According to the most recent fossil record discoveries, life on Earth dates back about 3,450-million years. But for about the first 85% of that time span, organisms were extremely simple, composed of individual cells, occasionally organized into colonies. Pretty dull.
Then something striking happened, about 530-million years ago, which is now known as the “Cambrian explosion.” For reasons not entirely understood–oxygen reaching critical levels in the atmosphere? more sophisticated predator/prey competition? an immediately preceding mass extinction? “co-evolution” of related species?–evolution came up with a brilliant invention: Mutli-cellular life.
Multicellular life, as expressed in the Cambrian explosion, is not just aggregate-cellular life. It’s organisms with structure, with layers, appendages, limbs conducing to mobility, eyes, ears, and dedicated noses, protective carapaces, offensive tools such as teeth and claws, and essentially the entire array of what we customarily think of as the Lego blocks that can go into making up modern-day and even prehistoric animals. (Something similar happened with an explosion in the diversity of land-based plants about 400-million years ago, in the Devonian period.)
This is a quantum leap.
A profusion of widely diverse body types and anatomical plans arose, some constituting direct predecessors to animal life as we recognize it today (for example, if it’s mobility you’re after, four limbs–not more, not less–turn out to be really useful). Many many other plans, almost certainly the majority, were less optimally adapted and now belong to extinct lineages–such as Opabinia, with five eyes and a nose like a fire hose, or Wiwaxia, an armored slug with two rows of protective upright scales.
Interestingly enough, the Cambrian explosion was sufficiently powerful, diverse, and creative that no design template for a modern animal post-dates it. In other words, structurally and conceptually, pretty much every animal we see had a recognizable predecessor dating to this period. To be sure, evolution can produce shockingly powerful advances given a few hundred million years, but the point is that it was the seminal moment in the creation of multi-cellular life, where “a thousand flowers bloomed.” While many were proven more or less in short order to be false starts and dead ends, the point is that the intensity of experimentation led to some extremely durable and well-proven animal models.
Take a look (click to play the 25-second PBS video):
What has this to do with BigLaw?
My thesis is that since, say, around 1980, we’ve been living in an ecological mono-culture: We have all been one-celled creatures, in the sense that we have all had one and only one strategy: Growth.
Aside from our “mono-strategy” as an industry, we have had:
- Mono-associate career paths (8 years, plus or minus, of lockstep to partnership);
- Mono revenue models (the billable hour);
- Mono levers for increasing profitability (primarily, by increasing leverage);
- And mono techniques for gaining competitive advantage (primarily, lateral partner recruitment).
I believe we’re on the cusp of our own “Cambrian explosion,” where we may begin to see a wealth of experimentation with different business models.
If the Cambrian explosion of 540-million years ago is any guide, there will be a lot of false starts and dead ends, a/k/a extinct species and firms. But there will also be some far-seeing, fast-running, high-flying, incalculably intelligent designs.
Stay tuned for the next installment in this series.
