In this week's Law Firm Disrupted, we discuss how those committed to legal change need to be more like the world's best golfers. Let me know how I can be more like the world's best writers on law firm change: [email protected].

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If you're a golf fan, last week was Christmas. The Masters is a fabulous test of golf to watch, in large part because of one challenge the players constantly face: judging pace.

The greens at the Augusta National Golf Club are famously fast and steep. Get the pace wrong by a fraction and a ball can roll forever. Consider what happened to the world's No. 1 ranked golfer, Dustin Johnson, on the 16th hole last week. Facing a 15-foot downhill putt for birdie, Johnson's ball burned the edge of the hole and then rolled 44 feet past the hole.

Judging the pace of change in the legal industry feels like a similar battle. Looking at the same challenges of innovation, some prognosticators talk as if artificial intelligence and efficiency will take the industry as fast as a 15-foot downhill putt. Others think it's a 44-foot uphill slog.

This sentiment was well-captured in a presentation titled “Hype Hangover in Big Law” put together by Jae Um, the former director of strategic planning and analysis at Seyfarth Shaw.

Um says that if you work in Big Law you have heard these three sentiments about the pace of change lately:
1. Everything is disrupted!
2. Eh, it's not fast or good or radical enough.
3. Ugh, nothing is changing.

Um lays out a helpful response to this pit of frustration and confusion, which can be the feeling presented by a hype cycle. If you're told everything is changing but you see that nothing is changing, why bother? Um points out that the challenges of innovation are not unique to lawyers and law firms. Change is difficult in almost all business environments.

Why? She says people are persistently bad at picturing the future—often underestimating long-term change as we overestimate short-term change. People are also wrong in repeatable and predictable ways. And that is further amplified by public discourse. Um's final point is to acknowledge that change is hard.

But if you want to make it happen, stay the course. Don't give in to cynicism.

That's a good lens through which to view a survey put out this week by Buying Legal Council, a trade group for legal procurement professionals.

For anybody thinking there has been a massive change in legal spending, the report might be a damper. The biggest businesses still spend 82 percent of their overall legal budget on traditional law firms and only 5 percent on alternative legal services providers.

But the report also asked about individual experiences. What actions led to savings?

An interesting result on that question was the finding that the amount of time a company has pursued savings through procurement was the biggest indicator of success.

Companies with 10 or more years in legal procurement on average achieved 19 percent in savings, the most of any group.

“The biggest factor is time: Tenure in the legal category has significant effects on what procurement can achieve,” the report says.

So, as Um writes, the lesson might be to tune out the noise. If efficiency and savings are what your legal department or law firm are looking for, stay committed to making the changes in front of you. What does it matter that most others don't view alternative legal service providers as worthy of their money? If you're committed they would work for your problem, give it a shot.

And if you miss? If a 15-foot putt turns into a 44-footer? Be like Dustin Johnson. Because the end of his 16th hole on Friday at Augusta went like this: His birdie putt rolled by. He surveyed his new predicament. And he holed his 44-foot putt.

To put legal innovation into golf terms: Line up the putt in front of you. Make your read. Commit to it.

➤ Editor's Note: I'm on vacation next week, so there will be no Law Firm Disrupted next Thursday. Yes, I will be playing golf.

Roy's Reading Corner

More on Legal Procurement: My colleague Caroline Spiezio spoke with the executive director of Buying Legal Council, which put out the procurement study. The conversation puts more context around the type of changes the survey has shown over the past few years, including growth in legal project management and the winnowing in the number of law firm providers at the biggest companies.

“The goal needs to be get to better results for the company at the right price,” said Silvia Hodges Silverstein, the executive director of Buying Legal Council.

On firm-level change: My colleague Ryan Lovelace spoke with Hogan Lovells CEO Stephen Immelt about a change the firm made to its associate feedback system. The firm scrapped what Immelt called a “broken” annual review system in favor of a more constant feedback cycle that encourages associates to seek input of partners and others. Associates are asked to get three pieces of feedback every three months. Immelt also commented on lawyers' resistance to change.

“Even saying that the old system was broken didn't mean that this was the right solution,” Immelt said. “This does change the approach, and we all know how lawyers don't like things to change, so we wanted to be sure this was going to be an approach people would adapt and pick up.”

On Golf: This isn't law firm innovation, but it's more golf! Last week I spoke with Fred Ridley, the chairman of Augusta National. Now a partner at Foley & Lardner in Tampa, Ridley at one point was poised to be a PGA player. He is the last golfer not to turn pro after winning the U.S. Amateur Championship. His story is a good one. And so is his course.

That's it for this week. And next! Email me at [email protected] with your thoughts. I may be a bit delayed in my response. And sign up here to receive The Law Firm Disrupted as a weekly email.