Hot data

Summer seems to be rather cementing its reputation as the season for eye-catching legal business tie-ups that might just point to larger transformation in the Briefing community. Last year we had the EY Riverview Law combination excitedly interrupt our ice creams. This year ‘traditional’ legal got in there, with Simmons & Simmons snapping up ‘legal engineering’ outfit Wavelength.

Earlier this season, Eversheds Sutherland brought several existing areas of the business together into ‘alternative’ offering Konexo: a new managed service product line, which the press release pointedly says “is led by a team of tech professionals rather than lawyers”.

Not quite as hot on the heels of one another as strategic moves of this ilk, are those firms that have seen fit to take advantage of the government’s offer of a Knowledge Transfer Partnership (KTP) with a university or other research-focused organisation to fuel innovative thinking. Some time ago, Briefing decided to speak to this particular group in detail about what they’ve gained from that experience and what others should expect if tempted to join them. Read all about that from p14.

SEE THE SCIENCE

A number of Briefing law firms have struck time-bound partnerships with universities, in the never-ending quest to be at the cutting edge of what data can do for the business. Was the experiment worth it, and what have they gained? Richard Brent reports.

SEARCH FOR THE 5P HERO

It’s increasingly recognised that ‘serious play’ can produce seriously impressive business benefits – a dose of the purposefully strange can release thinking from the restrained and ingrained. This was the basis of an exercise at Briefing 5P 2019, where teams drew up super-inventive characters with some rather special skillsets.

CRM THE TRUTH

Ben Roles, director of technical solutions at Introhive, discusses the art of the possible with client relationship management systems, how to adapt to new strategies and what approaches firms should adopt to create better value outcomes.