The law is a rapidly changing field. New challenges arise at the drop of a hat. What worked one quarter may not work the next. To keep up, legal professionals must embrace change management and continually seek out ways to provide services in new ways. This is called “law new,” and it involves using different techniques to benefit clients.
In its broadest sense, law new refers to a number of trends in the legal industry. It can include the use of technology to improve service delivery, a shift from traditional fee structures to alternative ones, and the creation of different types of legal services. It also includes working with underserved communities and developing strategies that have not been a part of the law in the past.
These changes, however, are a small part of the larger movement to make law new. To produce true change, the industry must transform itself. This transformation must take place within the context of a customer-centric paradigm that focuses on delivering value and improving end-user experience. It must be driven by data, and it must involve the entire enterprise. It must be a collaborative effort that includes law firms, in-house counsel, and non-legal professional employees.
Legal consumers and society-at-large deserve no less.
Whether it’s protecting an abused child, ensuring that a polluter pays fair cleanup costs or defending the City against a claim, the roughly 500 Deputy Attorney Generals who comprise the Division of Law perform an important and essential public service. Their work impacts every aspect of the lives of NYC residents, visitors and businesses. Each day, the approximately 29,000 cases that are pending in federal and State trial and appellate courts and administrative forums require their attention.
This bill amends the City’s private-sector data breach notification laws to align them with requirements of New York State law. The law requires City agencies to promptly disclose security breaches that involve personal identifying information of individuals to affected persons and the Chief Privacy Officer, the Office of Cyber Command and Department of Information Technology and Telecommunications.
The bill would also amend the City’s food delivery service licensing requirements to require the licensing of third-party food delivery services and repeal subchapter 22 of chapter 5 of title 20 of the Administrative Code, containing existing laws relating to those services.
Whether you’re a law firm or an in-house legal team, if your organization is not already engaged in law new, you are falling behind. The future of the legal industry demands that you evolve from an internal efficiency model — a focus on process, tech, and multidisciplinary expertise (“non-lawyers”) — to a purpose-driven delivery plan built around customers and their needs. That is the only way to achieve true change. And that is the only way to make law new.