What is the impact of legal strategy?

Abstract

Law and strategy (LAS)—the study of the law's role in competitive advantage—has developed rapidly and with substantial promise for over 20 years. However, at this critical juncture in its development, the LAS literature lacks both a systematic review of its impact and an organized call for future research. To fill this scholarly gap, this article reports two citation analysis studies that identify the overall impact of the literature as well as the specific influence of seminal articles in the field. We find that LAS is widely cited, has a substantial and diverse disciplinary reach, and, crucially, that the influence of its seminal works has not faded over time. Building on these findings, we recommend pathways for future LAS research, including more cross-disciplinary scholarship, a closer engagement with the related stream of proactive law, a deeper inquiry into ethics, more systematic theory-building and empirical work, and a global perspective that tests the boundaries of LAS beyond fully developed markets. We conclude that LAS has a promising future with the potential for a wide range of applications that address significant challenges facing law and business.