The document discusses the changing legal profession and the future of legal services. It notes that the legal profession of the past did not focus on efficiency, technology, or client needs. However, the future legal profession will focus on efficiency, embrace technology, understand clients, and provide business advice in addition to legal advice. The document also discusses how areas like document review and routine legal work may be automated. It identifies skills like leadership, connectivity, and problem solving as important for future lawyers. Finally, it discusses challenges like developing digital skills and adapting to technology changes.

1. The Legal Profession of the Future
Nigel Hudson
Senior Lecturer

2. WARNING!
THERE IS NOWHERE TO HIDE!
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4. 06 November 2018
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5. The Legal Profession of the Past
• Didn’t maximise efficiency, ‘eat what you kill’
• Traditional roles in protected services
• Technology was not advanced
• Often considered distant by clients
• Largely unaffected by competition from other professions
• Providers of legal advice (business advice provided elsewhere)
• Unaware of ‘soft skills’
Once upon a time…
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6. The Legal Profession of the Future
• Focussed on efficiency and workflow
• Prepared to re-think business models, unbundle services, and
deliver results in new packages
• Proactively engaged with technology
• Understanding of clients’ regulatory concerns and pain points
• Clear on the firm’s differentiators in the wider ecosystem of legal
service providers/managers
• Business advisers not just legal advisers
• Developing ‘soft’ skills (teamwork; collaboration; strategy;
empathy; communication)
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7. Seth Godin: 3 key Characteristics for
Lawyers in the Future
1. Leadership
2. Connectivity
3. Solving interesting problems
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8. Deloitte’s “three A’s” of technology
disruption
• Automation
• Artificial Intelligence
• Analytics
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9. “The legal market is in a remarkable state of flux…I believe there are
three main drivers of this change: the ‘more-for-less’ challenge,
liberalization, and technology (by which I mean information
technology”
Susskind, R.E. Tomorrow's lawyers: An introduction to your future
2017
“the most significant competition for solicitor firms serving
consumer/retail markets will come from generalist legal businesses
with wide practice scope.”
The Law Society of England and Wales The Future of Legal Services,
2016
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10. Areas where legal tech is already making an
impact
• Document assembly systems
• Online deal rooms and case rooms
• Predictive case analysis
• Virtual courts
• Online dispute resolution
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11. Some things you may have heard mentioned
• Artificial Intelligence
• Smart Contracts
• Blockchain (distributed ledger)
• Predictive Analysis
• Bots
• Natural Language Processing (‘NLP’)
• Machine Learning (‘ML’)
• Document Automation and Analysis
• Legal Spend Analytics
• Managed Legal Services (‘MLS’)
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12. Areas of work affected
• Document review in litigation
• Due diligence work
• Routine contract drafting
• Rudimentary legal research
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13. New areas of work
• Legal risk management (i.e. Dispute avoidance rather than dispute
resolution)
• Project and product managers
• Data scientists
• Process analysts
• Knowledge engineers
• Systems engineers
• Legal technologists
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14. Allen & Overy's Fuse platform to support
companies in three core areas
• Legal tech: technology supporting legal advice, law firms and in-
house legal functions;
• Regtech: technology supporting regulatory compliance; and
• Dealtech: technology that transforms how companies and financial
institutions transact and negotiate deals with each other
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15. Richard Susskind
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16. Susskind’s 4 capabilities of humans
• Cognitive (creativity, innovation, strategic insight)
• Affective
• Manual
• Moral
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17. Susskind’s 12 Future Roles
• Craftspeople (talented and expert individuals who can undertake
tasks that can be sourced in no other ways, not even by highly
capable machines)
• Assistants (individuals who are knowledgeable and skilled in their
particular professions but are not experts)
• Para-professional (provide services with the support of standard
processes and systems)
• Empathisers (wise, empathetic, discipline-independent individuals)
• R&D workers (keeping up to date with specialist areas of
knowledge and developing new capabilities, techniques and
technologies to develop new capabilities)
• Knowledge engineers (designing and developing models of
knowledge that can be delivered in innovative ways)
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18. Susskind’s 12 Future Roles
• Process analysts (decomposing professional work into constituent
tasks and sourcing these tasks in new ways)
• Moderators (overseeing communities of experience and providing
quality control)
• Designers (experts in online provision, conceiving and designing
online systems)
• System providers (providing the online platforms for profit or non-
profit)
• Data scientists (capturing and analysing large bodies of
information with the intent of identifying correlations, trends and
causal insights)
• Systems engineers (developing the machines and systems that
generate practical expertise)
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19. Some things you now know about
• Artificial Intelligence
• Smart Contracts
• Blockchain (distributed ledger)
• Predictive Analysis
• Bots
• Natural Language Processing (‘NLP’)
• Machine Learning (‘ML’)
• Document Automation and Analysis
• Legal Spend Analytics
• Managed Legal Services (‘MLS’)
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20. Major Players: Artificial Intelligence
• RAVN https://www.ravn.co.uk/
• IBM Watson https://www.ibm.com/watson/index.html
• ROSS http://www.rossintelligence.com/
• Neota https://www.neotalogic.com/
• Kira https://kirasystems.com/about
• Luminance https://www.luminance.com/
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21. Major Players: Predictive Analysis
• Ravel http://ravellaw.com/
• Elexirr http://www.elexirr.com/#page-top
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22. Major Players: Blockchain
• Hyperledger https://www.hyperledger.org/
• Clause http://www.clause.io/
• Agrello https://www.agrello.org/
• Etherparty https://etherparty.io/
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23. Major Players: Document Automation and
Analysis
• Thomson Reuters http://www.contractexpress.com/
• Leverton https://leverton.ai/
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24. Major Players: Responsive Bots
• DoNotPay http://www.donotpay.co.uk/signup.php
• Elexirr http://www.elexirr.com/#page-top
• bot.nerdic https://bot.nerdic.co/
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25. Major Players: Legal Spend Analytics
• Clocktimizer https://www.clocktimizer.com/
• Bright Flag https://brightflag.com/
• Legal Decoder https://www.legaldecoder.com/
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26. What skills are required?
Digital
• Microsoft Office
• Legal research (Westlaw and
LexisNexis)
• 'Wireframing' Process analysis
as part of routinisation
(Decision Trees)
Human
• Emotional intelligence
• Critical thinking
• Strategic decision making
• Communities of Experience
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27. Time for a Digital Skills Audit?
• Information Technology
– Data bases
– Data collection
• Media and Communication
– Office Media
– Social Media
– Professional Media
• Intellectual (Legal) Technology
– Automation
– Artificial Intelligence
– Analytics
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28. Time for a Digital Skills Audit?
• Information Technology
– Data bases
– Data collection
• Media and Communication
– Office Media
– Social Media
– Professional Media
• Intellectual (Legal) Technology
– Automation
– Artificial Intelligence
– Analytics
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29. Time for a Digital Skills Audit?
• Computer Technology
– Process design
– Systems design
– Coding
• Digital Citizenship
– Social and Professional Responsibility
– Confidentiality
– Data Protection
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30. Some useful resources
• ‘Legal Technology’ digital magazine:
https://flipboard.com/@nghudson/legal-technology-trhai5b4y
• Artificial Lawyer website: https://www.artificiallawyer.com/
• Podcasts (all available on iTunes):
– Building NewLaw
– I, Lawyer
– Lawyers of Tomorrow
• Legal Geek: https://www.legalgeek.co/
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31. Questions?
http://www.slideshare.net/NigelHudson2
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