Volume XV, Issue IV
July/August 2001

The Challenge to Innovate

I'm pretty sure that we humans are hard-wired to innovate despite the attempts to prove otherwise by certain less-than-crafty criminals. I recently heard about one luckless fellow who entered a convenience store with the intention of relieving the till therein of the day's collected receipts. His plan was to slap a twenty down on the counter and ask the clerk for change. Once the register was opened, he would clean it out and make his great escape.

Well, that all went down as planned except for a couple of minor glitches. First, the till only had fifteen bucks in it, which the hapless heister, no doubt, proudly procured. Secondly, however, the poor pilferer left his twenty on the counter and thus ended up five bucks in the red after the transaction. We can only hope that he learned some sort of valuable lesson from the experience—perhaps courtesy of the criminal justice system. What we can learn from such an episode is that Darwin's theory is alive and well, at least as it relates to the criminal mind

In any case, one need not look any further than their own daily routine to see the manifestations of this propensity of ours to improve on what has come before. Modern life is full of innovations that we take for granted every day. Even mundane items such as the computer in front of me now represents the capacity for clever adaptation and ongoing improvements of existing systems and processes. There is, as I am sure most of us are aware, a steady stream of updated hardware and software.

When I bought my computer some three short years ago, I thought I had done OK for myself in my negotiations with the retailer. I paid what seemed to be a fair price for a machine with decent speed a number of the then-available bells and whistles, although it was not quite one of the "cutting edge" 450 megahertz "monster" machines that were just then becoming available. Who knew then that gigahertz machines were just around the corner? Well, maybe the chipmakers knew…

In our professional lives as trained experts in the law, likewise there are opportunities and, indeed, pressures to innovate. Maybe it is in the context of providing the Court with a novel interpretation of a statute in issue. Maybe it is finding a loophole in a contract that has suddenly evolved into an instrument that no longer seems to work to a client's interests. Hell, finding loopholes is, in many ways, the lawyer's bread and butter. I think you get the picture.

I bring all of this up because I have, as of late, been in a position to give considerable thought to the notion of innovation and, more specifically, re-engineering as it relates to systems and processes. I read an article recently on exactly this topic written by an academic who seems to possess a certain amount of credibility. One point that he made had an interesting ring to it. He observes that often, substantial innovations come from what might otherwise be called youthful inexperience or, at the very least, the lower rungs of a given hierarchy. In our culture, as members of the Young Lawyers Division, that means us, boys and girls.

I believe that we should accept and embrace the responsibility to innovate, and not just as it relates to specific tasks that may be assigned to us at work. Keep in mind the broader context of our offices, our profession and, dare I say it, society in general. I would encourage you to even let me know if you can think of innovations for this distinguished publication. There is always going to be room for improvement, we need only be open to the possibilities. Release any pent up creativity. For sure ask yourself often how something can be done better, but don't stop there. Don't hesitate to ask the additional question of why is it done at all.

David

-- David Berger, Editor

Back to table of contents >>