Adaptive Innovation: Innovator’s Dilemma in Big Law describes how big law will be affected by Christensen’s The Innovator’s Dilemma and disruptive innovation. Currently big law is protected by the fact that firms provide not products, but professional services which do not have standard metrics to evaluate quality levels. Big law is also insulated by information asymmetry because clients seek lawyers when they cannot solve a problem on their own.

This article calls for “adaptive innovation” which will help big law find a middle ground that will prevent it from being wiped out by disruptive innovation.

Big law will benefit by:

1. Building relations with businesses by promoting counsel to leave firms and go in-house.
2. Finding ways to produce  more efficient work product by making low margin work more profitable.
3. Changing partnership incentive structure to promote reinvestment in law firms by eliminating billable hours.
4. Changing standard quality metrics to be based on measurable quality instead of firm reputation or pedigree.

I agree with the authors that change is inevitable and law firms will need to make changes in order to avoid being torn down when disruptive innovation such as legal technology vendors are beginning to grow and meet needs more efficiently, cheaply, and quickly.