Profile: Rob Marrs

Rob Marrs is head of Education at the Law Society of Scotland, secretary to the Education & Training Committee and a member of the LawscotTech advisory board

20th June 2022 | Rob Marrs

Tell us a bit about your career so far?

Entirely unplanned! Worked in New Zealand, then in recruitment (dismal), then for an NGO for three years (worthy) and then various roles at the Society.

What motivated you to join the Society?

I was working for an NGO. I saw a role at the Society, thought it looked interesting, and went for it. It was initially a short-term hire but I swung a full-time role halfway through and have stayed ever since.

What aspects of the LawscotTech advisory board have you found most interesting?

Learning from subject matter experts be they working in legal, academia, or in tech. I’m very much a muggle on the board and hope that helps sometimes.

What impact have technological developments had on the Society?

Like everyone else dealing with remote work and collaboration over the last two years, the impact has been huge. The biggest impact will be how tech affects our members and how we respond.

What are the biggest challenges for tech development in the legal sector?

That people jump to tech as the solution to all our ills and overestimate what it can do. The mantras "People, process, tech" and "focus on the problem" may be a little worn, but contain a lot of truth. Why revolutionise a process that doesn’t need to exist? If law firms really wanted to make huge leaps, getting everyone really good at the systems they already use (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, PDFs etc) would be a great starting point. Efficiency savings would be vast. Then really home in on process improvement, and design services around clients. And then think about tech.