The standard law firm model that has been in effect for the better part of the last 20 years is becoming less viable and the way law firms are run is undergoing a subtle, yet significant change, driven largely by information.

The wealth of information that general counsel have access to, along with a zero-growth market for many firms, aging leadership and increased competition from things like legal outsource providers, is creating an environment where many law firms will have to dramatically change if they want to survive.

When futurist Alvin Toffler published his bestseller, “The Third Wave,” in 1980, he theorized that much of the turmoil of the late 1970s was the result of a major societal shift. In Toffler's view, there had been two previous major “waves” or changes to society. The first was the transition from a hunting and gathering society to an agrarian one and the second was the transition from an agrarian society to an industrial one. The third wave, he predicted, was a post-industrial society—the information age.