Drills and holes: Difference between revisions

:—Llewelyn Thomas, quoted in {{author|Rory Sutherland}}’s {{br|Alchemy}}}}

{{quote|“To a man with a hammer, everything looks like a nail.”  

The customer wanting a hole, not a drill, is a favourite trope of legal futurologist Professor Richard Susskind.<ref>See {{br|The Future of Law}} (1996; now out of print)</ref> The message for those involved in the legal profession is this: it is unlikely that users of the legal system are irreversibly tied to how the law currently works. Clients want outcomes — how the machinery by which these outcomes are delivered ''works'' is of little interest to them; what matters is (i) that the outcome works; (ii) that it is cost-effective; (iii) that it is quick. All this nonsense with law reports, dusty legal opinions, horsehair wigs and so on is just so much bunk. No-one wants it. Susskind intones: heed this warning, or you will be driven out of business.