I’m not sure if you’re like me, but I’m still grappling with what’s happening at one of Australia’s top law firms, MinterEllison. And, I’ve got to stay, in relation to tech adoption, it’s possibly the biggest story out of 2024.
If you don’t know, MinterEllison has set an aggressive target: 80% of their lawyers must use AI tools in their daily work by March 2025. They’re deploying three tools – Microsoft Copilot, a secure ChatGPT variant, and a custom document generator.
Now, the practicalities of this, and what they’re using don’t interest me too much, but what I’m more fascinated by is the capacity of their leadership team, speed of adoption and the culture of the firm.
What Everett Rogers Has To Do With It
Now, if you’ve read Malcolm Gladwell’s Tipping Point, you probably have also read, Everett Rogers’ Diffusion of Innovation. Well, in my view, Rogers work makes Gladwell’s work look like fiction.
According to Everett when any innovation enters a market, it gets adopted by different groups at different speeds. Rogers mapped these groups into five segments that form a beautiful bell curve:
- Innovators (2.5%) – The crazy brave ones who’ll try anything new
- Early Adopters (13.5%) – The sensible visionaries who spot opportunity early
- Early Majority (34%) – Pragmatists who move when benefits are proven
- Late Majority (34%) – Conservatives who move when everyone else has
- Laggards (16%) – The ones still using flip phones and proud of it
No guessing where law firms typically live.
Now, here’s why this matters for MinterEllison’s AI adoption strategy: Law firms traditionally sit firmly in the Late Majority category. They’re conservative by nature, now, I’m not suggesting that’s a bad thing! It’s just the way it is.
What Geoffrey Moore Has To Do With It
Now, let me introduce you to another smart guy, Geoffrey Moore who wrote the equally good read, Crossing the Chasm.
Moore took Rogers’ diffusion curve and spotted something fascinating. Between the Early Adopters and Early Majority, there’s a gap. Not just a small gap – a, freaking massive chasm that swallows promising innovations and their families whole. This is where great technologies go to die. They fail to make the leap.
So, here’s what’s fascinating about Minter Ellison.
They’re traversing the Grand Canyon in one gigantic step.
They’re essentially telling their Late Majority lawyers to behave like Early Adopters. It’s like asking your conservative uncle who just got comfortable with email to start programming blockchain applications.
The secret to crossing what Geoffrey Moore calls the ‘chasm’ between Early Adopters and Early Majority isn’t mandating adoption – it’s demonstrating overwhelming value. This is why watching MinterEllison’s experiment is so fascinating. They’re attempting to accelerate the natural diffusion process. It’s either going to be a masterclass in change management or a case study in why you can’t rush cultural transformation.
So, that’s one point.
The other is this.
What Meredith Belbin Has to Do With It
16 years ago, myself and a couple of partners from a national litigation practice were exposed to the work of Dr Meredith Belbin. I went full tilt and become an Accredited Facilitator and Coach of the Belbin Team Roles, because it has everything to do with why marketing and innovation work and don’t work in law firms and I use it everyday. The other 2 partners hard-baked Belbin into their firm, and I see it still plays an active role in their culture strategy.
Dr. Meredith Belbin spent years studying why some teams succeeded brilliantly while others with equally talented people failed miserably. What he discovered was that successful teams need nine different types of people – or more accurately, nine different types of behaviours.
- Shapers – The driven challengers who make things happen
- Implementers – The practical organisers who turn ideas into action
- Completer Finishers – The perfectionists who spot errors
- Coordinators – The mature orchestrators who delegate well
- Team Workers – The diplomats who keep everyone working together
- Resource Investigators – The networkers who find opportunities
- Plants – The creative problem-solvers
- Monitor Evaluators – The strategic analyzers
- Specialists – The single-minded experts
Now, here’s why this matters for MinterEllison: Law firms are typically loaded with Completer Finishers and Specialists. These are the detail-oriented perfectionists who triple-check everything and pride themselves on their expertise. Telling these types to trust AI is like telling a master watchmaker to use a digital timer.
But successful digital transformation needs Plants to imagine new possibilities, Resource Investigators to spot opportunities, and Shapers to drive change forward. The problem isn’t that these roles don’t exist in law firms – they do – but they’re often not in positions of influence because law firms traditionally value different characteristics. And if they are, in my experience, their energy at that innovation and implementation phase comes to a very abrupt halt because everyone else in the leadership team are Completer Finishers and Specialists and they essentially stall it until its death.
Think about it: A Completer Finisher being told they must use AI tools will immediately start cataloging all the potential risks and errors. A Plant being given the same tools will start imagining new possibilities for serving clients better.
This is why understanding Belbin’s work is crucial for any major organizational change. It’s not about changing people’s natural tendencies – it’s about understanding and working with them to achieve your goals.
Bill Henderson, Professor of Law at Indiana University School of Law suggested that in all of his experience, Belbin was the lowest-cost/highest-ROI tool in his toolbox, and I agree.
The Big Hairy Audacious Goal
What we’re seeing play out at Minters is genuinely audacious – and I mean that in a good way. In an industry that typically moves at glacial pace, MinterEllison is showing real leadership.
Through the combined lenses of Rogers, Moore, and Belbin, we can see both the challenges and opportunities:
- They’re boldly pushing beyond the traditional Late Majority position of law firms
- They’re attempting to cross Moore’s chasm through clear mandates and metrics
- They have the potential to harness their firm’s natural diversity of thinking styles (Belbin)
Here’s how they could make this work brilliantly:
- Identify and empower their natural Plants and Resource Investigators
- Let these innovators create specific, valuable use cases for AI
- Partner them with respected Completer Finishers to validate and refine these uses
- Use these success stories to build a bridge across Moore’s chasm
- Allow peer influence to accelerate adoption alongside management mandates
In a world where most law firms are still debating whether to let their Senior Associates use ChatGPT to respond to an email, MinterEllison has dived in headfirst. That takes courage. With the right execution strategy, they could set the template for how traditional professional services firms navigate digital transformation.
I’m in the grandstand cheering them on!
After all, as Peter Drucker said, “The best way to predict the future is to create it.”
