobby in downtown Palo Alto where consumers can come to browse the shelves or sit down with a lawyer for a quick chat. Until now, he points out, there's been no place in the Bay Area where you could walk in and talk to a lawyer at 8 at night. That might seem like a good thing to you, or a bad thing. Either way, it's changing.
— Greg Mitchell, Editor in Chief
Littler's Game Changer
By Greg Mitchell
Littler's Scott Rechtschaffen leads the firm's knowledge management department and helped design its CaseSmart system for clients facing administrative charges.
LegalForce Creator Shakes Things Up, Again
By Julia Love
Trademarkia's Raj Abhyanker's latest innovation is, well, retro. Step inside his brick-and-mortar retail store.
By Greg Mitchell
Wilson Sonsini gets a competitive edge crunching its own deal data and using it to help entrepreneurs who aren't — yet — clients.
By Greg Mitchell
A former Big Law recruitment manager is behind a system of predictive analytics for attorney hires — or "moneyball for lawyers."
The Future of Law as Seen From Silicon Valley
By Aric Press
There's a vision of what the future of law practice looks like, and it's beautiful. ALM editor in chief Aric Press highlights the compelling ideas shared by thought leaders at Silicon Valley's ReinventLaw conference.
