Now, unused resources–including people–can be identified and utilized based on demand.

Now, thanks to the cloud’s ability to cheaply connect a lot of people and information over a broad array of devices, a similar use of spare resources is going on elsewhere in the economy. A company called Uber connects limousines that are between jobs with people who want a ride on the spur of the moment – after a boozy dinner, say, or a late night at work. The serviceAirbnbturns people’s spare rooms into a cheap alternative to hotels, sometimes with with mixed results.

It is possible to see this trend as a function of the cloud itself, since announcing, finding and occupying vacancies on the fly requires access from a lot of locations to common databases. It was always theoretically possible to rent out your room or pick up a fare in between jobs, but now it can be done cheaply and through a common system.

I can see a model like this applying to legal services.