The law is becoming monotonous and outdated in the modern age. In its proper form, the law is “dying” and solidifying in its current condition with no further progression or evolution. The traditional idea of law has become saturated in its ability to survive and continue to prosper in the future due to its lack of accommodating external factors in its approach to legal practice. This can be said of common law practices. 

Traditional lawyers and legal practitioners are cut off from society as they do not factor the wider society, culture, economy, business, and overall corporate landscape into their approach or practice.

Globally, in response to its stagnation, the law has subsequently changed and as such, has inevitably evolved. The emergence of new “hybrid” laws and legal systems has affected the practice of law in its traditional form. In addition, the distinction between businessmen and lawyers has evaporated and essentially “merged” into a mutually beneficial overlap and the formation of hybrid legal practitioners, such as lawpreneurs” and corporate lawyers originating in the 1970s. Regionally, corporate law, as well as the business function of law, is highly advanced. The MENA region is witnessing an active transformation into a Western or “European” system.

Regulated or open markets

There is arguably less of a demand for dispute resolution with the emergence of a greater focus on mediation and arbitration.

Can lawpreneurs be considered a facet of alternative dispute resolution?

Lawpreneur = “the new kid on the block”.

Lawpreneurship represents the initial transition of legal systems to “sociological, functional, institutional, scientific, experimental, realistic, and neo-realistic jurisprudence” (Cohen, 1935). In the legal field, lawpreneurship is arguably equivalent to corporate entrepreneurship. In alignment with the familiar concept of entrepreneurship, within a technologically-advancing environment, innovation has facilitated the entry of lawpreneurs into the legal context. Newly-established accommodation within society for new, innovative lawpreneurs can be seen in law firms specializing in start-ups and VC investments. In the Egyptian legal market, modern-day lawyers are more concerned with “business law”.

There is more of an overlap between law and business now than in the traditional legal system, as its own doctrine is set in stone and kept relatively separate from the economy. Therefore, maintaining a business mindset enables lawyers to be more involved in society, which represents the reality of the legal system and incorporates this into their approach to legal practice, leading to prominence and financial success. By combining the societal and corporate landscape, lawpreneurs develop a deep understanding of the intricacies of the legal system within the context of its real-life outcomes.

Lawpreneurship encompasses individual legal practitioners who establish firms, organizations serving justice, and legal start-ups intending to have a broader effect on society. Previously, the concept of SMEs making their way into the domain of “big fish in the market” and finding themselves amongst the most prominent businesses and firms in Egypt, with international reach both in and beyond the MENA region, was vastly unheard of. Some lawpreneurs seek to establish a niche within the legal field by offering innovative legal services to combat this barrier to the market. An example is Elmetr, a platform that promptly connects clients with qualified lawyers. Elmetr provides accessibility to the law by making the search for legal support easier and faster for the wider society (Elmetr, 2022).

By shifting from a common law approach to an economically-minded approach, lawpreneurs are establishing the current legal landscape and moving further away from the traditional practice of law as its separate doctrine, unconcerned with corporate matters in relation to the economy, and not ingrained within society. Lawpreneurs are established within society and have not chosen to divide themselves from the inner workings of society and concern themselves with matters of the economy, as this directly impacts their legal practice or “business”. Therefore, the concept of lawpreneurship contrasts Bourdieu’s conception that the “juridical field” is “an area of structured, socially patterned activity” (Bourdieu, 1987), as lawpreneurs fall outside the scope of “structured” areas.

Lawpreneurs’ success can be partially credited to their futuristic take on the law, opting to stray away from the same outdated legal practices that led to the stagnation of traditional law. Lawpreneurs can be deemed “rogue” in their refusal to remain within the same failing system and the confines of strict legal practice. They are closing the gap between the law and the rest of the society and defying the notion that the law, the economy and business are inherently separate matters. They all directly impact one another and are innately intertwined.