Five Statements of Innovation in Legal

1. FIVESTATEMENTS. On The Future State of Innovation in Legal Based on current conversations with leaders and directors across the legal market. And, of course, our unique perspectives based on working side-by-side with CFOs, CIOs, practice group leaders, business teams, and in-house leaders - operations & practitioners. © 2020 Bold Duck Studio

2. The global legal market – consumer and commercial is experiencing a once-in-a- C U R R E N T 2020 INNOVATION lifetime stress test. Dancing on the grave of status quo and proclaiming that now everyone must and should innovate is a complete waste. The prudent (and cunning) action is to double-down on addressing core foundational operational STRATEGY challenges within your organization or legal team – whether you are a court system, law school, law firm, in-house team, legal tech provider or legal aid. © 2020 Bold Duck Studio

3. First, the simple fact. This crisis doesn’t magically imbue teams with the capability to generate innovation. If your organization did not have the tools, skills, and resources pre-crisis, you certainly don’t have them now. But that doesn’t mean you are stuck, just think about things differently. © 2020 Bold Duck Studio

4. Second. Convert your desire to be innovative into motivation to improve. Yes, mindsets may have shifted in recent weeks to be more “open” to new approaches, but mindsets alone are insufficient (see First Statement). Businesses right now are motivated to preserve themselves in crisis. They are deeply concerned about reducing burn rates, retaining talent, de-stressing systems and processes that have been bent and broken in the initial response, and finding dollars to fill the pipeline – every dollar matters! Motivation right now is to stabilize things and wring out costs. Seize this! Going after uncertain “innovation” right now will produce incalculable strain, fatigue and stress. Solely cutting costs is no path to profits either. Seeking to improve is stewardship and often creates cost savings while improving business performance – in the short and long term. © 2020 Bold Duck Studio

5. Third. I N N O V A T I O N O U T C O M E It is not an activity, a title/role, or a committee. It’s just better not to focus on this word right now and instead turn to tackle operational challenges (removing waste, calculating resource scarcity and need, bettering connections between people and systems). This will lead to improvements that matter right now and potentially true innovation, in the rare case. © 2020 Bold Duck Studio

6. Fourth. Legal in the broadest sense (from law and policy to services and technology) has been slow to “discover” UX (user/human experience). This is about how humans (citizens, consumers, employees, customers, lawyers) actually interact within the legal ecosystem. Legal has an extremely poor track record on this front which explains many of the disconnects that have been studied in legal education, A2J, BigLaw culture, work/life balance of the profession, the middle- class legal gap, and other segments and phenomenon. Focusing on user experience nets out positive gains in almost every case. Many UX issues arise and are found within the operational environment of teams. Also, a bad habit in legal is to focus on the front-end of innovation - “the shiny object” - and not on integrating it into business practices and systems. This lack of thoughtful integration breeds operational complexity and friction. © 2020 Bold Duck Studio

7. Fifth. Finally, design and entrepreneurship are what you must embrace. Whereas innovation all too often is used as a catchall term for creating new ideas, service, and things – it fails to evoke a clear sense of purpose and value. Design is about creating something that addresses a real problem with a real solution – often in an entirely new way. Entrepreneurship is about bringing the “new” to market. This means that someone will actually use it; ideally, seeking it out (and paying for it directly or indirectly). Being an entrepreneur is also about being a founder and having a founder’s mindset. When we think like designers and entrepreneurs instead of innovators, we are more prone to consider the human and business realities of our ideas – not the idea itself. This helps ensure we use evidence-based approaches to assess sustainability, cost, market-size, and whether anyone will actually care about the idea (versus creating “cool” things in search of a problem or need). © 2020 Bold Duck Studio

8. What irritants do people feel when they are trying to get their job done? people = you, your teammates, your peers, your customers and clients, your leaders Does the irritant interact with others? How? How often? interact = created by, made worse by, hidden by, softened by, observed by, or occasionally prevented by (THINK HONESTLY ABOUT YOUR ROLE IN ALL OF THIS . . .) If this irritant was corrected, how would it measurably improve business? measurably = tangible movement of an accepted and respected metric showing before and after INCLUDE BUSINESS TEAMS AS WELL AS PRACTICE TEAMS. Don’t fake it. Be real. If you don’t have good answers that others agree with, then STOP! © 2020 Bold Duck Studio

9. THE PROBLEM YOU WANT TO ADDRESS IS THE ONE THAT IS MOST VALID, FEASIBILE, AND DESIRABLE. CHASING WEAK PROBLEMS IS A FOOL’S ERRAND AND AN EGOMANIAC’S LUST. A VALID IDEA encompasses solutions and language that leadership and the organization find cogent, coherent, and most of all, applicable and relevant to its current position and ambitions. To be 100% clear; it must represent something that is worth chasing given all other competing priorities. A FEASIBLE IDEA consumes resources as efficiently and effectively as possible, given current availability/scarcity, while achieving maximum value. It does this in a timeline that paces ahead of hostile efforts or ambivalent forces that will impede progress. Also, feasibility addresses such intangibles as political resistance, change management, and resource capability. A DESIRABLE IDEA attracts curiosity and builds momentum for further development on the part of leadership and the firm generally. If the idea’s value is too murky, difficult to communicate and convey, or appears incomplete, it will suffer from erosion of support and emotional commitment. © 2020 Bold Duck Studio

10. New-2020 The global legal market is being presented with a grand opportunity to usher in its (next) age of entrepreneurship. This is not about technology or killing status quo. Now is the time to make our teams and organizations better by focusing It is about going back to what drew many of us to the profession – we want to help people navigate the legal system. on what causes human frustration and making them easier to do business with – as customers, clients, and employees. Improving these will establish the foundation necessary for innovative outcomes. © 2020 Bold Duck Studio

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