Developing and implementing business ecosystem strategies in the legal sector: current situation and prospects in France

Abstract Since the beginning of the 2000s, the concept of business ecosystem (BE), which was introduced by James F Moore in the early 1990s, has become a major topic in management and economics. BE is now a concept widely used to explain why successful companies are those that collaborate with other organizations to significantly improve their performance and competitiveness. The application of this concept to the law thus appears promising for understanding how companies collaborate with other geographically close actors in order to develop legal ecosystems that they can, if necessary, mobilize not only to defend their own interests, but also to provide them with the information and legal know-how they need to carry out their national and international activities. This chapter aims to provide some theoretical insights into BEs drawing mainly from Moore’s publications in order to understand the main features and the evolution of this organizational/network form and to attempt to explain its relevance for the legal sector in France. This chapter includes a description of this sector and its main challenges today with the intensification of uberization and the competition between new entrants (technological platforms) and the various incumbent operators.