Posted by Scott Jones, deputy editor of Legal Futures
Murphy: Five principles shape her dream firm
As LegalTechTalk gets underway today, we invite our third and final lawyer to take the ‘blank sheet’ challenge – sketching out their dream law firm with the freedom to start again from scratch.
What would you do differently? What would stay the same?
This is the premise of one of the many sessions at the event, for which Legal Futures is a media partner.
Three lawyers are on the panel and have shared their ideas with us in advance. Monday it was Clare Murray, founder and managing partner of CM Murray. Yesterday it was Shainul Kassam, managing director of London firm Fortune Law.
Today it is Lucy Murphy, chief growth officer at magic circle firm Linklaters. She took the challenge personally – these are her answers, not those of Linklaters.
So, being part a global firm with 30 offices in 20 countries, where would you set up camp?
Ms Murphy said: “I would start with a focused international footprint – a presence in the key financial and regulatory centres, supported by delivery and technology hubs in a handful of locations.
“Beyond that, you can be much more flexible, using a mix of travel, partnerships, and digital delivery.”
Wearing her growth hat – which obviously works wonders, given global revenues grew by 11% to £2.3bn at Linklaters last year – what sectors would you focus on?
Ms Murphy said: “Areas that are complex, repeatable and data-rich — private capital, regulated industries, infrastructure, technology and energy transition. The strategy is depth, not breadth.”
Having seen Linklaters move away from the old lockstep model over the last five years, are there any traditions you’d keep hold of?
“If I were starting from scratch today, I’m not sure I would build a traditional law firm. I’d build a business focused on legal outcomes – one that happens to hold a law licence.
“At its core, clients aren’t really buying hours; they’re buying judgement, certainty and help managing risk. The way most law firms are structured doesn’t fully reflect that yet because the economics still revolve around time.
“On structure, I’d move decisively away from the traditional hierarchy. There should be multiple credible paths to seniority – advisory, solutions, engineering, product, client leadership – and people should be able to move between them.
“The old ‘up or out’ model feels increasingly out of step with the capabilities and may move more towards ‘grow or move’.
“A modern firm would need to be designed differently. The fundamentals of great lawyering still matter enormously, but they would sit alongside a much stronger focus on data, technology, multidisciplinary teams and, ultimately, what clients actually value.”
So what does your new, non-traditional firm look like?
This is where a chief growth officer really shows her skills, with a clear, five-part plan for designing and building a law firm for the future.
Ms Murphy said: “A few principles would shape it. First, I would move away from the billable hour as the primary unit of value. It might still exist internally to understand cost, but externally the focus would be on outcomes – deliverables, milestones, subscriptions or risk-sharing arrangements.
“That also changes the incentive around efficiency: if you’re not tied to hours, investing in automation directly improves margin rather than reducing revenue.
“Second, I wouldn’t think of it as a single business model. I would build three distinct but connected businesses: a high-end advisory practice for complex, high-stakes work; a solutions business for more repeatable, productised legal work; and a products and data business that generates recurring revenue through tools, benchmarks and insight.
“From the client’s perspective, it feels like one firm – but underneath, those models need to operate differently.
“Third, the firm would need a proper balance sheet. One of the structural challenges in traditional partnerships is the extent to which profits are distributed each year.
“If you’re serious about investing in technology, data and new capabilities, you have to retain capital. That may also mean using structures that allow non-lawyer ownership or external investment where it makes sense.
“Fourth, I think the traditional pyramid is under strain. Future leverage won’t come from simply adding more junior lawyers. It will come from combining experienced people with better systems, data and technology.
“The shape is more likely to be a diamond: fewer trainees, a strong middle layer of experienced lawyers and specialists, and partners focused on judgement and client leadership.
“Fifth, I would build the firm around a much more structured way of delivering work. Every matter would be broken down at the outset – what needs to be done, how complex it is, what level of judgment is required, and who or what is best placed to do it.
“Some tasks need senior lawyers; others are better handled by specialists, engineers or AI-enabled workflows. Over time, the firm should learn systematically from every piece of work – cost, timing, quality and outcome.”
If you want collaboration, innovation and long-term client relationships, Ms Murphy continues, you of course have to reward them.
“I wouldn’t centre it on billable hours. Contribution would be broader: client outcomes, quality, knowledge creation, team development, and commercial impact. Origination credit would be shared and time-limited to avoid behaviours that fragment client relationships.”
Five fantastic ideas. But how realistic is this?
“None of this is science fiction. Most of the component parts already exist somewhere in the market — in alternative legal service providers, the Big Four, AI-native boutiques, legal product businesses and some of the more innovative parts of major firms.
“What does not yet exist is one institution that combines them at elite scale. The obstacle is not imagination. It is the economic and governance model of the incumbent law firm.”
Law firms appear to be increasingly built on a Holy Trinity of lawyers, clients and AI. Looking at the sketches and doodles on that blank sheet of paper, where do the priorities lie?
“The best lawyers of the future will still need excellent judgement, but also stronger skills in client leadership, technology and systems thinking.
“I would be deliberate about clients. Rather than trying to serve everyone, I’d focus on a smaller number of deep, long-term institutional relationships, where the firm really understands the client’s business and risk profile. That creates better economics, better data and better outcomes.
“With AI, I wouldn’t try to build core AI models – those will largely be bought. The real value lies in how the firm captures and uses its own data, and how confidently it can stand behind the outputs it produces.
“The key question is not whether AI can generate an answer, but whether the firm can trust it enough to put its name to it.
“If I had to choose one organising principle, it would be clients. The firm should be built around what clients need to buy: judgment, certainty, speed, and accountability. Lawyers and AI are both critical, but they are means to that end.”
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