They avoided making some mistakes, but avoiding opportunities also was a mistake. Even more difficult was making decisions to move forward on opportunities that could undercut their core business. Compare that to the Internet model of cannibalizing your own core business before someone else can do it. Law firms grow out of a conservative profession that has enjoyed a monopoly. Firms acknowledge inefficiencies, but tend not to eliminate them, and tend to rely on highly labor-intensive, often repetitive practices.
Most law firms are big ships that turn very slowly.
Expect to see innovative developments in the small firm category and a growing trend of small firms developing from the splintering of large firms. Development of new products and services, especially recent technology developments, seem to require an entrepreneurial setting. Some of the PARC products that Xerox brought to market in fact were the result of people ignoring directives to terminate the products. Other products were developed by PARC employees after they left PARC in frustration. The entrepreneurial setting seems to have been a key element that was missing from Xerox.