Innovator in Residence

CreatinPeter Aprileg the Most Impactful Law Firms

By: Peter Aprile, Counter Tax Lawyers and OBA Inaugural Innovator-in-Residence

The people in our industry will not thrive unless our law firms adopt an organizational model that unlocks the talent and creativity within every person, at every level, in our organizations.

The traditional law firm model is a hierarchal pyramid model. It has helped the legal profession create very profitable and powerful organizations. This traditional model has many advantages and it flourishes when complexity is low. However, this model is the primary force working against our people and their ability to uncover innovative legal solutions. Also, limits our ability to reinvent our industry and avert external disruption.

To reinvent our law firm, Counter has formally adopted a distributed power model, and we’re exploring what’s possible. We intend to transform our law firm and strengthen our workplace so that all our people are in the best position to thrive. In particular, we expect our new model to create the best conditions for the growth of more effective, productive, and fulfilled legal professionals who have the space to create and innovate.

As the OBA’s Innovator in Residence, Counter will share our firm’s real-time evolution. Also, we’ll give you the guidance and tools that you’ll need to start to transform your law firm.

We hope that you will join us so that, together, we can reinvent our law firms and our industry. 

Click through the links below and learn how and why we're going down this path.

  1. Surface policies won't fix your law firm
  2. We see it, now
  3. We didn't know the way. So we started walking. 
  4. This is us, burning our boats.
  5. We'll go first. You go second. 

Join & Lead

We hope that our Innovator-in-Residence content, Counter’s reputation and modest success, and our “burn the boats” commitment, lead your law firm to take concrete steps to adopt a new organizational model. If you’re excited and the self-study type, this book is a good place to start and these podcasts will help too.

We hope that you choose innovation over the status quo.

We hope that you choose action over apathy. We hope that you choose innovation over the status quo. Or, if you work with a law firm that is not taking action or are interested in exploring what’s possible, let me know. We’ll find a way to work together and co-create the most impactful law firm in Canada.