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On Building Git for Lawyers

(jordanbryan.substack.com)
162 points jpbryan | 2 comments | 14 Nov 24 15:48 UTC | HN request time: 0.405s | source
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1-more ◴[14 Nov 24 17:06 UTC] No.42138302[source]▶
Reporting back from my biglaw pal I sent this to:

> Big flaw in the product: 60 year old partner who still makes hand edits and has the Secretary scan the pages and send them out of order to the associate

> Second big flaw in the product: specialists edits get rejected because they don’t know the deal points and are just swooping in

I took issue with this as step 4 seems to involve an M&A lawyer accepting/rejecting specialist edits piecemeal, to which he responded "Right, but that doesn’t actually save that much time. It’s the same work that an M&A associate is already doing"

> Third big flaw in the product: big law firms are the least innovative organizations on earth

> Fourth big flaw in the product: having junior associates do menial tasks at $800-950/hr is a feature, not a bug, of law firm business model. So you are solving for something that the target customer doesn’t necessarily want solved.

and there it is :/

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1. ww520 ◴[14 Nov 24 17:22 UTC] No.42138555[source]▶
I assume the fourth point is for billing clients for a high fee while paying a quarter to the associates. But some law firms will use the more efficient tools to take on more cases for the partners to bill on their higher rates. Competition will force the firms to use more efficient tools.
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2. kevin-oconnell ◴[14 Nov 24 17:48 UTC] No.42138898[source]▶
One hundred percent! And you can already see this playing out. More and more large law firms are spinning up technology and innovation teams. This is a huge investment on their part, indicating they're incentivized.

Also, the billable hour is somewhat misunderstood. It is more of a process tool than a hard reality. Repeat clients expect the bill to end up within a certain range. And law firms expect their people to work a certain number of hours.