Recent news and awards indicate law firms are increasing their investments in innovation. Stories of recently launched innovation committees, R&D teams and idea labs routinely grace the pages of industry publications. Yet despite these investments, the trajectory of the industry as a whole seems to have remained largely unchanged. Why are innovation efforts by larger law firms failing to make a meaningful impact?

The emphasis of the majority of innovation efforts in today's law firms is on idea generation—bringing together smart people to catalogue all of the ways in which the firm can respond to changes. While idea generation is vital, it lacks the impact of taking action. Corporate entities as noteworthy as Disney, Ogilvy, Microsoft and Coca Cola have shuttered their innovation labs in recent years. Why? They simply don't work. In fact, according to a CapGemini report from 2015, an expert predicted 90 percent of innovation labs fail.

The think tank approach often focuses on major shifts—artificial intelligence, Millennials, lawyer robots—at the expense of a very real alternative—small change, or as Adi Gaskell refers to it in his Forbes article, “humdrum innovation.” While Gaskell's examples focus primarily on process improvement concepts, the underlying message is clear. “Go big or go home” is not a mantra for leading change. Small improvements in what law firms engage in every day—from the delivery of legal services to the way they communicate with clients to how they attract talent—can add up to meaningful impact.