The Legal Services Innovation Index, created by Daniel W. Linna Jr., measures and assesses innovation to help in better understanding the legal innovation landscape.
Version 1.0 of the Index was launched in August 2017 and comprises of 1) a Catalog of more than 200 innovations from over 100 law firms located in the US, UK, EU, Australia, and Canada and 2) the Law Firm Innovation Index which measures innovation in 260 law firms (the AmLaw Global 100, AmLaw 200, and Canadian 30). In November 2017, a prototype Law School Innovation Index was launched and 17 innovations were added in version 1.01 of the Catalog, with an additional 112 innovations added in January 2019.
It is made quite clear on the landing page that the Index is not intended, at the moment, to be a ranking of law firms or law schools and the data “needs to be viewed in their proper context” and to refer to the various methodology sections.
When viewing the Catalog of Law Firm Innovations, data is presented by: Jurisdiction, Area of Law, Tool/Discipline, and Law Firm. The table below shows Innovations by Tool/Discipline
For the Law Firm Innovation Index, Phase 1, v.1.0 looks at what law firms indicate on their own websites. (Other than a few surveys, and press about recipients of innovation awards, Linna was “unable to identify any systematic measure” of law firm innovation.) Each of the 260 law firm websites were searched for certain words and phrases related to innovation in legal-service delivery. For each law firm, the total number of hits for each category was recorded. “The number of hits is an indicator for whether the law firm is innovating in that category.” Linna acknowledges the weaknesses in this approach, but states it does help to determine “whether and how law firms are innovating.”
The Law Firm Innovation Index data can be viewed via:
- Average Hits per Law Firm Website by Search Category
- Average Hits per Law Firm Website by Search Category – Firms Grouped
- Average Hits by Jurisdiction
- Average Hits by Jurisdiction – Firms Grouped
- Individual Firms – All Hits – Not a Ranking
- Individual Firms – Percentile Order – Not a Ranking (snapshot of table section pictured below)
With the Law School Innovation Index – Protoype, you can view the data via Legal-Service Delivery Disciplines Taught:
- Programs by Type – Legal Service Delivery (Number of Schools per Category)
- Disciplines Taught- Legal Service Delivery (Schools Teaching at Least One Class in Category)
- “Law and” – Course Categories Offered (Schools Teaching at Least One Course in Category)
- Summary – Legal-Service Delivery (38 Law School Legal-Services Delivery Programs)
