Coursera Plus deal: Save 40% on your first year
While the deal is live, you can get 40% off your first year of an annual Coursera Plus subscription, bringing the price down to $240 instead of the usual $399 for one year. That breaks it down to just $20 a month for your first year instead of the typical $59 fee for the monthly plan.
A Coursera Plus subscription gives you access to over 7,000 online courses across a wide range of topics that can help you advance your career. Courses are available from both top universities like Stanford and Yale and top companies like Meta, Google, and IBM, so you'll be learning from true experts. Some of our favorite courses on the platform include Google Data Analytics, Microsoft UX Design, and more.
Read our full Coursera guide to learn more about pricing, plans, and courses.
Keep in mind that this deal is only valid for the first year of your Coursera Plus subscription. Once a year has passed, your subscription will automatically renew at the original price, though you can cancel at any time.
Coursera Plus deal: Frequently asked questions
When does the Coursera Plus deal end?
The current Coursera Plus deal is live now and will end on July 21, so you still have almost a week to subscribe.
Are current Coursera Plus subscribers eligible for the discount?
The current Coursera Plus deal is only valid for new subscribers; current subscribers will not be able to take advantage of the discount.
Does Coursera offer degree programs?
In addition to certificate programs and individual courses, Coursera also offers degree programs from accredited universities like Georgetown, Northeastern, and more. In some cases, certificate programs can also be combined with additional courses to work towards a degree. To learn more, browse through degree program options on Coursera's website.
Coursera. Plus, check out our roundup of the best Skillshare promo codes to save on more online courses.
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Tom's Guide
2 hours ago
- Tom's Guide
Yale Smart Lock with Matter review: Minimalistic and sleek, but maybe a little too basic
Dimensions: 5.38 x 0.88 x 2.56 inches (H x L x W)Connectivity: Bluetooth, ThreadPower: 4x AA batteriesWorks with: Google Home, Amazon Alexa, Apple Home, and other Matter-compatible smart homes In some ways, smart home devices are getting a little more…boring. That's a good thing. The advent of Matter means that devices like basic smart locks can be less focused on cramming in connectivity tech, and more on actual good design. The new Yale Smart Lock with Matter is a good example of this. It's a simple, sleek smart lock with Matter over Thread support. Of course, there is a little more to it than that – but not much. How does the Yale Smart Lock with Matter compare with the best smart locks on the market today? The Yale Smart Lock with Matter is available now for $170 directly from Yale and through other major retailers. It comes in three finishes: Snow, Matte Black, and Ash. I'm reviewing the Ash model, which wasn't available for purchase at the time of writing. The colors are designed to match the Google Nest Doorbell. Apart from the wide compatibility, perhaps the best thing about the Yale Smart Lock with Matter is how sleek and stylish it looks. It's one of the better-looking smart locks I've tested, with a minimalist design that doesn't scream "smart home gadget" from across the street. The matte finish looks premium and modern, and both the interior and exterior components are refreshingly slim compared to the bulky designs of most smart locks. The exterior features a simple PIN pad and physical keyhole — that's it. The interior section has a basic thumb latch that's equally understated. It's the kind of design that fits seamlessly into contemporary home aesthetics without looking like a tech afterthought. That super-basic design, of course, could be considered a downside. There's no fingerprint sensor, no camera, and no other additional features -- features that some might want from their smart lock. I do wish the thumb latch matched the outer shell in color though – it's black, and not the Ash color of the rest of the lock. Also in the box is a door sensor that works with the lock to let you know if the door is open or closed, though how well it works depends on the smart home ecosystem you use. The sensor is small and white, but there are limits in how you can mount it; since it works with the lock itself, it needs to be positioned near the lock. Installation is straightforward, though it's worth noting that this isn't a retrofit solution like the August Wi-Fi Smart Lock. The Yale Smart Lock replaces all components of your existing lock and deadbolt, which means you'll need to be comfortable with a bit more hardware work. The process itself is simple enough though, and the included instructions are clear. The lock is powered by four AA batteries (that come included), so you don't need to worry about hardwiring anything. The door sensor is easy to set up too, with either screws or adhesive, both included in the box. You can even install it in your door frame, though I didn't do that. As a Matter accessory, setting the lock up in your preferred smart home app is extremely simple. After the physical installation, you'll hold down a button to put the lock into pairing mode, then you simply scan the Matter QR code in your preferred smart home app – whether that's Google Home, Apple Home, or another Matter-compatible platform. It connected quickly during my testing, in both Apple Home and Google Home. Note, however, you will need a Thread border router to use the device through Matter – I used a Google Nest Hub Max and an Apple TV 4K (separately – you can't connect a Thread device to two Thread border routers). Alternatively, you can technically connect the lock to your phone through Bluetooth using the Yale Access app, but I recommend against buying the lock without a Thread border router. That's a bit of a departure compared to the previous-gen collaboration between Yale and Google, the Nest x Yale Lock, which was Google Home only. While there is an official Yale Access app available, you don't actually need to use it — and most users probably won't want to. As a pure Matter device, the lock works entirely through your chosen smart home platform, whether that's Google Home, Apple Home, or another Matter-compatible system. The Yale Access app doesn't unlock (ha) any additional features or functionality beyond what you get through your smart home platform of choice, and in fact, when I went to set the lock up in the Yale app, I was told that doing so would prevent me from being able to add it as a Matter accessory to another platform. In other words, the only time you would want to use the Yale app is if you bought the lock specifically to use it through Bluetooth.I don't recommend using it solely through Bluetooth, as you'll lose remote access and smart home integration when you're outside Bluetooth range — if you don't have a Thread border router, you're better off buying a Wi-Fi model. Yes, the lock works mostly the same in Apple Home and Google Home – despite what Yale's marketing might have you believe. The lock is marketed as being 'designed for Google Home,' and while that may be true when it comes to color-matching the lock with other Google accessories, don't be fooled into thinking that you'll actually get faster or somehow better operation without Google Home. That's with some caveats though. Different companies are better at implementing different features in their smart home apps. For example, Alexa doesn't let you set up and manage guest codes yet, something that all the other platforms allow for. And, DoorSense, the door sensor that comes with the lock, currently only works in Google Home. That largely seems to be a limitation of the apps rather than Matter itself – and to be clear, you won't be able to use other smart lock-connected door sensors in other platforms through Matter. In other words, the lock works great on any Matter-compatible platform, as long as you have a Thread border router. It's just that Google seems to have done a better job at implementing features like automatic locking and unlocking – features that will hopefully come to the other platforms soon, and when they do, will be fully compatible with this lock. Through Matter, you'll get all the other basic features. You can remotely lock and unlock the device, monitor its status, use it with automations, and even set up guest codes that you can enable or disable as needed. Your features, of course, will vary depending on the platform you use — for example, in Google Home you can auto-lock and auto-unlock smart locks, something that you can't do in Apple Home. The Yale Smart Lock with Matter succeeds at providing reliable smart lock functionality in an attractive, minimalist package. If you value clean design and wide smart home compatibility over feature density, this lock delivers exactly what you're looking for. However, at $190, it's asking a premium price for basic functionality. The lack of biometric authentication feels like a missed opportunity, especially when competitors pack more features in at a similar or lower price point. That said, those extra features don't work natively through Matter, which somewhat defeats the purpose of this lock. For those prioritizing aesthetics and simplicity over bells and whistles, the Yale Smart Lock with Matter hits the mark — you'll just pay a bit extra for that minimalist approach.
Forbes
7 hours ago
- Forbes
Friederike Ernst: Using The Internet To Empower People And Communities
Friederike Ernst is an Ivy League physicist, co-founder of Web3 company Gnosis, and a mother of four ... More children under 10. At the age of 12, Friederike Ernst's father handed her a copy of theoretical physicist Simon Singh's The Code Book, sparking a lifelong interest in cryptography. The gift was prescient; Friederike went on to study physics to post-doctoral level at Stanford and Colombia, before transitioning to the world of tech. 'I have always loved building things. I could have been a very happy carpenter,' says Friederike. 'I enjoy being in a place where I can shape things, and the next iteration of the internet, known as 'Web3' or the decentralised web, is one of the areas where we can create a better society for all.' Through our conversation, one theme came through consistently - an engrained distrust of authority and the idea of empowering people with agency. That is the fundamental value that underscores her mission-driven work in the tech space - creating the infrastructure that gives power and autonomy back to people, rather than to huge corporations. 'Labels really don't matter' - the changing face of tech for women The businesswoman in glasses standing near the display At 22, she was the only woman in her class, but she says it's rare to be the sole woman these days: 'We've made tremendous progress. We don't need to get to 50:50 representation in every field - it's true that generally speaking men and women have different interests - but a certain level of diversity is important'. She adds that as the only woman, there is a burden to prove yourself not just on your own behalf, but as a representative of women everywhere. Today, Friederike is a mother of four children aged between one and nine years old, and she challenges the idea that tech is a hostile space for women. 'In the beginning, they can underestimate you, but I feel really appreciated for my contributions. Some say it's not a good place for mothers but I haven't found that to be the case. If you're smart, driven, and making a contribution, labels really don't matter.' Power (and profit) to the people Growing up in Germany, Friederike's values are shaped by counter-cultural cypherpunk ideologies grounded in resisting authority and unchecked capitalism: 'I'm a firm believer in agency, just give people the right tools and they can achieve what they want to.' That's what appeals to her about working in Web3, where decentralisation, privacy, and user ownership are prioritised. At Gnosis, she works on developing the infrastructure needed to make that happen across a diverse range of applications and sectors. She describes Web3 as a do-over of the early internet that allows for shared agency. 'The internet was initially used for a lot of peer-to-peer interactions. Over the last 30 years, a lot of that power has been centralised to accrue value and power to the same 10 companies. Google probably has access to your search history, correspondence, and location - that's an incredible amount of information - and then they target you with related ads.' What if we could have similar services without compromising on privacy? Why should we accept that this is the quid pro quo for access to online tools and services? Reimagining finance for everyone Concept of decentralized internet. Wide banner. WEB 3 technology concept. WEB 3.0 3d rendering.. Friederike explains that the principle of shared ownership, where communities, not corporations, hold the value they help create, can be applied to money and finance. At its foundation, Web3 is a neutral technology that could be steered in vastly different directions. 'Web3 is a base technology; an infrastructure. It can be used to create a utopia, but it can also be used to build an extremely effective surveillance state,' one advocate said. 'We need to ensure that doesn't happen, and that privacy is normalised again.' This is where Gnosis, the company she co-founded, comes in. Gnosis is building the digital tools and systems needed to make financial services more accessible, fair, and decentralised. The idea is simple: instead of profits going to a handful of big banks, tech companies, and intermediaries, the benefits should flow back to the users who actually create the value. 'We're building the foundations for a more open, equitable internet — but there's still a long way to go,' she says. 'In an open financial system, everyone should have equal access to opportunities, no matter where they live. Right now, it's incredibly difficult for people in some countries to hold foreign currencies or invest in global markets. But that kind of access is essential if we want a fairer world.' Traditionally, banks have held a lot of power. But today, new technologies make it possible to replace that middleman. Thanks to blockchain, a secure, shared digital ledger, money can now move directly between people without needing a central authority to oversee it. Friederike said: 'Bitcoin was the first example of this. It started as a form of digital cash that people could send to each other without going through a bank. Over time, it evolved into what many now consider 'digital gold' because there's a limited supply — which helps protect its value over time.' The bigger shift, she believes, will come from creating new money that is no longer dependent on central banks. At Gnosis, she helped to create and launch a trust-based cryptocurrency called Circles, where users create and issue their own coins so that they can use them to barter with other trusted people in their community. As the community using Circles grows, so too does its power as a currency. Agency and autonomy are the values that drive Web3 Asked who she looks up to in terms of values, Friederike is reluctant to name specific role models, but said: 'I look up to people who can withstand the pressure or temptation to make money quickly.' In a space dominated by tech giants constantly looking for new ways to monetise and digital currencies creating hype without benefits, the focus on value creation rather than value extraction is certainly refreshing.
Forbes
11 hours ago
- Forbes
Stare Decisis To Foresight: A Legal Mindset For The AI-Era World
Gear symbols on the head shape. Antonyms. We live in an age of constant, accelerating, and converging change. It is challenging human capacity to adapt--a 21st century edition of 'Future Shock.' That applies equally to individuals and organizations. What separates those that adapt to change and see it as an opportunity from others who are overwhelmed by it and mired in stasis? Mindset is a key factor. It is the prism through which human behavior is filtered. Mindset influences decision making, risk tolerance, curiosity, collaboration, learning, and other important life and career influencers. Carol Dweck, a Stanford University psychologist, divided mindset into two distinct camps in Mindset: The New Psychology of Success. A fixed mindset, according to Dweck, sees capabilities and conditions as static, prioritizing risk avoidance and stability over creativity and exploration. A growth mindset, in contrast, embraces learning, experimentation, and the pursuit of improvement. Despite the controversy around its findings, it is still useful to see mindset in two categories with the caveat that each has gradations. Mindset matters now more than ever. In a real-time, AI-enabled business environment marked by speed, complexity, interconnected risk, and uncertainty, a flexible, forward-thinking mindset has become a requisite to navigate change. Responsible, informed, and creative deployment of AI, data, and other tools is an important element of a growth mindset. So too is developing what Accenture calls a 'digital core' (data, AI, and cloud competency). Teamwork, a shared sense of purpose, curiosity, constant learning, informed experimentation, and a culture that values and supports these attributes, are additional characteristics of a forward-thinking mindset. Research has shown that alignment of mindsets—whether in personal relationships or business—is linked to better outcomes. John Gottman, an American psychologist known for his data-based studies on divorce prediction and marital stability, found that couples who create 'shared meaning'—a common vision of goals and values—are far less likely to divorce. Similarly, research on relational 'growth mindsets' reveals that people who believe relationships can improve with work tend to handle conflict better and maintain higher relationship satisfaction over time. Business offers strikingly parallel findings. Companies that align their mindset and culture around learning, experimentation, and shared vision consistently outperform less adaptive competitors. McKinsey research found that agile organizations deliver ~40% higher total shareholder returns over five years compared to their peers A BCG study revealed that companies with strong adaptive cultures are nearly twice as likely to succeed in digital transformations. Multiple studies have shown that alignment of mindset is a fundamental driver of long-term success. Law and business have divergent mindsets. The 'mindset gap' separating them has widened dramatically during the past quarter century. The divergence is a tale of different responses to a rapidly changing business, geopolitical, and macroeconomic environment. Business has adapted a growth mindset; the legal industry has remained rooted in its fixed mindset and culture. The 'mindset gap' separating law and business adversely impacts not only the legal industry but also business, and society. It diminishes the legal function's efficacy and dilutes its potential enterprise value by narrowing legal's sphere of influence to 'legal' matters rather than expanding its imprint across the many business units law intersects with. It also undercuts enterprise transformation by failing to leverage legal's strategic and problem-solving capabilities and institutional knowledge to create business value. Perhaps most importantly, law's mindset gap has deprived society of an accessible, affordable, fit-for-purpose legal function. This has produced an erosion of public trust in the legal profession, its institutions, the rule of law, and democracy. That negatively impacts commerce, the economy, business, commercial transactions, judicial resolution of disputes, and human rights. What are the causes of the business-law mindset gap, and how can their divergence be bridged to create a legal function that better serves business and society in an AI-enabled world? These important questions have received insufficient attention, perhaps because they principally involve the human side of transformation more than technology. Paradoxically, rapid technological advances—notably AI—have elevated, not marginalized, human qualities that separate us from machines. Soft 'skills (empathy, curiosity, creativity, teamwork) have long been undervalued by the fixed mindset and culture of the legal industry. A spate of psychological studies have found that soft skills are much harder to teach than technical or procedural ones. The takeaway is that for many in the current legal workforce, the transition to a team and customer-oriented mindset will be difficult. EY conducted a study that revealed more than 50% of GC's surveyed reported that legal culture and resistance to change is the greatest obstacle to modernization. Thomson Reuters conducted a similar study that echoed the EY findings, concluding that culture and change resistance eclipse budget and technology gaps as the principal change retardants. The transformation of business during the past quarter century is the story line of the mindset gap with law. This column has long maintained that legal transformation is a business story. Business, especially industry leaders, are well down the path of the transformation journey. The legal function—excepting an expanding number of in-house teams—is just beginning. Business has created a blueprint for legal transformation. It starts with mindset and culture. The Business Mindset Transformation Until the turn of the Millenium, most businesses had a fixed mindset. It was rooted in tradition and past practice, relying on proven models, standard operating procedure, and industry best practices to reduce risk and promote consistency. Adaptation usually took a back seat to stability in a world where change occurred more gradually, the speed of business (and life) was considerably slower, and technology had not yet created what author/journalist Tom Friedman described as a flat world. As Lou Reed noted in a different context, 'those were different times.' The last quarter century has exposed the limitations of a fixed mindset in a rapidly changing world and marketplace. Business has confronted a constant, escalating array of interconnected challenges. A sampling includes: rapid technological advances industry disruptors and asymmetrical competition transitioning from an analog to a digital world (digital transformation) globalization- then its collision with nationalism 9/11 the global economic crisis Covid-19 social media state-sponsored armed conflicts, terrorist attacks, domestic terrorism, etc cyber breaches geopolitical and geoeconomic shifts polarization (social, economic, and political) climate change mass migration data explosion artificial intelligence (its challenges and opportunities). Business recognized these interconnected challenges posed an existential threat, one that could not be extinguished-- much less turned into opportunity--by a fixed mindset and strict adherence to what had worked in the past. This spelled the end to 'business as usual.' Mindset and cultural shifts do not come quickly or easily, nor can they be effected by fiat. The journey begins with leadership providing a clearly articulated strategy that explains the 'why' of transformation. It is systematically reinforced until there is widespread buy-in across the enterprise. Transformation is a team sport, one that requires shared purpose, goals, and an ethos that 'the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.' The transition to a more humane mindset and culture requires tough human decisions; not everyone in the workforce can or will adapt, even when afforded the opportunity and tools to do starts with human adaptation, not with technology. The latter creates opportunities to change and seize opportunity by creating new business structures, economic models, and ways to elevate customer outcomes and experience. The workforce—and that includes the business's supply chain and strategic partners-- determines the success of the adaptation journey by its willingness and ability to adapt. Only then can technology be creatively, responsibly, and usefully applied to internal reorganization that produces better customer outcomes and experience. Fostering a growth mindset is key to individual and collective success. Top performing businesses recognized early on that investment in the workforce—upskilling, purpose, collaboration, etc.—is an essential component of successful transformation. Reimagining talent in a rapidly changing environment is critical, and so too is investment in upskilling and cultural reformation. Google, for example, launched Project Aristotle, a research initiative focused on what makes teams effective. The study analyzed data from hundreds of teams over several years. It concluded that psychological safety was the crucial element of team success. This underscores the importance of humanity in the transformation journey. Microsoft provides another example how mindset and culture can drive success. When Satya Nadella became the tech giant's CEO in 2014, the company was in a trough. Nadella championed a growth mindset and cultural shift focused on learning, collaboration, and cloud-first innovation. This gradually replaced the siloed, internally combative culture that Nadella inherited. The mindset and cultural shift paid off; it produced a dramatic turnaround in Microsoft's market value and brand, a trajectory that continues more than a decade later. Mindset and culture are closely connected. Culture is forged by aligned mindsets that share, reinforce, and institutionalize their values, practices, and goals across the group. Culture is an amalgam of how a group identifies itself and what it stands for. Social cohesion and progress are largely determined by how widely a unified mindset is achieved. Leadership's ability to forge a culture of shared understanding, purpose, teamwork, and goals is critical. This--like other human elements of transformation-- is especially true during periods of rapid, interconnected change. A growth mindset supports a holistic, proactive approach to risk management and uncertainty. Risk can be managed, because, to channel Peter Drucker, it can be measured. Uncertainty, however, cannot be measured, and--like risk-- there is a great deal of it in the current business environment. Top performing companies have embraced and invested in foresight to anticipate and prepare for uncertainty. Foresight includes identifying signals that portend change, scenarios planning, and critical thinking applied to 'connecting the dots,' among other types of horizon scanning. Scenarios planning is not new; Shell pioneered it back in the 1970's. The foresight tools that can now be applied--predictive analytics, scenario AI-driven forecasting, and the like have become more powerful, enabling businesses that use them effectively not only to anticipate change but also to turn it into strategic advantage. Those tools are also available to competitors; mindsets and cultures are key factors in what separates leaders from laggards. Data supports the marked divergence of enterprise mindset and culture separating companies that fail from those that succeed. WatchMyCompetitor, an AI-powered competitive intelligence platform, conducted research on why companies decline. It reported more than half (52%) of the companies in the Fortune 500 list in 2003 no longer exist today, and 72% of the original 1984 FTSE 100 companies are now gone. The takeaway is clear: in today's world, business must adapt or confront obsolescence. The study identified six common reasons for corporate decline: All six failure elements relate to mindset and culture. Technology accelerates and enables change. Human adaptation—a growth mindset, forward thinking culture, and aligned, agile, fluid, team-oriented, integrated, and creatively curious workforce seizes opportunity from change. Law's Retrospective Mindset and Culture The legal profession/industry has a deeply rooted, fixed mindset. It is embodied by stare decisis, a legal principle of judicial adherence to past decisions. The rationale is to promote stability, consistency, and fairness. Law's mindset, culture, criteria for guild admission, pedagogy, hierarchical organizational structure, pyramidal economic model, pedagogy, and linear career trajectory evidence its adherence to the past. Legal language (a/k/a 'legalese') is abstruse and chock full of Latin terms, evocative of its strong ancestral ties. The legal guild constructed a language designed for itself, thereby separating lawyers from 'non-lawyers. This purposeful distancing from clients and society-at-large is emblematic of the myth of legal exceptionalism as well as the reality of legal insularity and separatism. Law's anachronistic rituals-- court proceedings where judges sit on elevated platforms, gowns, wigs, and other symbols of pomp and ceremony, are not intended to be inviting or to put 'outsiders' at ease. Law is a people and persuasion business, but everything about it creates the opposite effect for non-guild members. Legal culture has rewarded cultural compliance, risk-aversion, and an artisanal approach to problem solving-- no matter its correlation to client value. The legal profession has offered lip service to 'partnering with clients,' 'cutting edge technology,' and 'investing in our most important asset, our people.' This is belied by high turnover (especially law firms), client dissatisfaction, the migration of work from law firms to in-house corporate teams, and law's ambivalent embrace and negligible investment in technology and training. Law schools, likewise, retain a fixed mindset. Their doctrinal emphasis, siloed study of core subjects (rather than an integrated approach that reflects the realities of practice), elevation of issue identification over problem solving, and faculties thin on practice experience and/or marketplace awareness are out-of-synch with the evolving role and purpose of the legal function in a rapidly changing marketplace. Legal education is about rote learning and spotting issues, not understanding concepts, drawing connections, and creatively applying them to problem solving. Customer/client relationship building, the service component of legal delivery, and a multidisciplinary approach to problem solving are also lacking in law schools. The traditional law firm partnership structure and hierarchical, labor-intensive economic model have survived and thrived for generations. Firms have prospered as business has consolidated, grown, and transformed. Regulation and compliance has become more onerous and complex, litigation (particularly in the US) has continued its upward spend trajectory, business has faced new risks and greater uncertainty, and technology has spun off new practice areas. The global legal services market was $300B in 2000; it is currently estimated at $1T. Partner profits, especially among twenty or so 'elite' firms that handle the lion's share of high value M&A and litigation work, are at an all-time high. So too are firm rates, margins, and partner profits far outpacing the broader economy. Their corporate clients have transformed, but law firms have been under little pressure to do the same. Why, then, are so many legal leaders so concerned about the future? Spoiler alert: business has already quietly begun to transform the legal function from within, focusing on reimaging the in-house legal function. Concurrently, AI is poised to accelerate that process and deliver the coup de gras to the law firm partnership model. That will transform the legacy delivery paradigm by eliminating the economic friction between corporate legal teams and firms. It will also accelerate the creation of new AI-first corporate provider sources that can 'productize'—and customize— faster, better, cheaper' legal products and services at scale. Those products and services will extend beyond the narrow parameters of 'legal' issues and include risk management, regulatory and compliance, IP, cybersecurity, corporate governance, etc. Business has been conducting a skunk-works transformation of its in-house legal teams for years. It is changing the corporate legal team's role, remit, metrics, composition, and talent mix. The goals are not only to save on outside legal spend, but also to extract the latent potential of legal to create value for the enterprise and enhance customer outcomes and experience. The author has dubbed in-house teams 'law's astronauts.' They operate within a corporate environment, are increasingly aligned with business purpose, goals, metrics, and customer-centricity, and are increasingly operating cross-functionally and proactively. In-house portfolios are expanding and more complex, even as their budgets and headcounts are shrinking. A response to this squeeze necessitates doing things differently and developing a growth mindset. Business has not directly shaped or managed this process, but it has created an environment where CLO's and GC's must do things differently. In-house teams have become (albeit to varying degrees) proactive, strategic, tech-enabled, data-backed, value-oriented, and results-driven. Most importantly, the in-house legal function is becoming integrated with the business and its customers. To effect this transformation has necessitated in-house teams to adapt to the speed, complexity, risk, uncertainty, and competing stakeholder expectations of business. That has, in turn, required a change in the in-house mindset, culture, and perception of legal's purpose and role in digital/AI-era business and society. In-house legal teams' alignment with corporate objectives and collaboration with various business units demonstrates that legal can operate in a corporate environment without ceding its professional independence. The expansion of the in-house team's enterprise role has been accompanied by a shift in market share allocation. In 2000, companies typically sourced 70-80% of legal work to law firms. Corporate teams now account for 54% of all legal spend. The remaining balance goes to law firms, ALSP's, consultancies, and an array of other niche providers. The gradual shift in market share is about to become sudden. AI will drive a spike through the law firm economic model, hollowing out the bottom and middle levels of its pyramid. This will be accompanied by a shift from output (value) as the billing basis, not input (hours). That will open the door to the integration of all legal product and services providers and end the economic, mindset, and cultural divide separating in-house teams and their supply chain. The stage has been set for a true structural paradigm change in legal delivery, one where provider sources are integrated across the supply chain. That is business-driven legal transformation. It does not spell the end of law firms, but it means that they will be very different than they are today. AI is the greatest-- but by no means the only—challenge facing the leadership of traditional law firms. Forrester, a market research group, projects that almost 80 percent of jobs in the legal sector will be significantly reshaped by AI technology. A 2023 Goldman Sachs report on the effects of AI on economic growth, indicates that 44 percent of legal tasks could be automated using AI tools. While the percentages relate to tasks, not jobs, mindset change will be required to adjust to ongoing upskilling as well as to new structures, models, workforces, and ways of delivering legal products and services. The challenge of transition is elevated because it is accompanied by increased workloads, headcount reduction, and elevated business and customer expectations. Firm leaders are also confronting other issues related to their legacy firm structure and model. A partial list includes: the generational divide separating older and younger partners, a dearth of AI-native talent, peripatetic partners, and brand differentiation (apart from a handful of elite firms) It's little wonder why firm leaders have agita. Last year's law firm profits may be up for many large corporate law firms, but so too is uncertainty about the sustainability of their economic model. Another indication of the model's fragility is white-hot PE interest in the long dormant legal industry (a positive and negative development for firms), What will the legal marketplace look like when AI becomes an integral component of strategic planning and delivery? Whether that will happen is no longer in question. When it does is anyone's guess (smart money is betting sooner than you think). One thing is clear: what has passed for 'legal transformation' to date will pale compared with what is about to unfold. Recommendations For Legal Mindset And Cultural Adaptation The following recommendations are a sampling, not an exhaustive list, of issues to be considered. While the focus is on the corporate segment of the legal market, the recommendations apply equally to the retail (people) part. The latter is grossly underserved and presents an enormous opportunity to 'do good and do well.' Conclusion Change no longer occurs over centuries, generations, or decades; it is constant. The time separating present from future has been compressed. That is creating new risks and greater uncertainty, as well as opportunities that precedent, best practices, and fixed mindsets alone can no longer address. Clayton Christensen, the father of disruptive innovation theory, captured the zeitgeist of 21st century business: 'Best practices are a great way to institutionalize what you know. But they're also a great way to institutionalize ignorance if you don't keep revisiting them.' The legal function must balance stare decisis with a growth mindset and culture in synch with digital/AI-era business and society. To do so requires that it reimagine itself and what it delivers—as business has--to meet the needs of end-users of its products and services. It must engage in the same reverse-engineering process that business has embarked on. These are blueprints the legal industry can borrow from and, as Christensen admonishes, 'keep revisiting them.' Curiosity, creativity, constant learning, thoughtful experimentation, foresight, agility, and an empathetic team orientation are key attributes of an AI-era legal function. They must be accompanied by a holistic focus on business, societal, and global developments, particularly macroeconomic, sociopolitical, and other forces that are reshaping life and business. A legal function with this mindset and culture will once again attract 'the best and the brightest' to it from multiple fields. It will reclaim its purpose, elevate its standing, and better serve business and society in real-time, AI-era world.
