Dereliction of Duty: State-Bar Inaction in Response to America’s Access-to-Justice Crisis

America has an access-to-justice crisis. At a time when law is more prominent in every facet of American life and commerce than ever before, most of our people and small businesses have no access to legal service. The consequences are dire.

America has ample resources to provide everyone the legal service they need. We have the lawyers, the technology, the know-how, and the capital. Our failure to enable those resources to meet the needs of our people is a disgrace.

This Essay addresses one of most obvious causes of the access-to-justice crisis: rules created and enforced by lawyer-led state bars that arbitrarily restrict who can help Americans with their legal issues and handcuff legal-service firms’ ability to draw on modern technology and business techniques to get Americans the service they need.

The Essay details how the rules have caused the crisis and lays out a common-sense approach state bars can pursue to assess and remedy it. State bars made the rules that caused the crisis. It is their duty to fix them. Failure to do so is a dereliction of duty.

Read the full article here

Baker Botts Lawyers Vie for Firm’s Top Role Amid Merger Talks

Five Baker Botts partners are competing to become the Texas-founded law firm’s new leader as its partners explore a possible merger.

The lawyers recently pitched the firm’s partners, with most pledging to seek a merger with another firm to obtain scale and ward off poachers, the sources said. The firm has generally discussed combinations over the past two years, but David and other candidates promised to ratchet up those efforts if elected.

Voting for new leadership while also exploring merger possibilities can be complicated, said Ralph Baxter, a law firm consultant who previously held the top leadership role at California-founded Orrick Herrington Sutcliffe.

Read the full article here.

Law Firms Dismantle Data Silos to Save Costs, Attract Clients

Big Law is stepping up efforts to destroy data silos and make information readily accessible to lawyers on a single platform, realizing their business depends on it.

Lawyers with easy access to good data use it when pitching business to clients, said Ralph Baxter, an adviser and former chairman and CEO of Orrick Herrington & Sutcliffe. It helps them explain what types of similar matters they’ve handled in the past—including how they were staffed, how much they cost clients, and how they were resolved, he said.

Read the full article here

The legal system is broken; it's time for a change.

By Ralph Baxter and Zack DeMeola |March 22, 2021

Arash Homampour’s recent op-ed opens with the phrase, “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” Well, the legal system is broken. Disgracefully broken. And in grave need of fixing. 

The system may work well for some lawyers, but it is broken for nearly everyone else — and in dire need of fixing.  We are heartened by the State Bar of California’s effort to move forwards with a “regulatory sandbox” that would allow more innovation in the provision of legal services.

Read the full article here.

Just as Predicted, Lawyers Rush to Protect the Status Quo

By Ralph Baxter and John Lund  | June 10, 2020 at 06:24 PM

Lawyers should lead the charge for reform. Too often it is the opposite—they try to block it.

Two estate planning lawyers, James Gorton and William Winslow, wrote a response to our May 13 op-ed, in which we advocated reform of California’s restrictive legal service rules. Their response mischaracterizes the reforms California is considering and exemplifies the kind of self-interested opposition that is being mounted to protect the status quo.

Read the full article here.

With Californians Needing Access to Justice, the California Bar Should Advance Reform

By Ralph Baxter and John Lund  | May 13, 2020

Diversifying and innovating the profession will result in increased access to justice: more people will get better legal help for less money and more lawyers will practice law in new ways.

The coronavirus pandemic has laid bare the long-standing dysfunction of the way legal services work in America. The legal needs of ordinary citizens have been dramatically increased by the pandemic and the economic crisis it has caused.

Read full article here.

The Fight Over the Future of Law Firm Ownership Has Put an Industry at Odds

As regulators across the country take steps to reform the industry in the name of access to justice, Big Law is watching warily.

By Dan Packel and Dylan Jackson | February 24, 2020

Big Law is suddenly taking an unusual interest in how average Americans are served by the legal system.

Read full article here.

Be a Part of Mapping the Future of the Profession

The co-chairs of the Legal Business Strategy conference, Ralph Baxter and Gina Passarella, share the goals behind the conference, what sessions will be discussed and the latest list of industry leaders who will be in attendance.

By Gina Passarella and Ralph Baxter  | January 21, 2020

In two weeks, some of the greatest minds in the profession are coming together to work through the biggest challenges and opportunities currently facing the legal industry. And we invite you to join us.

Our Legal Business Strategy conference at Legalweek NY was designed to address the core issues covered by The American Lawyer and Law.com’s suite of publications when it comes to the purchase, sale and delivery of legal services. As co-chairs, who each have a lens into that ecosystem through our focus on law firms, clients and law companies, we were particularly focused on not only ensuring we covered the most pressing issues facing the industry, but that all stakeholders were in the room together to work through these topics.

Read full article here.

20 Top Podcasts About the Business of Law for Lawyers

All of them are deserving of a spot on your list of resources dedicated to the business of law.

By Gina Rubel  | December 02, 2019

In my last post for Mid-Market Report, Podcasts Are the New Black for Law Firm Business Development, I shared insights from various leaders in the legal industry who have successfully launched or helped law firms launch podcasts.Since then, I’ve compiled a list of 20 legal industry podcasts that focus on law practice management, business development, legal marketing, legal tech, and innovation. Some of these I listen to regularly and others come highly recommended by industry thought leaders. All of them are deserving of a spot on your list of resources dedicated to the business of law.Read full article here.

Former Orrick CEO: 'Everybody Wins' If Law Firms Invest, Adapt

Ralph Baxter sees a future for Big Law that isn't bleak. But it requires change.

By Roy Strom | October 15, 2018

Ralph Baxter spent nearly 25 years as the leader of Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe before stepping away from the firm about five years ago. He’s since been involved to varying degrees with a host of emerging legal tech companies, including Lex Machina, Ravel Law and Intapp.

Baxter also launched a failed bid for a West Virginia seat in the U.S. House of Representatives, which ended in a primary defeat in May. Now he’s back to doing consulting work for law firms and other legal service providers.

Read full article here.

METRICS CAN TELL THE TALE OF A FIRM'S FATE

ABA JOURNAL | By Edwin Reeser and Victor Li | January 1, 2016

"...Most businesses, including law firms, do not fail for lack of profits. They fail for lack of cash.

Ralph Baxter knows all about how difficult it is for law firms to manage cash flow. The former chairman and CEO of Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe recalls that cash flow was something he constantly worried about.

“Lawyers are notoriously bad at even recording their time and submitting it,” Baxter says. “The best-case scenario is you get the bill out a month after you do the work, but a lot of firms aren’t even good about that. Then clients get the bill, and they might take time before paying it. So it’s a month or more before you even get the money—and that’s if everything goes smoothly.” (According to LexisNexis, the average law firm waits 83 days after bills are sent out to get paid.)

During his time in charge at Orrick, Baxter says, he kept track of general metrics relating to the firm’s liquidity—namely, ratio of equity to debt.

“Firms are very different when it comes to debt,” he says. “Some have no debt, and those firms will generally retain their earnings. Most firms have debt, though. If you go through a challenging time, then you have to watch all the details of your economic condition.” 

Read full article here.

WHY ARE SO MANY LAW FIRMS TRAPPED IN 1995?

The Atlantic | Leigh McMullan Abramson | Oct 1, 2015

“The billable hour is the culprit of everything,” explains Ralph Baxter, the former chairman and CEO of Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe. Implementing innovations that render billable hours obsolete can be like tugging on a thread that threatens to unravel the basic concept of a law firm. For example, the start-up Lex Machina can speedily mine and analyze litigation data that would take an army of associates months to go through. Suddenly, several associates aren’t billing. And if they aren’t billing, the firm could do without them. And if they could do without those associates, then they could do without the office space they occupy. There goes the business model.

Read Full Article here

HARVARD LAW SCHOOL LAUNCHES “FREE THE LAW” PROJECT WITH RAVEL LAW TO DIGITIZE US CASE LAW, PROVIDE FREE ACCESS

Harvard Law Today | October 29, 2015

Harvard Law School has announced that, with the support of Ravel Law, a legal research and analytics platform, it is digitizing its entire collection of U.S. case law, one of the largest collections of legal materials in the world, and that it will make the collection available online, for free, to anyone with an Internet connection.

Ralph Baxter, an advisor to Ravel and also to the Harvard Law School Center on the Legal Profession said: “Technology is changing the legal landscape, and the law firm of the future will need to be more efficient, more agile, and more opportunistic in finding new ways to deliver legal services. The collaboration between Harvard Law School and Ravel Law offers a new and exciting resource that lawyers can deploy to improve how they practice law.”

Read Full Article here