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Adopting the efficiencies and other ideas discussed in this book are not impossible. The greater challenge however, will come in doing away with the practice of billing by the hour. Compensation and career advancement in most firms are tied to the number of hours billed by a lawyer. When billable hours are done away with, firms will be forced to restructure how they pay their lawyers and how lawyers will advance within the firm. They will be forced to consider the types of behavior that they want from their lawyers and design compensation and advancement models that drive that kind of behavior.

Although no law firm has yet created a real-life version of BFC, many firms are using one or more of the ideas discussed in this book; and many of these innovations are in use by various other industries. The Legal Services Act in the UK, which came into full force just before the publication of Avoiding Extinction: Reimagining Legal Services for the 21st Century, will deliver some astounding examples of how legal services can be better provided.

Maria had also been able to achieve additional cost savings by using geography to her advantage, sending legal work to lawyers in lower-cost parts of the country rather than to those who charged big-city fees; the savings were good, but more needed to be done.

lawyers are trained to be slaves to precedent, to revere the past, and Marshall McLuhan's famous quote comes true: "We look at the present through a rear-view mirror. We march backwards into the future."

most law firms around the world still practice law the way it has been practiced for centuries; a labor-intensive endeavor carried out by high-priced personnel billing by the hour. Protected by legislated monopolies, law firms have been allowed to grow complacent, fat and inefficient.

Should you find yourself in a chronically leaking boat, energy devoted to changing vessels is likely to be more productive than energy devoted to patching leaks.

We are successful because we believe in changing the nature of how legal services are delivered. We are successful because we relentlessly search for ways to leverage technology and professionals in order to service our clients' legal needs. We are successful because we don't benchmark against what others are doing--we reimagine the entire process.