2017 is when the changes will become real

2017 will be a big year for the legal profession. 2016 was a year everyone talked about "disruption" and all the changes that are going to happen. 2017 will be a year where the changes start to be seen and therefore become “real” in the minds of many lawyers.

Those lawyers and organisations that have been trialling technology will move to more extensive adoption. They will start to publicise it and the benefits they can offer, as they seek to differentiate and profit from it.

There is an increasing awareness of the changes that are coming, as stories like this (Rebooting the Legal Profession) profile what the leading firms in Australia and elsewhere are doing and planning.  Last week's blog (Shit Just Got Real! Changes to law ARE coming) gave a wider view of what is happening.

Yet there is still reluctance to look at new legal technology…

And yet, there is still a reluctance from many law firms to even look at adopting new technology. As one lawyer put it to me in 2015, given they are well paid for taking hours to do jobs that can be done almost instantly with automation, “why would we do anything until the day before we have to?”.

18 months later lawyers are still unsure what new technology will mean for them, and whether it will replace or enhance them. They are waiting to see others move first, so they can be “fast followers”.

Two circuit breakers are needed

This reluctance and uncertainty means that two things will be needed to encourage broader and faster adoption:

“With LawHawk, I see an opportunity to provide the tools to close the gap between what the client expects from its lawyers and what the lawyers can deliver.  Even better, there is an opportunity to allow lawyers to exceed expectations.”  

I had a role I enjoyed with a global investment bank in London, one of the financial centres of the world.  I gave it up to take a position with a little known legaltech startup on the other side of the world, trying to solve complex problems that others haven't been able to.  Here's why.  

Happy New Year everyone! 

Typically the Christmas/New Year period in New Zealand is a time of rest and relaxation after the pre-Christmas rush that occurs every year.  This means it could be easy to miss the large number of interesting articles that surface around this time of the year, recapping on what happened in the previous year and predicting what will happen next year.

It would be a shame to miss these, because there’s still a sense of complacency and lack of knowledge in New Zealand about the amount of change that is coming, and how much time law firms will have to adapt to the change when it arrives.

We’ve captured the most interesting articles we read over the past couple of months and listed them below.  I think it is staggering how much is happening internationally, and have little doubt that 2017 will see a lot more progress than we’ve seen to date. I hope this helps you to see how real these changes are, and factor them into your plans for 2017.

What do you think about this?  Are there any other interesting articles you think should be mentioned?

Document automation is not just for lawyers in firms

While the LawHawk system has been designed to make it easy for law firms to pick up document automation to provide better service to their clients at a low per-use cost, it is also suitable - probably more so - for in-house teams. 

In-house teams don't have an obsolete business model to protect - they simply have more work than they can get through, and a more urgent need to find solutions - for them and the businesses they support.

To work out if document automation could help you, consider these 7 questions:

I recently wrote an ebook on technology, and how it can help lawyers be more successful, after speaking at a conference and finding there was real interest in the topic.  Covering more than 50 different technologies, it has been downloaded many times, but the Law Society was also interested in adapting it into an article for LawTalk, which they have now done.

You can read the LawTalk article here, and it is also set out in full below.  The full ebook (which contains some more detailed information, a number of graphics, and more hyperlinks to the various suppliers) is also still available for download here: http://info.lawhawk.nz/tech-and-disruption-ebook.

My earlier post (Senior associates: 10 ideas for taking more control of your career) struck a chord with a number of people, with the number of shares and comments I received confirming that there definitely is an issue with Senior Associates (and senior in-house lawyers too), and a desire to do something about it. Interestingly, a number of Senior Associates also told me they would have liked to have shared it, but were concerned about how their Partners would have reacted. Food for thought on how those relationships are going... 

While my core message for Senior Associates was to take control of their own lives, they can’t do it alone and depending on where their mind is at, how confident they are, and their history with the firm, they might not make a start by themselves. However, they might if their supervisor or someone else who is looking out for them gives them a nudge and a few tips on where to start.

So I wanted to provide some tips for Partners and Directors of law firms who know a Senior Associate who has more potential than they have been using and who they would like to help kick on. You don’t have to be a direct supervisor – in fact, it might work even better if you are not, or if two or more people are involved as mentors. This framework can also work for less senior team members too, but I think it should work really well for Senior Associates, who have greater ability to take individual action.

I really like the framework outlined below, even more because it's come from someone who really knows his stuff, and is being used in real life at ASB Bank.

As I've written about before, purpose and meaning are big things for me in gaining and maintaining motivation, and it's increasingly important to younger lawyers coming into the profession.

LawTalk recently published an article I wrote on this containing six recommendations for how you and your team can find meaning and satisfaction.  You can read it here, and the full text is also set out below.

A recent piece of research shows that senior associates really are an unhappy bunch of lawyers. This recent story showed that 40% of them in the United Kingdom even regret having become a lawyer in the first place. Given that senior associates are the best of those remaining after the REALLY unhappy ones have already moved in-house or left the law entirely, that’s a disturbingly high percentage!

It has also been my own experience that senior associates are the least happy group in a law firm, scoring significantly lower in staff satisfaction surveys.

This post looks at some possible reasons for this and offers some suggestions.

I recent had the opportunity to talk with Tao Lin from Stuff about the changes that are happening in the legal profession, and how they can benefit small businesses here in New Zealand.  She has published a story  "LawHawk spreads wings with online legal templates" which you can view in full here.

It's great to see the continued interest in LawHawk as we continue to spread the word about automated online legal documents in general, and what we are doing at LawHawk in particular.  It's also good to see recognition of the great work that Simmonds Stewart have done in making quality legal documents more available - in New Zealand, and now in Asia.  Andrew Simmonds and his team have led the way in seeing the issue of availability and doing something significant about it.

As Andrew and Katherine Beck both note, the real opportunity is not to replace the relationship between clients and lawyers, but to create opportunities for a better relationship.  More informed clients, working with efficient lawyers who can do work for them a lot more cheaply - and still make a good profit.

You can read the full story below.