Think hare, not tortoise. At the ABA Journal and in an expanded white paper, legal futurist Jordan Furlong presents a view of an emerging legal market in which vanishing job security will demand agility for success. Permanent full-time salaried employment, he says, is vanishing across all industries and workplaces, and may even have been a Boomer phenomenon that is fading with that generation. Competent, ethical, hard-working lawyers will still need to solve problems and create value for clients, he says, but the successful lawyer will need to be:
- Agile, requiring flexible availability and multiple short-term engagements.
- Technology-enabled, using tools that automate or streamline repetitive processes.
- Multidisciplinary, delivered in conjunction with other professionals and trades.
- Creative, invoking rarely used skills and talents that, as it turns out, we actually have in abundance.
Art: Lapin Agile. Per the blog Cerebral Boinkfest, the painting is the work of Andre Gill, who painted the sign for a neighborhood nightclub in Montmartre. Locals called it "Le Lapin à Gill" (Gill's rabbit), which eventually became "Lapin Agile" (nimble rabbit).
