NewLaw Academy

The International Bar Association (IBA) recently published a report on the impact of COVID-19 on the emotional health of lawyers. While it would be incredibly naive to think that everything was fine pre-pandemic, COVID-19 has accelerated the instance and intensity of workplace stress amongst legal professionals.

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Early-stage legaltech companies (pre-seed and seed) raised a combined US$73M globally in 12 months to 30 June 2021. According to Crunchase, there were 96 deals done during the period for an average deal size of US$760K per company, and an average funding rate of just under 2 startups per week.

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We recently surveyed legal innovation thought leaders, and discovered the top reasons preventing law firms - traditional laggards when it comes to change and technology adoption - from innovating. 

Time and budget constraints, skill deficiencies, and risk aversion were seen as the key drivers.

As Penelope Barr of Allens Linklaters LegalTech Lab put it, “Time, coupled with no compelling need to change, continue as core barriers to real innovation breakthrough”.

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Since the pandemic forced law firms around the world to finally embrace remote work, more and more people are having sea-change and tree-change moments. 

In Victoria’s coastal Mornington Peninsula, traditionally a popular second-home destination for wealthy Melbournians, property prices have soared by as much as 30% in the past 12 months.

The peninsula’s mayor, Despi O’Connor, said that the trend in people relocating from Melbourne to the peninsular was an unanticipated outcome of the pandemic.

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In a world where we can do so many things with the touch of a button or a simple voice command - get directions, play music, order a private car, order our favorite meal, set the temperature in our bedroom while we’re at the gym, and a whole lot more, people’s expectations of great customer experience has shifted. 

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NewLaw Academy: www.newlawacademy.com

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Creating a culture of creativity is becoming a priority for organisations all across the globe, with 82% of companies believing that there is a strong connection between creativity and business results. In recent years, there has been an evident push from law firms to develop lawyers that are human-centred. IDEO partner, Rochael Soper Adranly, coined the term “human-centred lawyers” and describes them as “those who can treat legal problems as human problems, translate legal complexity into relatable frameworks, and navigate tension and conflict with skill, patience, and respect for all stakeholders involved”.

To develop these human-centred lawyers, law firms are starting to upskill their lawyers in design thinking, a popular process for creative problem-solving.  

Here are five ways design thinking can help law firms get an edge on the competition.

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NewLaw Academy: www.newlawacademy.com

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Post-pandemic, law firms and professional services firms are experimenting with more flexible work arrangements.

The move to better ways of work is desperately needed. Gallup reported that 85 percent of people globally are either disengaged or not engaged at work. These numbers are echoed by miserable workplace stress statistics. In Australia, 46 percent of people find their workplace mentally unhealthy.

These figures are nothing short of tragic when we consider that people are spending about half of their waking hours at work for almost their entire adult lives.

Both workplace stress and a lack of engagement are chiefly attributable to an excessive workload, people issues, work-life balance conflicts, and a lack of autonomy.

And conflicts grew worse during the pandemic, where remote workforces reported working longer hours than before. This is ample evidence that simply telling people to work wherever they like isn’t going to address the systemic factors causing workplace stress.

Fortunately, these driving factors can be positively influenced not by making grand pronouncements that don’t take account of the realities of the existing workplace culture, but by actively changing how work gets done.

If you’re serious about giving your lawyers and back office staff flexibility at work and fulfillment from it (and driving the bottom line as a result), then consider redesigning how work gets done in the following ways.

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NewLaw Academy: www.newlawacademy.com

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Undoubtedly this is a time of rapid technological transformation, with Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies being an increasingly core area of focus for top and mid-tier law firms in their long-term strategy. This is rightly so as leading legal academic and author, Prof Richard Susskind, views this era of change as “an opportunity for some professionals to revisit some of their working practices” in his book, “The Future of the Professions”.

A Deloitte study in 2016 found about 114,000 legal jobs are likely to be automated in the UK alone in the next 20 years. This sort of hype may conjure up images of robot lawyers taking over the work of humans, but this would be to mistake specific AI for general AI. Specific AI uses algorithms to perform particular tasks often routine and repetitive in nature while General AI involves robots thinking, feeling and joining in similar to how humans do. It’s also clear that the technology is nowhere near as advanced as that yet, as AI is currently serving to support and complement the work traditionally done by lawyers.

Here are four areas where AI technologies are complementing the work traditionally done by lawyers.

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NewLaw Academy: www.newlawacademy.com

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Technology has been hailed as one of the biggest aids to a law firm’s growth in 2018, making it a necessity in the modern law firm.

Yet it’s still the top-tier law firms who remain the biggest investors in new technologies, typically centering  around Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Blockchain. 74 percent of mid-tier law firm leaders have admitted to not monitoring return on investment (ROI) on technology investments. This reactive approach has allowed top-tier law firms to lead the way in implementing strategic, innovative, tech-based solutions designed to streamline and automate existing processes.

This provides the client with more options to choose from such as online self-help and highly personalised systems like document-automation platforms. Here are five law firms leading this evolutionary shift.

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NewLaw Academy: www.newlawacademy.com

Email me: [email protected] 

When it comes to doing business, we buy from people we know, like, and trust. 

A solid personal brand helps us build this connection with people we haven’t even met yet, and results in more inbound opportunities and billable work. 

But most lawyers rely on organic personal brand building, which extends mostly to reputational clout within existing networks, occasionally speaking at a conference, and the rare media appearance.

There are many more effective methods lawyers can use to cultivate a personal brand that will put them head and shoulders above the crowd. 

The old adage that content is king still rings true. The king isn’t dead. He’s alive and kicking and more influential than ever. 
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Website: www.newlawacademy.com

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