Fringe Legal Presents Bots @ Work

Rasmeet Charya is the Chief Innovation Officer at Algo Legal. As Chief Innovation Officer, Rasmeet brings a strong passion for transforming how law firms and lawyers work with clients and think about innovation. From understanding problems, curating ideas, and facilitating innovation processes, Rasmeet leads a team that focuses on analyzing how technology can be used by the firm to enhance transparency, increase access, create efficiencies, and offer a new brand of service.

Algo Legal is a new law firm, established in 2019, and the firm has started with a strong foundation in technology. 

As they got started the leadership wanted to create a new brand of legal services, driven by technology and innovation, and utilizing a process-driven approach to deliver a unique experience for their clients. 

During my chat we explore how:

• How to apply a process-driven approach to your practice
• Different ways in which Algo Legal has been involved in the community via law schools and supporting startups
• How the Algo team pitches their process-driven approach, embedded with technology to clients

You can connect with Rasmeet on LinkedIn, and find out more about Algo Legal on their website.

The full transcript is included below. If it’s truncated by your podcast player, you can find it in full at www.fringelegal.com

Transcript

Ab: [00:00:00] Hello, everyone. Welcome to Fringe Legal I'm delighted today to have Rasmeet Charya, as my guest Rasmeet  is the chief innovation officer at Algo Legal based in India. Rasmeet brings a strong passion for transforming how law firms and lawyers work with clients and think about innovation from understanding problems, curating ideas, and facilitating the innovation process.

[00:01:27] Rasmeet leads a team that focuses on analyzing how technology can be used by the firm to enhance transparency, increased access, create efficiencies, and offer a new brand of service. Rasmeet so nice to have you on the show. Thank you for joining me.

[00:01:43] Rasmeet Charya: [00:01:43] Thanks. Abhijat thanks for having me on the show.

[00:01:45]Ab: [00:01:45] I'm excited for this conversation because Algo Legal is a newish law firm. So in the last two years or so and that means that there's a lot of exciting things that you are doing and that you're able to really start from scratch. So I'm quite I'm looking forward to digging into that.

[00:02:04] Rasmeet Charya: [00:02:04] Yeah, sure. Algo Legal started in August, 2019, And as you would see on our website Algo Legal is a firm where  we started with a niche practice of picking up of VC and PE by VC. The venture capital Lando equity related transactions, deal management.

[00:02:26] And from there, we also definitely went into advisory and  the entire ecosystem related to that kind of practice.  Algo Legal  name  gets its inspiration from the word algorithms. So primarily we definitely believe that the practice of law is in a way , very similar to when an algorithm wherein, you can actually define a lot of steps processes, and that's what leads to a very solution oriented approach.

[00:02:57] So that's how we came up with the Algo Legal as a name. And definitely it was coined by Sandeep, who is the founder and the managing partner of Algo Legal. And Sandeep  himself is a thought leader in Legal tech industry. He's a very innovative and an excellent business lawyer. And definitely he wanted to create a new brand of legal services, which is very much driven by technology, innovation, and so that, we can provide a very unique experience and create some value for our clients. So that was the entire I would say the background, the mission, vision of Algo Legal and definitely expertise is one of the key area. We have a whole lot of sport lawyers, I would say, are really industry experts in the practice areas.

[00:03:49] But at the same time, we would like to leverage technology as the, as innovation so that we can create a very different kind of value for it.

[00:03:58] Ab: [00:03:58] Yeah. And I think what I found really interesting as I spoke to you in the past and as a research, the firm is the makeup of the core team, right?

[00:04:09] There's of course the practitioners, like Sandeep  that you mentioned, but also there's business leaders and specialists. So if you look at, Drhuv who came from an investment banking background, if you look at Tripti, who is a legal process and design manager and others. So I think it's quite refreshing to see how, you're already from the very foundations of the firms starting to think about legal process we need to build in things like design and design thinking, approaches into the offering. And I guess that's one of the big advantages when you start afresh, when you are able to do that. And I know from  your background as a practitioner, but also a lot of the things that you take an interest in and are outspoken about.

[00:04:49] There is a strong foundation in client service and design and focus on the process. How does that reflect with the broader market view of where India is today?

[00:04:58] Rasmeet Charya: [00:04:58] Absolutely. I think we definitely have an advantage that we started very recently. And we are actually in a time when we feel there is a lot of requirement of leveraging technology and why not? We see that technology is being leveraged across all industries and why Legal industry cannot take it up.

[00:05:19] And of course, innovation is something which is  a very wider scope. That includes your practice innovation that includes looking at your business models. That includes literally things like defining your processes. And definitely once you are able to define your process, Or you can translate that into technology.

[00:05:37] So I feel we are in a very good phase of a Legal industry, I would say at the time and yes India, while it is at a very nascent stage in terms of Legal tech, which is being developed in India. But I don't see that we are very far behind because I'm in once the lawyers start adopting, accepting technology, I don't see why they can't focus and then actually hone  the entire service offering that you're doing.

[00:06:12] So therefore, from the India's perspective, also, we are having some very. Excellent. Legal tech solutions, which are coming up and also, I think , it is evolving at every level. So whether it is in terms of the law firms, leveraging technology or changing their practices whether it's in terms of law schools, what actually opening up now to, except this Legal innovation or tech skillsets as a very important part.

[00:06:40] Of the legal education for our future lawyers, I think. And even if you look at the in-house legal teams, they are also the corporates they have been using, but today they want to S look at the cost, and they definitely want better efficient systems that they can manage on their own.

[00:07:01] So therefore I think the entire ecosystem is today ready for this kind of a ...

Giles Thompson is the Head of Growth @ Avvoka 📈, former lawyer at Kirkland & Ellis and Herbert Smith Freehills ⚖️,  Agriculturalist & Foodie 🚜, and tech investor & entrepreneur 🚀 

Giles left practice a year ago to join the world of legal technology, and during this conversation we discuss:

1. How the culture has shifted from his days in practice vs what he hears today
2. The challenge of collaboration and different approaches firms are taking
3. Pertinent skills/thoughts for future and newly qualified lawyers, and when to challenge the status quo

We covered a number of other topics as well such as the importance of mentors, the increasing levels of interest in innovation-type functions, and more. 

You can connect with Giles LinkedIn, and find out more about the Avvoka Academy here.

The full transcript is included below. If it’s truncated by your podcast player, you can find it in full at www.fringelegal.com

Transcript

Ab: [00:00:00] Hello everyone and welcome again to Fringe Legal. Today I'm excited to have Giles Thompson on the show. Before we dive in, I thought I would do something slightly different and give his life narrative in a chronological order. Giles is the son of a farmer, which naturally turned into him becoming a foodie, he went and did political science , which led to going into law school and actually practicing as a lawyer. He was formerly at Kirkland and Ellis, and then at HSF Herbert Smith Freehills.

[00:01:29] And now he is a tech investor and an entrepreneur. And the head of growth at Avvoka based in the UK. Charles, thanks for joining me. Welcome.

[00:01:39]Giles Thompson: [00:01:39] Thank you. The pleasure is mine. I thank you very much for having me.

[00:01:42]Ab: [00:01:42] I guess a good place to start would be you practice as a lawyer and now your work for a legal tech company.

[00:01:49] As you speak to law firms that you speak to it in house councils and corporate, what are you seeing from a culture point of view from your days in practice to now? Are the other trainees associates, partners, leaders, are they asking for different types of things to when you were in practice or is the conversations still the same?

[00:02:11]Of course there's no one size fit all, but  what's that spectrum look like from your conversations?

[00:02:15]Giles Thompson: [00:02:15] I'd always say be interested in your perspective in a moment as well as to what's changed and actually whether you disagree or agree with me, but Yeah, certainly I do see some differences.

[00:02:25]I've not been long out of law. So even in the kind of that short intervening period, actually a lot has that has changed as a result of the pandemic. The main thing I've really seen in actually and this quite a granular answer, but is an increasing desire for collaborative tools.

[00:02:43] That is a result of the sort of physical collaboration and interface between lawyers being pulled away actually. So the, I certainly remember when I was particularly when I was a trainee, because I was the one carrying the physical bit of paper, but actually the process of, having a physically printed out document and then marking that up and maybe three or four people at layering on their amendments on, onto a markup.

[00:03:04] And actually, the biggest trend that I've seen since I've left is people wanting to use tools that are akin to something like a Google docs and everybody being able to chip in on a document and work on it together rather than working on divergent drafts. And I do genuinely think that a good degree of that is because of that physical process being pulled away.

[00:03:23] I think the other thing, and maybe it hasn't really changed since I left, but maybe I just didn't realize quite the extent of the interests that lawyers and probably lawyers who are more senior than me when I was in practice who wants to have one foot in that camp of innovation.

[00:03:42] And so I think that there's definitely even in the last sort of 18 months, there's been a huge proliferation of innovations secondments  within law firms. So senior lawyers seeing it as a potentially, even as a stepping stone towards partnership, actually spending some time in that innovation part of the business.

[00:03:57] And then maybe specializing in that area full-time or taking their skills back and actually then improving the revenue of wherever they came from initially. So I'm meeting a lot of those people and really enjoy meeting those people. But I think that they seem to be proliferating and I constantly see job ads for peoples in those kinds of divisions. But they're not asking for technologists all the time. Now that they're specifically asking for the lawyers of all the time.

[00:04:20]Yeah. What's your experience.

[00:04:21] Ab: [00:04:21] Yeah. I think I'd agree with most of that. Probably the distinction I would make is absolutely  the collaboration point of view is true.

[00:04:30] The meaning of the word seems to differ greatly, right? From firm to firm or individual to individual. I'm not sure if the vast majority of, and I'll speak from the law firm perspective, that's the conversations I have the most think of it as working together with their clients. I think what I hear a lot now, and especially since COVID 19 last year, how can we replicate the environment where we could all sit in a room and work on a draft together to doing so digitally.

[00:05:02] And there's nothing wrong with that. And it's the, the approach of taking a offline practice online. That's one angle to that. The other side is. How do I collaborate better with clients? How do I give them more transparency and actually for what its worth,  it's the clients are asking more for that, right?

[00:05:19] They don't want to keep emailing or calling just to get an understanding of, Hey, where's my matter at? Who owns what, are we on target and other things. So those are probably the two things.

[00:05:31] The innovation point is. Yeah, absolutely. There's a huge proliferation of that. I do catch myself sometimes because the view from inside the bubble, and I think both of us certainly are inside the bubble is very different because when you go and speak to probably 90% of the firms they're not thinking in that way. And you talked about innovations to continents, and I know some of your previous firms do absolutely do that.

[00:05:54]In my view, and I'm happy to be wrong, I don't think that's the norm. I don't think most firms have innovation secondaments. Very few do. I do think that there is a higher level of desire to go into innovation or something else, that's not just practice. And that as a pathway to both partnership, and also as a lot of the practitioners think about want to stay in Legal, but maybe I don't want to practice, all the time.

[00:06:20]And in the past one common route was maybe I'll become a PSL and that's not the only route, of course. But now it's, while I could be a technologist, I could be a innovation manager.

[00:06:30] I could be X. I could go in-house ...

Jan Hards is the Director of Legal Innovation at Johnson Winter & Slattery. After years of practicing as a Corporate M&A Lawyer at Freshfields in the UK, and then later at Johnson Winter & Slattery, he made a deliberate move to become the firm’s Director of Legal Innovation. 

We discuss how Jan worked through that decision, what were some assumptions that he made, and some of the challenges. 

We also explore how Jan and the business look at the innovation function - through five objective criteria:

1. Create efficiency at scale
2. Flexible working
3. Create value from information the firm holds
4. Generate revenue
5. Address risk

We also explore when and how Jan gets involved with client-facing projects (including pitches). Just a note, this episode originally aired as part of the Fringe Legal Virtual Summit in 2020, and much of what we discuss are still relevant today, but it’s important to have the time context. 

You can connect with Jan Hard via the JWS website or on LinkedIn.

The full transcript is included below. If it's truncated by your podcast player, you can find it in full at www.fringelegal.com

Transcript

Ab: [00:00:00] I am delighted to be joined today by Jan Hards, who is the Director of Legal Innovation at Johnson, Winter and Slattery based out of Australia. Jan thank you for joining me today.

[00:01:15] Jan Hards: [00:01:15] No, it's a great pleasure. Thank you very much for inviting me.

[00:01:19]Ab: [00:01:19] This is going to be a great conversation. So today we're talking about your journey from being a lawyer to an innovator. And of course, both of these things can exist in parallel, but you took a very deliberate step  from one to the other and, we'll hopefully cover quite a lot, but focus around what are some of the things that you learned, what some assumptions you had, which of those came true? Which of them maybe you had to challenge and what you learned from that.

[00:01:46] Before we dig into all of that, just to set the stage for our audience here, would you mind just describing what sort of started this journey for you? What did you do before you were the director of legal innovation?

[00:02:00] Jan Hards: [00:02:00] Sure. No, that's fine. So I'm originally a solicitor a Corporate M&A lawyer , and I started my career in the UK, although I'm originally from Zimbabwe in Southern Africa. So people wondering about the strange accent hopefully that will explain it.

[00:02:18]I became a solicitor in the UK worked for many years at Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer became a corporate M&A lawyer there working on transactions, moved to Australia about nine years ago now and joined Johnson, Winter and Slattery soon thereafter as a Corporate M&A lawyer . We're working in the Australian market and are based in Sydney. I've always been one of the lawyers in the firms that I've been in who's been interested in using or leveraging technology to assist me in my practice as a lawyer.

[00:02:50] So even back in my Freshfields days I was probably one of those lawyers who would be commonly contacting the IT team, suggesting new ways of doing things, new applications and, over the more recent years this has picked up a lot just simply as I've been seeing, witnessing the quite transformative changes in technology , particularly consumer technology to which we have access to.

[00:03:17] And I've really enjoyed thinking of ways that we could use this technology to better drive efficiency and quality of service as solicitors.  Over many years, I've been bugging my IT and my management colleagues to make certain changes or suggesting certain applications or certain ways that we could change applications we currently use.

[00:03:39]About two years ago the management of JWS turned around and said why don't you help us in this area more broadly, not just in your corporate practice and appointed me director of legal innovation at JWS.

[00:03:53] Ab: [00:03:53] That's awesome. And now hopefully you have many other colleagues that come to you and bug you with ideas and projects and so on as well now. So you know what it feels like on the other side. 

[00:04:04] Jan Hards: [00:04:04] I do, yes.  It has been very interesting and I'm not only the transformation from being one of those people that was just constantly suggesting to being the person who is really responsible now for receiving those suggestions, and considering whether or not they should be implemented. That has been quite eyeopening for me.

[00:04:25] Yeah, it's  been interesting to understand, particularly now you're in the hot seat, it's not quite so simple. Particularly if you're working in a law firm, we'll come to that in the moment, but it's not quite so simple to take a seemingly great idea and actually put it into practice - implement it in the firms. So yeah, it's been very interesting journey over the last two years.

[00:04:47] Ab: [00:04:47] We'll certainly dig into that. We were talking about how I've made certain assumptions about putting this summit together and things I thought were going to be simple just because you think they're going to be simple, that never ends up being the case.

[00:04:59]Before we do talk about some of the points around your journey and really dig deep into some of the nitty-gritty of things. What are some of the aims of the legal innovation function at the firm at JWS? So give us the sort of broad line picture of,  what are some of the, maybe the boundaries or that the objectives they're assigned or you've assigned in working with the management team there on what you want to accomplish.

[00:05:23] Jan Hards: [00:05:23] Yeah. So we have a wide number of objectives but we really distill it down into five areas. That's trying to use innovation and technology as part of that, but not just technology, but use it to create efficiency at scale.  It isn't just sufficient to introduce a new way of doing things atop a particular small practice area.

[00:05:43] Now, of course, we will do that If that's something that is compelling for that for that practice area. But what we really want to do in this first objective is to try and create efficiency at scale. So look at ways in which it can be applied across the firm and indeed to for our clients.

[00:06:00] Flexible working is a second objective, which is particularly pertinent in our current environment, but certainly something that we were thinking  about very carefully long before COVID-19 was something that anyone knew anything about. It's increasingly important for many of my colleagues and their clients that my colleagues can work flexibly. That's not only just being able to travel and and still work efficiently, but also a work-life balance and be able to work efficiently from home.

[00:06:32]The next area was really one of the areas that's really interesting to me, is to  create value from the information that we hold<...

Innovation management helps to optimize the innovation process, identify bottlenecks and increase the productivity of innovation, investment, and resources.

Floor Blindenbach is the founder of Organizing4Innovation. Trigged by a recent whitepaper, I speak with Floor to discuss her views on innovation management for law firms. We spoke about:

• the importance of treating innovation as a process
• definition for innovation'
• the role of culture in driving innovative efforts
• Innovation as a way to develop talent
• the problem of tracking/measuring innovation efforts in law firms
• best practices for innovation teams

You can find the whitepaper here: https://www.organizing4innovation.com/managing-innovation-law-firms/

Transcript below (if cut off it can be found on FringeLegal.com)

About Floor

Driven to help innovators succeed, Floor Blindenbach-Driessen, founded Organizing4innovation. She developed the T4 online training for innovators that also serves as an innovation management platform, so organizations with limited innovation infrastructure can easily manage and oversee their innovation activities. She has a Ph.D. in management from the Erasmus University in the Netherlands and has 20+ years of research and practical experience with innovating in the professional services. She has written dozens of publications, assisted hundreds of innovators, with creating thousands of awesome solutions, leading to millions of dollars in new revenues.

You can find Floor on LinkedIn

Transcript

Ab: [00:00:00] Hello everyone and welcome to Fringe Legal. I'm so excited today to have Floor on the episode. Floor is driven to help innovators succeed, and because of this need, she founded Organization4Innovation. She developed the T4 online training for innovators that also serves as a innovation management platform, so organizations with limited innovation infrastructure can easily manage and oversee the innovation activities. She has a PhD in management from Erasmus university in the Netherlands and 20 plus years of research and practical experience with innovating in professional services. She has assisted hundreds of innovators with creating thousands of awesome solutions, leading to millions of dollars in new revenue, all fantastic achievements.

[00:01:51] And we will dig into the wealth of the knowledge that is in her brain today. So Floor, thank you so much for joining me. 

[00:01:58] Floor Blindenbach: [00:01:58] Thank you for having 

[00:01:59]Ab: [00:01:59] Yeah, I came across your work, as part of the a talk you did at the skills workshop, a presentation in January, 2021.

[00:02:08] And that was all around innovation management in law firms. As a setup to this conversation, because that's certainly tickled my interest. Would you mind just giving a  synopsis around that work, that report, and I'll certainly link to that for everyone listening/watching this so they can read it in full because it is worth reading.

[00:02:29] Floor Blindenbach: [00:02:29] Absolutely.  Let me start to say our focus is on firms that innovate and that, that aren't the Googles of this world that have billions to spend. So that's like a starting point and describes the type of teams that we work with.

[00:02:43] We have a platform for that, and we have earned a research grant to see if he could add predictive analytics to our online training platform.    We started the research out to see if we could basically vet teams better if it's like a Fitbit for innovation teams. And if we know better about teams do, can we then also provide better support?

[00:03:06] And we were so ignorant to think that we could even vet teams for law firms. We practice what we preach, and went out to do customer discovery and ask so would that'd be of benefit? So it's predictive analytics. The resounding answer that we got was no, we know which teams we want to support. So okay we have a research grant and a problem that no one wants to us to solve. Well it was a little more nuanced, but in those conversations, we also learned some things that I could not write. On the one hand, there was this where if you ask people for success later, like they were all saying, Oh, we're super successful.

[00:03:46] And also during ILTAON, we did a little poll and law firms indicated they had success rates of 80% or higher. That's very uncommon. So that would mean that in the law profession, they knew something that no one else knew, but this is like a venture capitalist have like success rates of one to 10 and even like the Procter and Gamble and Unilevers of this world, they need eight ideas for one success. So that was one thing. At the same time. If you talk with senior leadership, they were complaining, they were very skeptic about all these new technologies, because they saw so many failures. So this was really like a little bit of an indication, like something is not aligned here and last but not least I was talking to many people and then I got like an email two months, three months later which said: "Oh, I'm so sorry. I left the firm or I quit". And so I saw a huge turnover in innovation manager. So it was like, something is not, does not ryhme here. And so we're like, okay, let's use then our customer discovery and stick, step back and look into how is innovation actually managed in law firms. So that's when we started the new and talked with about 35, 36 people and did an in-depth analysis of 22 law firms to really learn how do they go about managing innovative ideas. So that's, what's like the long story to this report. 

[00:05:18] Ab: [00:05:18] Yeah. And that's really helpful context.

[00:05:20] Having that success rate of, 80, 90% for innovation efforts is remarkable if it was true. And really, as you, as you were talking, it's obviously there's a disconnect between those that are maybe doing the project, plus maybe those that are funding the project or the projects are being reported to, and it's a measurement problem as I'm sure we'll get into it a little bit time. 

[00:05:45]Innovation as a process [00:05:45]

[00:05:45]What I really liked from the report was the framing of innovation as a process. In that. Yes, of course, every firm, every business, maybe every vertical will approach it in a slightly different way, but it is not this black box that you can't put certain project type milestones in place for. It is something that's repeatable.  

[00:06:09] Do you mind expanding on that a little bit more and what you found, especially as you spoke to these these 35, 36 people  what were some of the things that started triggering in your mind around the process approach to this?

[00:06:21]

[00:06:21] Floor Blindenbach: [00:06:21] I've always seen innovation as a process, to be honest. And there's also a great Harvard Business Review article that also explains it. It's not only a process, it's even like a value chain, which starts with idea generation, then development and then implementation, and then scale. You need to be good at it, all these steps in orde...

Alice Stephenson is a founder and tech lawyer driving inclusion and innovation in law and promoting individuality within the legal profession.

Alice founded Stephenson Law in 2017 to create a law firm that does things differently. Tackling each stereotype head-on, she is on a mission to build a forward-thinking, innovative law firm that puts people at the heart of everything it does. 

Alice's goal is to inspire young women to challenge the perceived barriers to success and see that anything is possible.

In this episode we discuss:

07:23 - Problem-solving
11:00 - Self-reflection and being comfortable with mistakes
13:57 - Client experience
18:27 - Measuring lawyer value outside of billable targets
22:44 - Breaking down barriers

Full Transcript on FringeLegal.com

Alice Stephenson - Breaking down barriers

Ab: [00:00:00] Hello everyone. And welcome to the Fringe Legal podcast. I am thrilled to have Alice Stephenson as my guest today. Alice is the founder and a tech lawyer driving inclusion and innovation in law and promoting individuality within the legal profession. Alice founded Stevenson law in 2017 to create a law firm that does things differently.

Alice's goal is to inspire young women, to challenge the perceived barriers, to succeed and see that anything's possible. We'll dig into much of that today, but before we get started, I thought it'd be helpful to give a little bit of a background of Alice's story if you haven't come across it already. 

So Alice is probably not the person you would imagine when you think of a lawyer and a law firm owner.

She had her first child at 18, and despite conventional wisdom qualified as a lawyer nine months after having her second child and the theme of nine months continues, because nine months after having her third child, she founded Stevenson Law and the firm is doing wonderfully. They won,  Botique Law Firm of the Year 2020 .

And yeah, I'm really thrilled to have Alice on the show because I came across her on LinkedIn through one of her posts where she talks about all of the different barriers. She had to break down to enter the legal profession. And I know plenty of people for whom that actually becomes a hurdle.

They haven't been able to overcome for many reasons. So I thought it was important to have a discussion around that. Alice, thank you so much for coming on the show. 

Alice Stephenson: [00:02:27] Hi, thank you for having me. 

Ab: [00:02:29] Yeah. And I know you're based on the other side of the world. You have a very English accent, but you're in Amsterdam.

So hopefully the canals and the cycling and everything else is treating you nicely. 

Alice Stephenson: [00:02:39] Yes. Yes. Thank you. 

Ab: [00:02:42] So there's really three things I wanted to try and cover today. We'll start with something that relates to your story. You talk a lot about breaking down barriers. And as I mentioned in the prelude, that's how I came across you.

You've been, let's call it outspoken on LinkedIn and rightly so around how to make the profession less gray and more individual and helping people to bring about their personality. We talked about tattoos and you've talked about tattoos in the past and I have a whole back full of tattoos so I certainly admire that.

And you've talked about how being a woman or having kids at an early stage, and basically how all the challenges you had to overcome to get to where you are. Talk to me where you are today with that and how that shaped your journey into the legal profession. 

Tackling challenges [00:03:29] Alice Stephenson: [00:03:29] Sure. I think we all have so many challenges and obstacles that we come up against whatever path we choose.

But I guess we all have slightly different ways of dealing with them and approaching them. I think they're my biggest obstacle has always been having a child at such a young age.  I was only 18 when I had Lydia. And that was obviously a massive obstacle to starting a career, to getting to getting my first degree.

Obviously, having her has been one of the most wonderful things in my life, but there's no doubt that it's certainly made some things a lot harder particularly cause I didn't have a lot of support at the time. So I think I launched into adulthood with a pretty big problem that I needed to deal with like how was I going to support myself and support my child and make something of myself . And I had to get on with it really. I just, I tackled it a bit, like just a problem.  If I want to get a job, that's gonna pay me a decent salary, then, convention dictates that the best way of doing that is to get a degree, to get education.

So I was followed a process really, and figured out the best way that I was going to be able to do it, which university I went to, which course I went to, how I was going to pay for that, all of the different parts of the puzzle, and then fitted them all together. And I've applied that logic to all of the problems that I've encountered ever since then.

So when I applied to getting a training contract I had a problem because I didn't get very good A-levels because when I take my A-levels, I was seven months pregnant and obviously lots of law firms still take A-levels into account. That made things a lot harder and I had to find this way around that.

And then starting my own firm. So many people told me that I wasn't going to be able to do it. They were going to be, there were so many reasons insurance was going to be too expensive or I wasn't even going to be able to get insurance. I wasn't going to be able to get authorization from the SRA.

I wasn't going to be able to find any clients. I wasn't going to have to find anyone to work for me. I wasn't gonna be able to make any money, honestly the list was endless and I could have quite easily have just thought, Oh, do you know what this sounds like far too much effort required -  I'm not going to bother. 

But I think it, that's not really the way that my brain works. I look at each part of it as an individual problem and try and solve that problem and break it down into small chunks. And what happens is when you do that, actually it does so fall into place and you move along one small step at a time. But when you look back, you actually realize how much you've achieved just by doing it like that.

Ab: [00:06:26] There's so many things that you're saying, some of which I can definitely relate to because just getting into law school, getting into university. It's a challenge and you have to keep going.  Sometimes you do have to problem solve. 

And the law firm point is so interesting because I know so many  tech company founders, and generally the message that they get, across the board, is not that, Oh, don't do it right? It's almost a Silicon Valley culture of you should do it, just jump in it's okay. It will be difficult, no one argues that it's going to be difficult, but you can figure it out. But for law and FinTech and a lot of these kinds of quite heavily regulated professions it's almost as a hindrance for new entrance. And then we have this conversation, Oh, the profession is not changing things. Aren't changing. They're the same. And there is a very real link to you keep dis...

Innovation and Transformation Perspectives From Around the World

Ab: [00:00:00] Innovation and transformation perspectives from around the world 

There is tremendous variability in how the legal industry approaches innovation and technology initiatives, and the range is greater still when you expand the scope to different jurisdictions and regions worldwide. 

Through a series of interviews with innovation leaders and a review of published materials. I explored some of the factors that influence innovation levels across different regions. Namely, we focused on the UK., a number of African nations, Australia, and India. 

What I've found is that many interrelated  factors are at play: regional regulations, the maturity of the legal services industry, competitive pressures, and willingness to make financial investments in innovation and technology initiatives. Of course, there are also significant variations across firms within the same region, mostly influenced by the business culture. 

 Before we consider those factors in depth. We must define what we mean by innovation and evaluate the goals underlying innovative actions. 

The spectrum of innovation 

Innovation is not a monolith. It runs along a spectrum from the minuscule to the majestic and encompasses technology process or both. 

At one end are incremental changes to existing method or processes. These efficiency drivers are often small initially, yet over time they could produce marked results. On the other side of the spectrum are seismic disruptions, which may involve doing something in an entirely novel way or something that no one has done before. The disruption reinvents how a firm completes a task or follows a process. 

Innovation is, therefore, a process of both incremental changes and seismic shifts. It may affect technology and processes as each will have different primary challenges. With technological innovation adoption is often the biggest challenge. How do you get users engaged and active with  technology so the business yields a positive return on investment. 

Process changes on the other hand may or may not involve technology. In these instances often change management is the obstacle to overcome. How do you introduce the change and convinced legal professionals to embrace it? This begs another question. Why innovate at all? 

What's the purpose behind innovation? 

Before a firm embarks on a transformation journey, the business needs to establish what it's looking to accomplish? There are  regional factors that introduce a difference in approach, but also common ground to be found. I spoke with Caryn Sandler, Partner & Chief Knowledge and Innovation Officer at the leading Australian from Gilbert and Tobin, who explains. 

And I quote. 

There is a large variation within and between geographies. with some firms engaging and pushing the boundaries of what can be done in this space, and others only starting the transformation journey. There is now a general recognition in legal of the imperative for innovation and transformation globally, and we're seeing different ways of achieving that goal play out within law firms and in-house. 

End quote. 

 These regional variations impact the type of initiative that a firm may undertake. In new and emerging legal markets, it's harder to justify spending money on technology where the business needs have yet to be proven. Instead, we find that these areas may readily embrace new processes-  as they don't have the inertia of established methods to overcome. 

On the other hand, in mature and highly competitive legal markets, law firm and legal service providers can I add value for the client by making incremental efficiency improvements. Those firm's are likely focused on adopting technology, getting it off the shelf and into their practitioner's hand as quickly and as smoothly as possible. 

Lastly, some firms are looking to bring the client along on the transformation journey. They can do so by including the clients into technology and innovation design process. These firms often find value in adding a consultancy arm that can provide dedicated innovation services and digital transformation assistance. In all kinds of markets, firms are also exploring how they can pivot perhaps by setting up technology incubators, or otherwise investing in legal technology, startups. 

 Factors driving innovation, UK, Australia, African nations, and India

While there are numerous forces influencing innovation around the world, I have roughly classified them into four broad categories. 

Number one, the legal system and regulatory structure. Number two, the maturity of the legal profession. Number three, the level of competition in the region. And lastly, number four, the sensitivity to spending on technology or innovation efforts. 

Let's consider each of these in turn. 

The legal and regulatory system. 

Regulations can constrain innovation, and so can the flexibility and makeup or the legal system. There may be more opportunity and less constraint in emerging markets with less regulation and fewer established firms. These open markets can present considerable gaps in service, creating opportunities for firms to innovate and quickly move the needle on providing services. 

In more heavily regulated market. The amount of work required to bring about substansive changes is significant and fewer players will attempt to do so. Without a complex web of regulation, law firms have free reign to innovate. 

I spoke with Cathy Truter, Head of Knowledge Management at Bowmans a top African firm with offices in seven African countries. And here's a excerpt from our discussion: 

Cathy Truter: [00:06:36] There are pockets of extreme innovation and I think it's driven by opportunity in the sense that Africa is not necessarily as regulated as some of the offshore countries as I would call them.

And as a result, there is an opportunity to innovate in pockets. Where in other jurisdictions you might be held back by what is the current, and have you go through regulators to get certain approvals and the like   It's in pockets. Innovation has really been fast moving. 

So I think that innovative a legal practices correlate quite closely with how innovative the legal sector that they service is. What's the appetite? So in some pockets, Extremely innovative.   

Ab: [00:07:29] Where regulations established cultural differences can still drive an appreciation for innovation. For example, many European countries enjoy a data centric culture that embraces AI data and analytics as elementary parts of their future successes. See notes for a link to a great article discussing this. This attitude is spilling over into the legal profession as well. 

Maturity and general culture of the legal industry 

 The flip side of the regulatory structure is generally the maturity of the legal industry. In largely unregulated areas, the legal sector is nascent...

Contracts are crucial to the legal process, however more frequently the process of contracting can be painful. In this episode we discuss how to remove unnecessary barriers from contracts while offering the same protections, benchmarking the performance of your contracts, and Alex’s reflections on 10 years since founding Radiant Law. 

Key quotes

Quotes have been extracted from the live conversation and have been edited for grammar and minor corrections.

Resources mentioned

Contracting Mistakes series

• #1: Accepting no time for the "important, not urgent"
• #2: Assuming change requires big bangs
• #3: Legal should stick to the legals
• #4: One more lawyer
• #5: "Robust" terms
• #6: Deals are different

Alex Hamilton (LinkedIn / Twitter)  is the CEO and founder of Radiant Law, the UK-based award-winning NewLaw firm. Alex is focused on improving the contracting process for clients, leading product and tech development. He also regularly talks and writes on improving contracting, LawTech and the changing legal industry. He has led a number of projects that have been recognised by the FT’s Innovative Lawyer Awards. Before founding Radiant Law, he was a Partner at Latham & Watkins and co-Chair of Latham & Watkins’ global Technology Transactions Group.

Alex Low is an expert in helping businesses implement and adopt marketing and sales strategies. He regularly speaks to experts through his podcast The Death of a Salesman and applies the principles at BeyondSales and DLA ignite. Oh and he's worked in the BD function at PwC, as Client Relationship Manager at BLP (now BCLP), lead Client Dev at JLL, and more. 

In this episode we discuss: 

• Why good marketing and a strong personal brand has never been more important
• How to implement a marketing transformation strategy 
  • how corporate content vs individual content is consumedsource: dlaignite.com
• How you can reduce your recruitment costs with a good marketing strategy
• How to leverage LinkedIn to build your brand
  • what can you different to strengthen your profile
  • How to optimize your profile for search and storytelling
  • How your brand makes you a more obvious choice in competitive pitches

During our conversation, Alex also recommended the following book: Technology vs. Humanity: The coming clash between man and machine

You can find Alex on LinkedIn.

In this episode of Fringe Legal, host Abhijat Saraswat speaks with Janet Stanton.

I reached out to Janet after having read her article on the importance of strategic client management. We discuss the topic in detail including what it means, the benefits for individuals and the firm, implementation advice, and pitfalls to avoid.

Janet is an accomplished business person who brings her experience from diverse industries and professional service organizations to bear on issues currently facing Law Land. 

• Prior to Adam Smith, Esq., Janet was Director, Client Relationships Program at Orrick. 
• Previously, she served as Executive Vice President at a global communications agency where she led several large, global client relationships for organizations such as Pfizer and the US Department of Defense.  She also served as President of a national communications agency.
• She was personally awarded a Certificate of Appreciation by the Office of the Secretary of Defense.

Janet is a graduate of Vassar College, which she attended as a Regents Scholar.  She is based in New York City.

You can read Janet’s article on the Adam Smith Esq. website, and find her on LinkedIn.

Making innovation everyone's business with Allister Spencer

Innovation has as many definitions as the number of people you ask to define it. Regardless of what you think of as "innovative," the execution needs to permeate the business. Abhijat Saraswat speaks with Allister Spencer on how to make innovation everyone's business.

In this episode, we’ll go over:

1. Review the state of the union
   • earlier this year firms put their hand brakes on; some thrived, some fell apart. What drove this? 
   • What were the differences between segments (law firm sizes, law firms vs. in-house legal, etc.)?
2. General hygiene across the profession
   • How firms can improve their operational excellence so they can 
     • make clients stickier
     • get more clients
     • Increasing profits
   • How do we establish a baseline
     • discovery
     • benchmark
     • improvement
3. How Alt-V approaches the above
   • legal meth lab
   • Taylor Wessing workshop

Quotes have been extracted from the live conversation and have been edited for grammar and minor corrections. What follows is a commentary based on the discussion from the episode.

Handbrake

Earlier this year, the handbrake was pulled hard, and we saw a massive slow down across both legal and in-house counsel:

Businesses now realize that the programs that they had put on hold have to come back online, and things need to restart - the work must march on.

Factors affecting the adaptability 

Smaller firms with multi-jurisdictional teams fared better because they were better geared up to working remotely, as, in effect, many were already had a remote workforce. 

Many of the mid-tied single office firms, or those with a dated view that ‘bums on seats equals productivity,’ struggled to adjust quickly.

Some of the bigger firms that are spread jurisdictionally also had issues. Several factors contributed to this, and one of those was the rapid lateral hiring approach. This resulted in the firms having disparate systems, and when you bring everything back together, those systems sometimes don’t talk to each other. 

How did the law firms compare to in-house legal?

What are the next priorities? 

There’s a big push for ERP systems (document management, practice management, Exchange, and other basic systems that firms rely on so heavily) - some firms that have fallen behind are now rapidly coming back on board. However, it’s a cautionary tale:

The most common foible is taking an assumption-based implementation approach. Each firm has specific requirements, and without teasing those requirements out effectively, you're not going to get them the system they want.

The business of law

To achieve this, you need a mindset of future state thinking - those individuals that understand that what may have been working for the last 10, 20, 50, or 100 years may not work the same in the future because there is a changing tide coming and it’ll be disruptive. And the funny thing about disruption is it hits you in the face; as soon as you turn the corner, you don't get a warning. 

Operational excellence

This feeds into running a successful law firm - from a reporting perspective, you have operational excellence and strategic excellence. One can think of one as the dashboard and the other as the table - you have to marry those two up.

Firms, with all the best intentions, often miss the mark because they fall to the exclusion of the inclusion, i.e., they focus on improving things that happened, but not to convert those opportunities that may have slipped through the cracks.