The law is a constantly changing field that affects everything from everyday life to the operation of our society and economy. For lawyers and law students, keeping up to date can be a time-consuming challenge. There are a few different ways to go about it. One way is to subscribe to a newsletter or blog that will pick out the important stories in a particular area. Another way is to run a search in a legal research database, such as Bloomberg Law or LexisNexis, and set it up to automatically send you results at regular intervals. Yet a third approach is to use the same database to create an alert that will tell you when there are new cases or articles mentioning your subject area. Which of these approaches is best for you depends on how and why you want to keep up to date and your level of expertise in the subject area.
The legal industry is shifting its focus from cost-cutting to delivering client value. This will require a different type of law firm that is integrated, focuses on process, and embraces technology. It will also require a workforce that is diverse in multiple ways, cognitively, demographically, and culturally. This workforce will be creative, tech and data-proficient, empathetic, and collaborative.
Legal platforms are transforming the legal environment by making it more accessible, affordable, on-demand, scalable, and solutions-based. They are a repository of data and collective experience to address significant challenges and opportunities at the speed of business and society. These legal platforms are built upon collaboration and are powered by the rapid evolution of technological capabilities.
In a world that is increasingly automated, machine learning (ML) and other artificial intelligence (“AI”) technologies are being applied to all kinds of tasks that once were the domain of humans, from detecting fraud in credit card transactions to assisting lawyers with fact analysis in litigation cases. These tools are rapidly improving in quality, cost, and speed and are being embraced by both large law firms and clients.
The future of law is a complex and evolving picture, with no single path for the legal industry. One possible future is the consolidation of large law firms through horizontal and vertical integration, joint ventures, managed services, and other innovative arrangements. This will enable them to leverage infrastructure, share costs and risk, pool expertise, and meet client demand for more efficient legal services.
Freezeout transactions, where a controlling shareholder buys out minority shareholders, have become common since the stock market downturn of 2000 and the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002. However, little attention has been paid to their effects on the long-term performance of firms in bankruptcy. This Article makes the first comprehensive assessment of these strategies, arguing that they can be counterproductive and suggesting an alternative reform.