Axiom Law Uses Ethics To Innovate

I recently read a wonderful law review article by Stephen Gillers, a professor at New York University School of Law, called A Profession, If You Can Keep It: How Information Technology and Fading Borders Are Reshaping The Law Marketplace and What We Should Do About It. In this article, Professor Gillers discusses the legal doctrines that helped give rise to alternative legal service providers such as Axiom Law. Most importantly, he eloquently explains how Axiom is using idiosyncrasies within the rules of professional responsibility to drive innovation.

It is worth reading the whole article (a full copy of the article can be found on Gillers’ SSRN page)but excerpts of a passage that I was particularly impressed by are reproduced below. Any and all errors are mine.

«In the 1980s, bar ethics committees were asked to address the growing phenomenon of temporary lawyers, now sometimes called contract…