Last week, we attended Lexpo, the legal innovation event held in Amsterdam. Run by Rob Ameerun of Legal IT Professionals, the inaugural event had a great agenda packed with tons of talks about the future of the legal profession and attracted a lively industry crowd.
The day before the event, we hosted a pre-event seminar to a full house. Senior HighQ team members Ben Wightwick and Sebastiaan Bos kicked off the session with an introduction to what we believe to be defining the firm of the future - SmartLaw.
SmartLaw is a conversation
Ben Wightwick’s talk centred around the question: What does SmartLaw mean to you? Ben said that it’s up to interpretation. He explained that the concept of SmartLaw is based on the convergence of three key things: clients, culture and technology.
He began by talking about client focus, which he said is all about how well you know your clients, explaining that it’s vital that firms fully understand their clients in order to meet their needs more comprehensively.
Next, he spoke about the importance of culture for a SmartLaw firm. Typically, general counsels hire the lawyer not the firm, Ben said. For the firm of the future to survive, this approach has to change. Through effective client engagement activities, firms can focus on developing relationships with their clients.
True engagement comes from reaching your clients where they are, explained Ben. The expectation is high - today, everyone is used to accessing information on the go via their smartphones.
Law firms can’t be late to the party. They must engage with their clients at every touch point, whether that’s through email, personalised web content, and especially mobile.
Ben concluded by stating that it doesn’t matter if you’re a four-partner firm or a 2,000 lawyer firm, the same principles of client engagement apply to you.
To stay ahead and be SmartLaw, you need to build out your client engagement ecosystem with a technology stack that serves the whole client journey.
Following two impressive and informative client case studies from smart law firms Clyde & Co and Garrigues, the networking continued in the sunshine by the canals of Amsterdam.
Smart law is here, today
Chrissy Lightfoot, CEO of EntrepreneurLawyer, kicked off the conference proper the following day, in her keynote about adapting to and implementing technological change (or get left behind!).
She spoke about the need for smart technology in helping law firms get, please and keep clients. It shouldn’t be too tough, Chrissy explained, as smart tomorrow’s lawyers and smart tomorrow’s technology are already here, today.
Chrissy explained that with the speed of technological advancement, lawyers can embrace it or ignore it and be left behind. To avoid being left behind, firms need to continually innovate, productise, monetise and keep up.
Chrissy spoke about the future of law and the role technology will have in shaping it. While she predicts that 40-80% of the lawyer role will eventually be replaced by machines, what differentiates the human lawyer from a machine is emotional intelligence.
Subsequently, Chrissy explained, smart technology is forcing lawyers to use their creative brain and innovate. If lawyers can combine intelligent machines with intelligent human wisdom, they will be in the strongest position to lead in the future of law.
Most tech doesn’t “just work”!
Just because we have the tools, doesn’t mean we know how to use them explained D. Casey Flaherty, former in-house counsel for Kia Motors America in his keynote.
Most technology is not intuitive, Casey explained, they don’t “just work”. In fact, the digital native is a myth - technological expertise are learned skills, not inherent traits.
Because of this, Casey spoke about the importance of providing your lawyers with the right training to use the technology firms have invested in, in order to improve legal service delivery. Without this knowledge across the firm, technology cannot become a competitive advantage.
Today, clients understand that they need to pay for advocacy and counsel. But they are no longer prepared to pay for content and production. Here’s where technology and automation comes in.
Casey explained that turning your lawyers into “digital natives” is an ongoing process. You can't just provide training and hope that people watch it or learn it. Assessments and tests are essential, and people need to find time to practice.
We're entering a world where we have to be able to use the tools. The tools we use and how we use them will define how we deliver services.
Be interesting!
Concluding an inspiration-filled afternoon agenda, Ari Kaplan took to the stage to remind us of the importance of the human element in legal innovation.
As a legal industry analyst, Ari shared some of the interesting findings from his recent research, and declared that technology enables you to eliminate the boring work and focus on higher value activities.
In order to stand out, we must simply humanise our approach and make small yet noticeable gestures that help nurture relationships, such as a taxi driver offering a bottle of water.
This is one thing that can not be done by robots or technology, and it is our opportunity to be interesting and memorable.
The year of SmartLaw
All the talks we saw at Lexpo was truly inspiring - the amount of innovation that is going on in the legal field today is extremely exciting for us as a legal software vendor.
Hearing and seeing how different firms, lawyers and evangelists are already using technology to advance the practice of law has made us in even more anticipation of what is to come this year.
2016 truly is the year of SmartLaw, and we’re thrilled to be part of it.
