New law is about delivering legal services in different ways. It’s about bringing new strategies to bear for meeting clients’ current needs, not just preserving the status quo and squeezing more revenue from existing work. It’s about deploying technology, hiring “legal techies,” and establishing multidisciplinary teams with a focus on process rather than legal acumen. It’s about embracing the kind of innovation that has driven other industries in the business world to become more customer/end-user-centric and deliver better outcomes.

But law firms, like many other sectors of the economy, have not yet embraced the concept of new law as anything more than an incremental, tinkering approach to delivery. Until that happens, law new will be the fresh icing on an old cake.

In the business world, competitors routinely collaborate on research initiatives and joint ventures. They also shift their market position through horizontal and, less frequently, vertical integration mechanisms. Why not the legal industry?

A growing number of companies, including some very large ones, are entering the legal marketplace. Some are direct competitors with traditional law firm models, and others are new entrants with a completely different model for serving the legal industry’s end-users. The latter include technology providers with the brand, capital, know-how, customer-centricity, data mastery, and platforms that the large legal players possess.

These corporate Goliaths have the potential to deliver the paradigm-shifting change to legal industry delivery that customers and society need. They have the brand, resources, and know-how to take the industry to its next level, which will focus on improving legal consumers’ and society’s net promoter scores rather than preserving legacy delivery models.

As of January 1, 2023, hundreds of state laws silently became law as Americans celebrated the beginning of a new year. This batch of laws covers topics ranging from quirky to serious, and many address issues that are dominating American discourse. Among them are laws on force-feeding prisoners, open captioning in movie theaters, and the Utah YouTube star’s parenting tactics. Read the full list of state laws that took effect on Jan. 1 — and find out what they will mean to their residents.