, a sociologist and MacArthur “genius” Fellowship recipient, contends lawyers are not required to resolve many common legal issues. Ms. Sandefur turns the access to justice crisis on its head, asserting that it is not a matter of unmet legal need but the byproduct of a complex, inward-looking web of rules lawyers have created. She’s right on both counts.
Sandefur’s prescription for law is already being filled in the corporate legal market segment. A handful of are transforming the legal function and expanding its impact by melding practice and delivery capability. Their tools include platform technology, multidisciplinary expertise, data to predict and mitigate risk, global footprints, ability to scale, and deploying lawyers when and iflegal expertise is required.
There is a unique opportunity to tackle law’s distribution and skills challenges as solutions for the two converge.