"The future is now"

The impact of legal technology on different types of legal practice came under scrutiny at this year’s Law and Technology Conference, held by the Society. Three sessions, running in parallel, focused on large firms (or “Tech Titans”, on the programme billing); smaller and boutique practices; and the in-house sector.

While there is no doubt that the profession has taken massive steps forward in its use of technology, the going must still be uphill – speakers in all three sessions referred to the need to win over hearts and minds to get people to engage with new tech. So what messages did they have to offer?

The titans

Presenting for the big firms was Paul Caddy, head of Insight at Shoosmiths
and co-author of the recently published Legal Practice in the Digital Age. He opened by offering three laws of
legal practice:

1. Tech won’t replace the legal profession, but lawyers who use tech will replace those who don’t. (A simple example is the way email has virtually replaced communication by letter.)
2. Lawyers who act like robots will be replaced by robots. In other words, don’t be the “sterile, lifeless lawyer” attempting to compete with computers on routine things that computers do best.
3. Lawyers who combine tech and emotional intelligence will thrive above all. That is, our trump card in the future will be our ability to use people skills effectively.

For Caddy, the focus has to be on people and tech, not people or tech.

What does he see coming? He isn’t that excited by ChatGPT at present:
it “hallucinates” (coming up with non-existent cases), but there is “a lot of exciting new tech coming along the line, and how we use that will be key”.

“Legal tech” is a dull term, Caddy thinks. One practice at Shoosmiths in getting people to adopt change is to “tell stories”: give them case studies; showcase successes on the firm’s intranet.

Pointing to the national institution that the shipping forecast has become, now supported behind the scenes (despite prior cynicism in some quarters) by Met Office supercomputers that can process 14,000 trillion arithmetic operations per second, Caddy declared: “Tech in the practice of law is at the cusp of a similar game-changing transformation.”

Doing things differently

His top tips on how to use it to create “a very different type of law”:

• Top-down support is absolutely key: at least one person should be on the board who is interested in it and engages with it.
• Add change and innovation to your board agenda, giving it context such as how is project X going?
• Speak to your peers in other firms. What are they doing? What works/doesn’t work?
• Change doesn’t always mean adding more elements to improve something – it can mean stopping doing something you no longer need to.
• Change isn’t constant; it is difficult in law firms; it comes in fits and starts. Look at how quickly everything changed at the start of the pandemic.
• Tell stories (as mentioned above).
• Working with third parties may help you avoid reinventing the wheel.
• Stop waiting – don’t keep thinking the time will soon be right. “The time is now.”
• Consider pilot schemes – you don’t have to go all in. Supplier companies will usually cooperate.
• Don’t start too big, and get some wins under your belt. That can help to persuade the board.
• Don’t expect perfection: 80% of something is better than nothing. It’s a difficult concept for lawyers, but good is often good enough.
• Get feedback.

Additionally, as regards AI, don’t be scared of it, but use it for legal advice; remember that it often needs lots of training (his firm’s contract review tool took two years to train, but is now more accurate than an associate); keep an eye on regulation, which apart from data protection is “a void” at present; with ChatGPT and similar, be careful with it, but have a play to test where and how it can be used to good effect. (Caddy found it proved helpful for a marketing plan; you can also feed content into it to review.)

And yes, people do need to give up some fee earning time to learn about it: one reason for using case studies and getting top-down support.

Small firms, big impact

The stream covering smaller practices was led by former solicitor Ally Thomson of Hey Legal, along with Steven Hill of Denovo, and Peter Mason, a director at Macleod & MacCallum.

Having used some tech since the 1990s but only really built it into the firm’s operations since 2017, Mason now wishes they had embraced it more fully at an earlier stage. Document production is now massively automated; repeat entering of information has been eliminated; the office is largely (though not entirely) paperless; hybrid and remote working is enabled – including the ability to support the Portree office from Inverness if, say, a secretary is absent. “The advantage can be huge for a rural firm”, he stated. “Just being able to retrieve a particular file or letter to your fingertips is a massive benefit.”

Tech is also “really vital” in attracting and retaining solicitor staff. Younger solicitors are more interested in work-life balance, and it’s vitally important to be able to give them that flexibility. “That will only grow because people want more flexibility going forward.”

Hill reckons that tech is a huge factor influencing firm growth. “Adoption is not an option – it has to become part of every project.” He too recognised that people are the biggest barrier to implementing it: disgruntled parties are the most vocal! “If you can get people enjoying using the tech, it becomes a no-brainer.”

How to start?

Thomson asked, if you haven’t yet converted, how do you get started?

Buying it is the easiest part, and implementing it the hardest, Munro recognised. It needs someone to drive it. His firm set up an IT users group of five or six people, and an IT support email address that people with problems could contact. The group met weekly, then fed back what had happened, circulating emails with hints and tips. People were able to take things on at their own pace to an extent. Also, doing things one on one with people allowed them to be more open, helping buy-in. “That builds momentum, and it’s surprising how quickly people do pick up then. If they see a difference, they will buy in.” Quick wins can include letters with details already populated for them.

Fee earners were encouraged to enter new matters because automated reports to management could be created, generating competition.

Questions

An attendee was keen to hear about data security and attitudes to all data being passed to a third party. Hill assured those present that his firm takes security very seriously, using all possible steps including multi-factor ID to access it. Any system they work with is accredited to the highest level of security available. “For us to support a law firm properly, you have to trust us.” If a client can track a matter, they only have access to the information the firm shares with them.

Munro admitted that he initially liked the idea of having servers in the building rather than information held on the cloud, so the firm went through a lot of checks before committing. “We were satisfied and it’s the way the world is now. It’s always a potential risk but you just have to mitigate it the best you can. We have never had any doubts on security in the time we have operated the system.”

Asked what tools the panel would recommend apart from a case management system, Hill replied that accounting software is vital alongside case management, and digital dictation also recommended. “Microsoft has a huge range of products; for a new firm setting up it’s actually quite simple in terms of what you need.”

Munro thought firms “should definitely be using digital dictation”, for flexibility of use and sharing of workloads; also speech recognition, and AML integration – “there are good systems out there now”.

A final question was, “As productivity increases and clients demand quicker service, are you concerned that paradoxically your staff may become overworked?”

A very good point, Munro agreed. Clients are indeed expecting quicker turnrounds now, and his firm monitors very closely what staff are doing: they can see the reports so they can balance the workload out. “One thing I would say: we don’t want our staff to be working silly hours. A lot of our staff are very conscientious and enjoy having access to the tech, so might send a couple of emails of an evening. We don’t look for that but I think people gravitate to that a bit. It’s a balance, but you have to keep on top of these things, and monitor people. We’re a small enough group that we know what everyone’s doing pretty closely.”

In-house: leveraging legal tech for success

The in-house session saw Hermione Hague of Technovate Law quiz Laura Edison, director and general counsel at Skyrora, who has a technical as well as a legal background.

Rather than “leveraging tech”, Edison prefers to think in terms of how we can balance tech and use it to enhance what we’re doing.

Having worked for startups, she recognises that budget is one of the primary concerns. “So we have to be very clever in how we use our funds.” Hague suggested that there were “easy wins” available, like Google Translate.

Edison also made the point that there are many tools that are not legal tech but can be very useful for legal teams to integrate themselves into business flows and processes, for example project management software. There can be an issue with legal being regarded as separate from the rest of the business, and as people who may hold things up, so if you can include your requirements into a business project, you too can set and manage expectations. When do you need information to come from other departments, for example? The aim is to show yourself as a vital part, an extension of other teams.

Discussion with the audience brought up having to engineer, since Covid and remote or hybrid working, more “water cooler chat”. That is, the casual conversations with colleagues in different parts of the business that can often lead to something useful – remembering that people will speak to legal because they are trusted.

On another point, Edison encouraged anyone in an industry with a third-party or government body regulator, to be involved in their consultations and due diligence projects – take the opportunity to say what you need on a day-to-day basis. Hague agreed that more standards would make some things (data protection impact assessments?) much easier to manage, especially for businesses concerned to automate.

Getting on board

Are people working for tech businesses more willing to explore options, and try things out, Hague wondered. Can we learn from them?

You still have to convince them of the need for a budget, Edison laughed, even if you don’t need to explain as much! But there is a “give it a go” mentality – if it doesn’t work, try something else. You can take up offers of trials even if budgets are limited.

Someone asked how legal tech can be used for legal support services in-house, if you are not part of a project. Edison suggested we should want to convince people that we are part of the project, from the outset. Again it’s about trying to increase understanding of the role of legal. It can be useful to give some real examples, and then try to be included in project meetings from the start. Then you can have a bigger conversation about your role within the project generally.

Hague added that this could lead to wider a discussion about ways of working and what the company is trying to achieve. Edison gave contract automation as an interesting example: lawyers might worry, am I going to make myself replaceable – but not everything is standardisable, especially with newer industries.

As with private practice, finding the time to get to a tech solution can be a problem, particularly when there are many different demands on your time. One way of prioritising, Edison suggested, is to ask, if I can only get one thing I can fix through tech, what would it be – then set some time to look at that, in the hope that you will get it back, and more, in the near future.

Echoing what we have already reported for private practice, Hague recommended not aiming for perfection: “Let’s try and get to the 80%, but don’t try and do it all. Make it work and get it off the ground.”

That led to the final point, on working with external counsel: they are going through similar journeys, and collaborative working may help deliver results.

This report covers only one topic from the 2023 Law and Technology Conference. The full event is available as online CPD, worth six hours: for details see https://www.lawscot.org.uk/members/cpd-training/events/law-and-technology-conference-2023-on-demand/