From Innovation Innovability Law Firms: JUL 2022 | WWW.LAWYER-MONTHLY.COM the law firm world would soon undergo what happened in the music industry in 1999, when Napster came out. 1999 was a record year for the music industry, but thanks to the emergence of peerto-peer platforms, consumers started perceiving the value of recorded music in a different way, and artists had to change their business model in order to survive. Even now, after more than 20 years and the rise of social media and streaming platforms, data show us that people tend to pay not for recorded music, but for playlists and the services. This means that the 1999 value change was permanent. Well, I believe that the law firm world is facing something similar. Maybe we will not offer our services for free, but tech is posing some serious threats (or challenges) in terms of monetisation and perception of added value arising from our services. Plus, we might find interesting additional revenue streams in lateral activities and dedicated business units. Coming back to my work several years after that career shift, and having experienced both expected elements (investments in contract automation, the rise of legal tech, the impact of sustainability) and unexpected ones (the pandemic, the new normal, etc), I am quite glad I took that risk. What does a head of innovation do in a law firm? This is a very interesting question, For the benefit of our readers who may not have met you yet, please tell us a little about your background. Hi everyone, and thanks for having me here. My name is Marco, and I am an Italian lawyer and the head of innovation at LCA, a leading Italian law firm. My background is a little peculiar. I graduated from Bologna University Law School before starting my career as copyright and entertainment lawyer for a boutique Italian firm. After several years of practice and a number of relevant experiences abroad, I decided to make a career shift, first taking a gap year to do my LLM, graduating fromHarvard School as a Fulbright scholar, and later starting at LCA as the first head of innovation for law firms in Italy. What prompted this career shift? My background in copyright – and my background as a musician – told me that MY LEGAL LIFE - MARCO IMPERIALE The legal sector as a whole is placing ever greater emphasis on technological and systemic innovation as a tool to gain a competitive edge – yet Marco Imperiale, head of innovation at LCA, believes that practitioners are only scratching the surface of what can be achieved. Is it possible that law will see a repeat of the seismic user-centric shift that allowed leading tech companies like Amazon and Netflix to dominate the market? Marco shares his opinion on this, and other insights, below. 23 to The more an innovation is visionary, the less it is quantifiable in terms of KPIs and ROIs – and the less that is quantifiable in KPIs and ROIs, the harder it is to ask for investments
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