Legal Commentary

Change Is Inevitable

By Patrick J. Lamb

On Friday afternoon, I played hooky.  I joined my family at Chicago's fabulous Navy Pier.  The thought started while I was at the top of the Ferris Wheel with a clear view of the skyline.  But it really hit me on the boat ride, where we heard a bit about Chicago's history.  The captains of industry decided Chicago would be the rail hub of the country.  Bingo.  The City fathers decided to reverse the flow of the Chicago River, still considered a feat of engineering.  And the skyline which has changed so much in my 26 years in the City, really made the thought concrete.

Change is inevitable.  When the business community decides something will be, it inevitably is.  Perhaps it takes time, but it becomes so.

It most certainly is coming to the legal industry.  Business has decided that the current economic relationship between it and the legal profession needs to change.  So it will be.  And if change is coming, the two choices one faces are to help shape it or be run over by it. 

The skyline will not be the same 25 years from now.  Will we appreciate the beauty of the new skyline or will we be living in the past?

Or in the words of one of my favorite movie lines (from The Shawshank Redemption), "get busy living, or get busy dying."

Full post as published by In Search of Perfect Client Service on August 24, 2008 (boomark / email).