Tomorrowland: Scenarios for Law Firms Beyond the Horizon

By: Bruce MacEwen

Narrated by: Matt Haynes

Tomorrowland lays out possible future scenarios for law firms, ranging from "nothing changes", to profound dislocations brought about by developments such as lawyer psychology blocking essential reforms, a dramatic escalation in the war for talent and "barbell" partner compensation models, the triumph of brand names (and the irrelevance of every other firm), the seemingly inexorable and deeply threatening rise of machine intelligence, new entrants including the Big Four grabbing market share, and more.

It doesn't predict what will happen, but explains what could, drawing widely from the history of other industries and broad experience with how markets evolve and change.

©2017 Adam Smith, Esq., LLC (P)2017 Adam Smith, Esq., LLC

Critic reviews

"No self-respecting law firm leader should be prepared to run the risk of leaving it unread." (Charles Martin, Senior Partner, Macfarlanes)

Insightful but ruined by the narrator

The book was great, but listening to the audio version was extremely distracting because of the narrator's lack of familiarity with the pronunciation of names and words that are familiar to lawyers and professionals. In a book about large law firms, it ought to be elementary to learn how to pronounce "Wachtell," but somehow the narrator thinks it is pronounced WATCH-ull. Ditto for "mores" and numerous other mispronunciations. Some basic quality assurance would have helped.

Good, crucial stuff to chew through

I like this author's style of thinking things through on various levels, some more classically philosophical, some business organization themes, some more nuts-and-bolts technical, some fuzzy- (or prickly-) interpersonal and psychological. The author wanders over some varied scenarios, some parts of which will probably be prominent in what lawyers, at least in "BigLaw" firms, will face in future. (And the volatility downhill from there can be even steeper at the more "mom and pop" level.) A lot of money and personal fortunes are at stake.
This field has already had its share of stark disruptions, decade by decade, so those in law office management not scanning the horizons somewhat in the manner of this book must be fully deluded.
Another reviewer was focused on the narrator's performance, and had nothing to say about the book except it "was great." I found this a red herring. The narrator has a very warm low purr that meshes with the material very well. Yes, he fumbles a word or name occasionally, but this is totally peripheral. I would rate the narrator's error rate as reasonably low, especially given the idiosyncratic names and terms, and found narration not distracting at all.

A must read book for the 21st Century Lawyer ...

MacEwen's a genius. A brilliant thinker and commentator on the current state of the legal profession. I read everything he writes as soon as I can. This book doesn't disappoint, and is must read for anyone exploring the feasibility of Alternative Business Structures for 21st Century legal services delivery organizations.