For two years in a row, Legal Services Corp. head Jim Sandman has spoken to Stanford University's CodeX FutureLaw conference about a ranking of firms based not on profit or revenue, as The American Lawyer offers annually, but on technological innovation. The idea, as Sandman proposes it, is that firm technology adoption has the power to accelerate tech adoption across the whole legal industry, most necessarily around access to justice.

“Get The American Lawyer to rank law firms based on their use of technology. Publish it. Shame them. The rankings of law firms change behavior,” Sandman urged the crowd in 2016.

Daniel Linna, professor of law at Michigan State University College of Law, was compelled to take up Sandman's call this year. Linna, with the help of a group of students at MSU Law, last week published what he calls “Phase 1” of the Legal Services Innovation Index, a detailed data collection of various law firms' use of various different kinds of tech and innovation strategies.