I just ordered a copy of Moneyball. It seems there are a lot of applications of these principles to legal education. Why not the legal profession?

Can we apply Moneyball-style analysis to law? The answer is a qualified “yes,” informed by three considerations:

First, value of services is inherently more nuanced than value in goods, and law is toward the more nuanced end of the spectrum of services (say more nuanced than a baseball player, a real estate agent or a travel agent, but probably less than a psychotherapist).

Second, value discussions have to be specific—value in sell-side mergers and acquisitions is different from buy-side, and altogether different from counseling to avoid employment discrimination claims.

Third, discussing value is always going to be useful, even though it doesn’t lead to one absolute standard.

This conference looks quite interesting:

A group of us are getting together in Chicago on Oct. 29 at the College of Law Practice Management to pursue this topic, and I hope you can join us at the Futures Conference(PDF) or participate online in a continuing discussion.