░░ The Archive ░░
All dispatches
14 issues
Judgement Has Changed Address
The future of legal isn't fewer lawyers. It's fewer decisions requiring lawyers. The best legal departments aren't using technology to replace people. They're using it to remove friction, automate repetition and create space for the work that needs human attention. That sounds simple until you try deciding where the boundary lies. Every new system promises efficiency. Every AI tool promises scale. The difficult part isn't implementation. It's knowing exactly when you should.
Saying Yes to Goats
In healthcare, legal isn't a support function. It forms part of the care that patients ultimately receive. It just happens to be found inside surprisingly ordinary things. Hospital food. Supply contracts. Witness statements. Occasionally, a goat wandering around Weston-super-Mare. Look closely enough and they all turn out to be working towards the same goal: helping vulnerable people receive better care. The law may look familiar. The consequences aren't.
Walking the Wire
Most companies aren't undone by bad ideas. They're undone by the good ones. Success has a habit of sanding off the edges that made them unique. Founders have vision. Investors demand returns. Somewhere in the middle sits a lawyer whose job description expands from legal adviser to translator between two entirely different ways of seeing the world. Less guardian of the rulebook than custodian of productive tension.
Bridging the Experience Gap
Trainees are as intelligent as the rainmaker partners in their team. Same grades. Same university. Same ability to learn. The difference between them isn't intelligence, it's experience. Every conference promises revolution, every LinkedIn post mourns another extinct job title and every managing partner is apparently "embracing AI".
The Crisis Counsel
Armed men seizing your gold mine is generally considered bad for business. Especially when the government stops answering the phone and local police discover an unexpected commitment to non-intervention. That's when Tim gets called.
The Lawyer We Once Were
Most lawyers begin their careers wanting to make a difference. Defending the innocent. Holding power to account. Then they discover Cravath newly-qualified salaries. Suddenly they're restructuring Argentine debt (again) with the rectitude of a Renaissance tax collector.
The End of Useful Inefficiency
Most junior lawyers add very little value. In the past, trainees carried documents to court, acting as highly overpaid couriers. Today, the tasks look different but the commercial impact is the same. And that's okay.
Navigating by the Stars, Not the Shoreline
We don't often associate lawyers with the buccaneering spirit of the likes of Aubrey or Cochrane. If anything, they're trained to keep well clear of the lee shore, carefully noting the shoals and sandbanks that may spell trouble. Risk is treated as something to be quietly skirted. However, that’s precisely where opportunity sits.
Koalas, Jungle Walks and the Art of Finding Your Niche
Fancy spending your day cuddling a koala? To be clear, this is not a metaphor or part of a bring your pet to work wellbeing scheme. The general counsel in question works at a zoo. She does do legal work. But she also has the more serious task of defending her shoe laces from a determined waddle of penguins.
One Lawyer Per Case. Please.
Litigation loves a relay race. One team builds the case, another delivers it, a third explains what just happened. Everyone gets a turn. Clients, it seems, prefer a single address for the invoice.