Lawyers as Leaders in the Digital Age

• Author: Adam Newhouse
• Pages: 139-203

139

PART FIVE

Lawyers as Leaders in the

Digital Age

An Overview of Part Five for the Busy Lawyer

Amid the general apprehension about the future of law practice, law

firms debate how to stay relevant and successful in the increasingly

competitive environment. What appears to elude many of us, however,

is realizing that the pressing demands of doing business in a digital

environment cannot be met simply by purchasing yet another iPad or

other technology. To truly fit into and succeed in the digital culture, we

need to adjust our attitudes.

Many lawyers, however, run their law firms as they always have

as long as business keeps flowing. As long as associates have their

plates full, they don’t worry. Having opportunities to work hard is,

from their point of view, key to a law firm’s future success. The flip

side is that when associates work long hours, they have no time to

read books, magazines, or newspapers, not to mention no time to write

blogs, articles, client updates, or books of their own. They have no

time to exercise, travel, socialize, relax, or just have fun. By traditional

big-law-firm standards, that’s as it should be: they are well on the way

to becoming “good lawyers.”

And here’s the rub: to stay relevant in the digital age, to attract and

retain business, we must emanate an aura of leadership in addition to

being good lawyers. We must be up-to-date on client-impacting global

and local developments; we must be well-read; we must feel at home

using the latest technology and must thrive in a digital environment.

Above all, we must adopt a digital mentality and pursue Digital Virtues.

To summarize, we must become Digital Lawyers.

As Digital Lawyers, we lead differently. We are more like farmers

than hunters. If making decisions is critical to a leader, the process

of arriving at them is even more important. Unlike the leaders of

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