Golf Clubs and GenAI

Interesting report coming out of Bucerius Law School and Simon-Kucher looking at the impact of GenAI on law firm business models last week

A more holistic look than a lot of the reports in this space, which tend to focus on technical performance, or perhaps flagging the impact on pricing models

There are a number of useful frameworks and comparisons made in this report, in particular I would flag:

- a comparison of GenAI capabilities vs more traditional legal tech (pp7-8)

- impact on the law firm economic model. I was pleased to see an emphasis on increasing productisation and the replacing of labour leverage model of old with tech; consistent with a view of the world that we present within the taught elements of The Legal MBA (pp13 -20)

- an extended golfing metaphor to explain different emerging service archetypes, illustrated best in figure 8 on page 24

On this last point, from what I see more generally in this space, firms are in the putter/irons world of planning to take some efficiency gains and moving from hourly rates (input) to output based pricing

What I think this paper does well is articulate a broader range of options beyond that quite basic reaction to GenAI. The articulation of drivers as good-better-best packages to capture unmet demand reflects (as it happens!) some of our consulting work over the past 12 months and I firmly believe that this is where GenAI has the most disruptive potential - not in merely fixing a price and then saving a few hours in the delivery model

If nothing else, very reassuring to read someone else's paper and see that you're not alone in looking at the world in a particular way

Bonus - I learnt a lot about golf! I now believe the putter is the stick you use near the flag...? Meh... It's still a good walk ruined...

Link below, webpages and email registration are in German (Google translate is your friend) but the report is thankfully in English (vielen dank!)

The AI-Conomics of Legal Services

The AI-Conomics of Legal Services