Author archives

Jordan Furlong is a leading analyst of the global legal market and forecaster of its future development. Law firms and legal organizations consult me to better understand why the legal services environment is undergoing radical change, and they retain me to advise their lawyers how to build sustainable and competitive legal enterprises that can dominate the new market for legal services. Over the past several years, he has addressed dozens of law firms, lawyer organizations, legal regulators, and others throughout the United States, Canada, Europe, and Australia. My presentations help lawyers think differently about the services they provide and counsel law firm leaders about re-engineering their firms’ purpose, strategy, and operations. He has also authored several books and white papers that analyze the rapidly evolving legal market and illuminate the forces and trends driving change in this environment. After graduating from Queen’s University Faculty of Law in 1993 and completing his articles at Blake, Cassels & Graydon in 1994, he was called to the Bar of Ontario in 1995. Shortly thereafter, he began an award-winning career as a legal journalist, culminating in a decade as editor of three leading Canadian legal periodicals (The Lawyers Weekly, National, and the Canadian Corporate Counsel Association Magazine). In 2007, I launched Law21: Dispatches From a Legal Profession On The Brink, which went on to become the only non-American blog to be included six straight years in the ABA Journal’s Blawg 100.

The Generations War comes to the law firm

The Greek philosopher Heraclitus taught “Change is the only constant in Life.” It is not rhetorical to state that we are living in a time of seismic change. Jordan Furlong frames the challenges and opportunities as It’s not about who’s right, Boomers or Millennials. It’s about the most profound change to the fabric of the legal profession in 40 years, and how we’re going to get through it.

Subjects: Uncategorized

In the post-AI legal world, what will lawyers do?

Jordan Furlong writes the legal profession is about to go through what manufacturing already has. In the next few years, legally trained generative AI will replace lawyer labour on a scale we’ve never seen before. An enormous amount of lawyer activity consists of researching, analyzing, writing, developing arguments, critiquing counter-claims, and drafting responses. A machine has now come along that does most of these things, much faster than we do. Today, the machine needs lawyers to carefully review its efforts. Within two years, I doubt it will.

Subjects: AI, Communication Skills, KM, Legal Marketing, Legal Profession, Legal Research, Technology Trends, United States Law

Imagine there’s no partners. And no associates, too.

Jordan Furlong, Legal Sector Analyst and Forecaster, presents an engaging and actionable plan for figuring out how law firms are going to work in future. Furlong states this will occupy countless partnership meetings, conference agendas, and consulting engagements all over the legal industry throughout the next several years. Don’t worry if you don’t have all the answers — nobody else does, either he says. We’re all just getting started. What he suggest though is that figuring out what law firms are going to become requires first letting go of what they used to be. A good start towards accomplishing that would be to abandon the antiquated titles and categories into which we’ve been cramming law firm personnel for the last hundred years.

Subjects: AI, KM, Leadership, Legal Marketing, Legal Profession, Management

The intentional law office

Legal sector analyst Jordan Furlong writes that it’s taken two years of rolling pandemic lockdowns to shake us from our torpid habit of gathering together only to work alone. Over the next decade, a Stanford professor estimates, US workers will spend a quarter of their work time at home — “the number of person-days in the office is never going back to pre-pandemic average, ever.” This has obvious ramifications for corporate office space, employee well-being, and even climate change. But the workplace itself is ground zero for this change, and there will be enormous ramifications in this regard alone. Furlong’s thought provoking essay identifies critical choices that can be made that will result in better outcomes for law firms moving forward.

Subjects: Communications, KM, Law Firm Marketing, Leadership, Management, Telecommuting

The legal regulation revolution

Attorney, legal sector analyst and author of the book Law Is A Buyer’s Market: Building a Client-First Law Firm, Jordan Furlong’s long read offers insights on this unique time as North Americans venture briefly out of lockdown. Furlong states it seems like the right time to step back and consider the extraordinary shock-waved landscape of legal regulation change, and what it means for everyone. Furlong looks at four different dimensions in which law firm ethics models, legal services regulation, and lawyer licensing and competence standards are all beginning a process of transformation.

Subjects: Legal Ethics, Legal Profession

The new legal economy

Jordan Furlong is a leading analyst of the global legal market and forecaster of its future development. In this article he discusses the changing landscape of the legal market, focusing on why and how the disruptive impact of advanced technology in the law will be to reduce the incidence and volume of traditional legal work given by clients to lawyers. Furlong states that this is not just a market change; this is the emergence of a new legal economy. That’s a term we need to start thinking about, developing more fully, and changing our strategies to reflect.

Subjects: AI, Communications, KM, Legal Marketing, Legal Profession, Technology Trends