The phrase “law new” is a catchall industry term that has been linked to legal technology, legal ops, alternative service providers (ALSP’s), and the like. What it means is a fresh focus on helping businesses manage risk and capture opportunities. It’s an approach that could benefit all legal firms, especially those whose primary focus is on transactional work.

The law that a business needs can be complex and vary widely depending on the nature of its transactions and the risks involved. The laws of a state, for example, include constitutional, statutory and regulatory law. The law of a corporation, on the other hand, includes charter, stock and securities, litigation strategies, human resources, and the like.

As the pace of change accelerates and the scale of global challenges increases, organizations require a broader, more holistic approach to problem-solving and opportunity-capturing. They need a fluid, collaborative delivery model that is agile, on-demand, and scalable. Law firms and in-house legal departments remain the dominant provider sources, but they have different economic models, cultures, remits, technology platforms, data and end-user expectations.

The key to thriving and succeeding in the future is collaboration, not competition. Businesses routinely collaborate with each other across the value chain, including with competitors, to achieve strategic objectives. The pharmaceutical industry’s cooperation in researching and developing the Covid-19 vaccine is one example. It’s time for the legal industry to do the same.

Law new requires a shift in mindset and culture that recognizes the value of customers and society at large, not legacy legal stakeholders’ profit preservation and status quo protections. The next generation of legal consumers and society at large are demanding a more transparent, affordable, on-demand, scalable, solution-oriented, empathetic, tech and data-proficient, multidisciplinary, integrated, and law firm-and-enterprise-centric delivery model.

Law new is a process of paradigm shift and human adaptation that will transform the legal industry. The emergence of legal new will be accelerated by a growing number of corporate Goliaths that have the brand, capital, know-how, customer-centricity, data mastery, tech platforms, agile, multidisciplinary workforces and footprint in/familiarity with the legal industry to reverse-engineer existing paradigms and reshape law’s delivery to resemble its customers’ and society’s evolving needs. This will be a win-win for all parties and will enable the legal industry to meet its upcoming challenge of providing more affordable, accessible, on-demand and data-backed solutions at the speed of business. And it will do so without sacrificing the quality of its services.