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==Background narrative== | ==Background narrative== | ||
Lawyers are being asked to do more with what they have. | |||
: | :'''New products''': crypto, deFi, DAOs | ||
: | :'''New risk environment''': more volatility (energy, crypto, equities, inflation), more risk of default (archegos, [[GameStop]], evergrande, supply-chain disruptions | ||
: | :'''New/fracturing regulations''': Brexit aftermath, China clampdowns, regulatory investigations in aftermath of Greensill, Archegos, etc. | ||
Lawyers are expected to be agile, tech-literate, process focused, and avoid getting bogged down in lower value work where there are more effective/efficient alternative solutions. | |||
==A thought experiment== | |||
{{subtable| | {{subtable| | ||
'''Fever dream''' | '''Fever dream''' | ||
It is 2525, the age of Aquarius. and the atmosphere is suffused with nanobots, pleasure-droids, self-aware microbes and [[Artificial intelligence|artificially intelligent]] homunculi floating on the ''aether'', doing everything, and carrying out every factotal task ''except'' the formulation pure essence of brilliant, ineffable [[eaglery]]. | |||
In that Utpoian world,<ref>Bear with me, okay?</ref> what | In that Utpoian world,<ref>Bear with me, okay?</ref> what ''[[res legis]]'', the disembodied essence of lawyer, uploaded to the matrix and at one with the worldwide [[Singularity]], having solved all possible triage, exhausted all outsourcing oppounities, and infinitely divided labour, still have to do? | ||
And how does that compare with the | And how does that compare with the non-platonic reality of how it is today?}} | ||
==Messy reality== | |||
What operational processes and process regularities are | What operational processes and process regularities are lawyers currently involved in | ||
*Approvals | *Approvals | ||
*Escalations | *Escalations | ||
* | *Certifications | ||
*Executions | *Executions | ||
*Regular | *Regular working-groups | ||
* | *Recurring diary events | ||
As how these could be reorganised to empower others and take legal out of the loop | As how these could be reorganised to empower others and take legal out of the loop? | ||
Opportunity to reassess/redefine legal role against that background to be: | Opportunity to reassess/redefine legal role against that background to be: | ||
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*Reset incentives inside the firm | *Reset incentives inside the firm | ||
==Organisational principles== | ==Organisational principles== | ||
* | *'''The risk environment is [[complex]], not merely [[complicated]]''': Risk-management by rule works for BAU but not for edge cases. Edge cases require expertise and skill. | ||
*'''Over time, policies and fixed rules | *'''Complex environments have long tails'''. Complexity differs from complicatedness on the tails and at the edges. The risk is in the tails. The middle is BAU. | ||
*'''Legal’s maximum value is addressing edge cases, not BAU'''. This implies: | |||
** Legal should skew senior, not junior. | |||
** Part of legal’s function should be converting edge cases to BAU and [[Operationalisation|operationalising]] it | |||
** If properly operationalised, business teams can understand and manage their own BAU legal issues. | |||
* '''(Almost) all rules can be simplified''': humans are expensive button-pushers. | |||
** A complicated set of rules implies: | |||
*** A failure to make difficult decisions when building a process; or | |||
*** bad feedback loops when running a process | |||
*'''Over time teams skew ''senior''''': They get better, more experienced: | |||
**less dependent on lane barriers and training wheels. They also get less inclined to simplify. | |||
**But if the same lawyers are doing the same roles they were 10 years ago, we are not getting bang for buck out of them. | |||
*'''Over time, policies and fixed rules lose value''': As teams become more senior, they are less reliant on training wheels. | |||
**Training wheels get in the way, and become more of a hindrance. | |||
** | |||
Legal is advisory, for edge cases, novel situations, crisis response and situation management | Legal is advisory, for edge cases, novel situations, crisis response and situation management | ||
*Operational interaction is to structure documentation processes to be seamless, standardised, low-touch, and to manage and centralise legal risk from documentation. | *Operational interaction is to structure documentation processes to be seamless, standardised, low-touch, and to manage and centralise legal risk from documentation. | ||
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===Great canards of inhouse legal=== | ===Great canards of inhouse legal=== | ||
*“I am not qualified in that jurisdiction” | *“I am not qualified in that jurisdiction”: Shop-steward behaviour from the international federation of law societies. | ||
*“That is a legal question and I am not qualified to answer it”: work-to-rule from those in other functions and business units. | |||
===Theories=== | ===Theories=== | ||