Law is often imagined as a profession of precedent. It looks backwards to move forwards, building arguments from what has been decided, tested, codified and settled. But what happens when the questions facing the legal sector no longer fit neatly inside the logics of precedent?

We spoke with Margarida Saragoça, Director for Business and Knowledge at VdA, and João Vieira de Almeida, the firm’s founder, senior partner and chairman, about why the firm chose a futures-oriented strategy process, what it means to make lawyers discuss uncertainty, and why discomfort may be one of the most useful signals that strategy is doing its job.