In the late 19th century, if you wanted electricity, you needed an electric dynamo. Weighing over 27 tons, a dynamo required employing three men to operate and cost $300,000 to build—or $7.5 million in today’s dollars. Thomas Edison’s first dynamo-based power plant serviced just 80 customers. Dynamos were behemoths and miracles—some of the first modern electrical generators.

Decades later, they were gone. As the complexities of power generation were simplified, America no longer needed dynamos to power the switch from kerosene and coal to electricity. Electrical power had become affordable, readily available—commoditized.

Electricity was the driving force of 20th-century industry. The cloud is the driving force of the 21st-century digital revolution. And the cloud is following a very similar trajectory—with the commoditization of cloud resources is leading to drastic changes, changes that will automate complex tasks, eliminate major cost centers, allow for greater control, and ultimately transform the legal industry.

The cloud is this century’s electricity.

That was the message behind Logikcull CEO and Co-Founder Andy Wilson’s recent presentation, “A Shock to the System: How the Cloud Is Powering the $300 Billion Legal Services Transformation.”

Given at SOLID East last week, just a few miles from Thomas Edison’s first public power station, the talk details catalytic role of the cloud in business disruption. SOLID, the Summit on Legal Innovation and Disruption, brings together corporate legal leaders, law firms, and technology companies for a series of fast-paced presentations on trends shaping the future of the legal industry.

The attendees, Wilson noted, will not just be impacted by this transformation. They will be powering it.

To see the whole presentation deck, click here to review the slides and presentation notes on SlideShare.