DON’T BE CRUEL - Law firm leaders who don’t adapt their communication styles—particularly moving away from top-down, old-school “tough guy” talk—to a changing workforce risk alienating workers and enduring unwanted backlash. As Law.com’s Patrick Smith and Hank Grezlak report, what people want in their leaders and the way they want leaders to communicate has been changing and it’s been accelerated by the pandemic as well as generational differences, legal consultants said. In other words, folks want Ted Lasso, not Bobby Knight.
ARE BILLABLES KILLABLE? - Rave to a law firm about how much more efficient generative AI has the potential to make their client work and the response may not be as enthusiastic as you’d hope. After all, the still-dominant billable-hour model does not exactly reward time-saving measures. But, as Law.com’s Jessie Yount reports, there are plenty of industry observers who believe AI could accelerate a trend they say is already emerging. “Historically, in the absence of data analytics and tools that allow you to derive insights, people were paying for prestige and relationships,” said Nathan Cemenska, the director of legal operations and industry insights at Wolters Kluwer’s ELM Solutions. “Going forward, GCs are saying things like, ‘We’re buying an outcome from you.’ Or, in an RFP context, ‘Here is the outcome we’re looking for, and how low can you go?’”
