New legal service technologies are premised on the prediction that significant change in the legal industry will be driven by consumers and small businesses, not by lawyers and law firms. It’s a hard notion with which to disagree.
While “tradition” is a gating factor in the ongoing transformation of the legal industry, in the post-Great Recession legal market of 2013, technology and changing values are rapidly disrupting traditional legal services. This is an exciting moment for legal innovators.
Psychological issues are part of the dark underbelly of the legal profession, in which suicide ranks second only to dentistry as a cause of professional death.
Johnnie Cochran, O.J. Simpson’s lead trial lawyer in the infamous L.A./Brentwood murder trial, died quietly last night of an inoperable brain tumor. His closing statement in 1995 for O.J. was one of the best performances — and by far the best televised closing argument — by a trial lawyer ever.