I am on a slow boat to Tokyo. Over the last few weeks, I have come to know Bill and Paul, both good looking guys in their early eighties. Bill is a pianist and music aficionado. He wears a baseball cap that says, “I’m old, but I’m cool,” which pretty much sums things up for both of them.
Recently, we were in Sydney, Australia. Leading up to our visit, both Bill and Paul were very excited about seeing “Turandot” in the iconic Sydney Opera House. Bill had seen it decades ago in New York. Since I am old, but not cool, and somewhat cheap, I did not plunk down $250 to join them to see people sing in a language I do not understand, in a performance I would undoubtedly have slept through.
Bill, who had been so looking forward to this evening as a highlight of his trip, did not like it much. The opera was reimagined in a black and white colour scheme instead of the magnificent colourful spectacle that Bill remembered from years ago. They even had performers using laptops on stage, which made no sense to him. The performance was just too modern for Bill. Cool as he is, this was just a habour bridge too far. But the music – it was fantastic. In fact, Bill enjoyed the performance most when he closed his eyes and listened to the music while remembering the colourful performance that he saw years before.
Paul, on the other hand, loved the show.
The difference? Paul had never seen Turandot before. He had no expectations of it. Bill did, and the show did not meet them.
Back in our law firms, it would be a good thing if Management was also clear in its expectations, and if lawyers joined firms knowing what was expected of them. Traditionally, this has not happened, and that has resulted in much misery. Now, in the age of artificial intelligence, the problem of mismatched expectations will be exponentially compounded.
Think about Management, which faces the unpredictability of emerging technologies, dealing with some partners who want things to stay as they are, and others expecting immediate and revolutionary change. Then, think about newcomers to the profession who have no idea of how law firms have traditionally operated, but do have lots of attitude about how technology should be central to business.
On the one hand, I feel like I want to be Paul, and have the luxury of sitting back and enjoying the show that the legal industry is putting on, without any preconceived notion of how it is all going to turn out. On the other hand, perhaps we should all be paying attention, as the changes coming to the legal industry are going to impact not only the legal community, but all of society.
This article was originally published by Law360 Canada, part of LexisNexis Canada Inc.