TLS0070 Introduction to Legal Technology

Lecture 10 Legal technology and you University of Turku Law School 2015-03-10 Anna Ronkainen @ronkaine anna.ronkainen@onomatics.com

So, what should you do about all this?

Pretend as if nothing has happened? - maybe even get a dictaphone and a

secretary? become a power user of the fax machine?

-  unlikely to be successful as a strategy (except maybe artisanal lawyers will be in demand in Brooklyn or Portland...)

Start your own legal startup? -  my advice is: don’t – not right now, anyway -  in general, way too many startups target

problems which only exist in the founders’ minds (not a problem for legal – yet)

-  instead, I’d suggest finding a more conventional job in one’s preferred field of legal practice (any, really) and doing it for a few years with an open mind to really learn what the actual pain points are and how to solve them

-  also, assembling a solid team of founders can (and should) take time

Learn how to program? -  not a bad idea at all -  even if the goal isn’t to become a hardcore full-

stack coder, it teaches you how to think computationally, which helps you with -  how tech works in general -  bridging the gap between legal practice and

those who implement legal tech -  possible avenues: -  take a computer science minor here or at your

favourite university -  MOOCs

Take more courses in legal technology? -  not a bad idea either, except that you are on

the wrong continent for that... - US law schools that do this the best:

http://www.americanbar.org/publications/law_practice_magazine/2014/july-august/teaching-the-technology-of-practice-the-10-top-schools.html

-  Law Without Walls (LWOW): a legal startup simulation course with participants from all over the world, also available as an all-online version (LWOW X)

Get a job? - well, duh -  still, with tech, NewLaw and everything,

you’ll have a lot more options for your legal career

-  the only constant is change, so don’t take mine (or Susskind’s) words at face value, but rather keep your eyes open and consider the job market from your own perspective (skill set, region etc.)

New types of legal employers

(based on Susskind ch. 12)

Global accounting firms -  e.g. Deloitte, KPMG, PwC, EY -  have offered legal services supporting their

legal work in many European countries -  all now also registered as ABSs in the UK -  high volume in their specific niche (tax,

accounting, compliance etc.), allows for investing into tools for greater efficiency

Major legal publishers -  Thomson Reuters, RELX (Reed Elsevier),

Wolters Kluwer, and their subsidiaries across the world

-  all have already major legal tech offerings (e.g. Westlaw, LexisNexis, Corsearch)

-  likely to keep expanding through both buyouts and organic growth

Legal know-how providers -  e.g. Practical Law Company (UK) -  provide legal information in processed form

for law firms and in-house lawyers -  legal updates, research -  business intelligence -  checklists for recurring legal tasks -  prepared legal documents

Legal process outsourcers - moving high-volume routine tasks outside

the firm (or in-house legal dept) proper -  especially common for US firms to outsource

bulk tasks to India or Philippines -  outsourcing abroad a realistic option only if

language and legal culture shared by a less expensive country

-  also, within the same jurisdiction, a region with a lower cost of living can be attractive

High Street retail businesses -  e.g. Co-operative Legal Services (or HOK-

Elannon Hautauspalvelu in Finland) -  offer individual legal advice to consumers in

typical areas of law (family, estate, consumer, employment etc.), often at a fixed price

Legal leasing agencies -  e.g. Axiom; can also be a unit within a law

firm -  basically a temp agency for lawyers, for

example for strengthening an in-house legal team during a trial, merger etc.

-  postings typically last for months or even years

New-look law firms -  e.g. Clearspire, Riverview Law, Fondia -  provide legal services, often packaged and/

or under different pricing models -  can offer more flexibility etc. to the

employee, often better places to work than traditional law firms

-  usually different ownership structure, does not offer the same path to $$$ as partnership in traditional firms

Online legal service providers -  at the moment this basically means legal

startups (but many of them ought to mature eventually)

-  legal expertise can be needed in many different forms -  normal manual lawyering when online is just a

front-end -  designing, building and testing legal AI (in

which case better make sure you can program) -  sales and other customer-facing tasks around

legal AI, especially when selling to lawyers -  still very early days for this sector as a whole

Legal management consultancies - management consulting specifically for law

firms (either stand-alone or as a department of a generalist consultancy) -  legal process analysis -  legal process management -  legal risk analysis

-  additional (business and management) skills needed here as well

Legal design consultancies -  e.g. Lexpert (in Helsinki; the only legal

design consultancy I’ve ever heard of) -  lawyers and graphic designers working

together to improve the clarity, precision etc. of their clients’ legal documents

-  usability and user experience consultancies for legal tech ought to also start emerging at some point as well

New jobs for lawyers

(based on Susskind ch. 11)

Expert trusted adviser -  basically a fancy name for traditional

lawyering -  still, with competition from new types of

services, there are new requirements for those who still offer “bespoke” services

- must have very deep expertise in their field to handle the most complicated legal issues

- must be able to offer integrated advice considering the client’s situation beyond just the legal issues

Enhanced practitioner -  junior lawyer, doing a better job thanks to

technology -  assists e.g. the expert trusted advisor in their

work -  probably leads to reduced demand in

comparison with the traditional associate lawyer job market

Legal knowledge engineer -  someone with an in-depth knowledge of some

particular field of law (but limited tech skills) -  working on embedding that knowledge in legal

tech solutions in collaboration with software engineers

-  almost like conventional legal research except that the same brief has to fit a wide range of cases

-  in my opinion, this may be a viable alternative for someone with already >10 years of experience from traditional lawyering, but new graduates should expect to need more tech (or other) skills

Legal technologist -  someone with in-depth knowledge in both

law and software development - will be in great demand across the entire

(growing) legal tech sector -  typically acts as an intermediary between

the Jobs To Be Done and the implementation team (usually with a tech-only background)

-  “translates” law into algorithms

Legal hybrid -  someone with deep expertise in both law and

some other field, for example: -  family lawyer with a psychology degree -  commercial lawyer as a strategy consultant -  corporate lawyer as a deal broker

-  don’t think you can fake getting the non-law expertise in a week or two (just as you can’t get a law degree in two weeks)

-  can be a challenge to find employment if jobs for that particular combination of skills don’t exist yet

Legal process analyst -  a production economy engineer with legal

specialization (or a lawyer with additional studies in production economy)

- works on optimizing workflow and internal processes at law firms, legal departments, courts etc., more or less using standard industry principles

-  innovative Finnish research in this field, see Petra Pekkanen’s 2011 LUT dissertation

Legal project manager -  analyzes major cases (e.g. complex litigation)

and/or the activities of an entire department -  breaks up that work into smaller subtasks -  plans, schedules and assigns those subtasks -  for this kind of work you’ll probably want

some litigation and/or management experience plus some type of project management certification

ODR practitioner -  negotiates, mediates or decides cases via an

online dispute resolution platform -  alternatively, gives legal advice to clients

who have a pending ODR case -  at least mediation training helpful in

addition to the basic law degree

Legal management consultant -  lawyers in management roles (e.g. partners

at law firms) typically have little prior management experience or training (just like professors...)

-  legal work has some unique (but also many less unique) management needs

-  hence, a dedicated legal specialization is likely to emerge also within the management consulting profession

Legal risk manager -  general counsel consider risk management

to be their number one priority -  so far very limited offering in this field - most lawyers work reactively, but risk

managers must work proactively -  anticipate legal needs, predict legal risks -  pre-empt legal problems before they arise -  when not feasible, try to contain legal

problems to limit the risk

Legal designer -  someone who works to optimize how legal

information is presented for maximal clarity, efficiency etc. -  what information is presented -  in what order -  best format for different types of information

-  different media: contracts, forms, UI/UX -  could work e.g. for a legal design consultancy

or a government agency -  the legal design work can be done with pencil

and paper

Legal product manager -  product-market fit doesn’t happen by itself, and

legal startups are no exception here -  mandatory for legal tech but also for less techy

packaged legal services -  someone with the market insight (research as

needed) to decide what should go into the product and how it should be implemented

-  and, often more importantly, what shouldn’t! -  http://vooza.com/videos/just-say-no/

Legal entrepreneur -  the “all of the above” -  someone who sees an unmet need on the legal

market and figures out what to to about it -  ideas are cheap, execution is what matters -  no support functions like in an established

company, has to be prepared to do everything themself (at least in the beginning)

-  big risks but potentially also big rewards (lawyers are typically very risk-averse)

Questions?