In 2013, upon joining Bloomberg Media Group as its new CEO, Justin Smith sent Bloomberg's media team a memorandum describing his approach and philosophy to journalism. At a time when the media industry was experiencing massive disruption (which has since accelerated), and its primary revenue source of advertising was declining precipitously, Smith had this to say:
“All business is bifurcated into two distinct worlds: the struggling traditional segment that longs for a simpler, more profitable past that will never return; and the vibrant, entrepreneurial segment that reinventing commerce before your eyes.”
The same can be said of the legal industry in 2018. In fact, this same sentiment is expressed in the 2018 Report on the State of the Legal Market, published by Georgetown University Law Center and Thomson Reuters Legal Executive Institute, which suggests that too many law firms are fighting the “last war” by operating and adapting (or not adapting) based on how the market has behaved in the past, and not on what’s to come. Just as in the media sector, this has created opportunities for entrepreneurial law firms and alternative services providers to step in and exploit the situation through hustle and innovation.