Tech DNA: Can the Legal industry follow the precedent from Financial Services?

After spending last week at #LegalWeek2018 in NYC it should be clear to everyone that the volume level on the need to embrace Technology has gone beyond murmurings about competitive advantage, to a deafening roar that the viability of your business is at risk if you don’t get with the program, and fast!

There is a fundamental shift underway, it starts, as usual with talent. Too many trainees and junior lawyers doing menial tasks, too many operational processes being handled by experienced lawyers, lots of eager solution providers wanting to help, not enough leaders within firms having the time to take on the digital transformation as a full time job.

Machine Learning, AI, Big Data, Robotics are terms thrown around like confetti – however the question of change and adoption has to come from deep within the law firms or in-house teams themselves. This industry could do well by looking at the recent Technology revolution within Finance as a case study in how Legal should approach its own revolution.

Financial Services saw the scale of opportunity and quickly changed their emphasis, with the most successful organisations becoming Technology companies in their own right, with a deep specialism in finance.

The DNA of these organisations had to change. Technology Engineers became Traders and Risk managers, Technologists and Operations became one team to successfully re-engineer processes, Technologists now sit on the Management Committees of large Finance institutions wearing a forward strategy hat and not just a large expense hat. Technologist became peers of “the business” leadership and directly interact with clients. Technologists started packaging their internal software services and mutualized them into utilities leveragable by others in the industry and in some cases created new revenue streams as a result. Technology is now a Financial Services business in its own right.

So what’s the answer for the Legal industry? How can you be on the successful side of this revolution? Talent. DNA. Hire the best change leaders, hire the best engineers, hire the best data scientists and ensure your organization has them in c-level strategy seats and bound to the success of your business, not as second class service.

Lawyers salivate for strong evidence and precedent. I therefore conclude that ignoring the case from Financial Services would make the Legal industry guilty of missing a golden opportunity when the need for DNA change is clear.

#legaltech #fintech