The Key Takeaways from The Changing Lawyer Report 2022

Welcome to Legal Take Matters, a Litera podcast dedicated to creating conversations about trends, technology and innovation for modern law firms and companies big and small.

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Sherry Kappel

Welcome to LEGALTECH MATTERS podcast. My name is Sherry Kappel and I'm an evangelist here at Litera. I am so excited about our topic today, which is insights from The Changing Lawyer 2022 publication. My guest today is also my colleague David Curle. He is the legal content and research lead at Litera. David, why don't you introduce yourself.

00;00;41;26 - 00;01;05;00

David Curle

Thanks. Sherry. Yeah, as you said, my name is David Curle. I came to Litera about a year ago or so. I came with the acquisition of Kira, where I was doing similar things as a legal content and research lead. I create a lot of the content that we use to support our businesses, particularly a sort of external industry facing content insights about the industry itself.

00;01;05;20 - 00;01;27;28

Sherry Kappel

And David, I can just interject this because I have the microphone at the moment. But I am so grateful for the content that you have produced. It just so insightful, so many great lessons. So thank you so much for what you do here at Litera, we're going to begin, though, by getting to know a little bit more about your background and what brought you to Litera.

We're then going to transition to the most recent efforts you had with Litera's annual thought leadership publication, The Changing Lawyer. We're going to wrap up our podcast with not only the five key takeaways from that publication, but what we're going to look forward to next in The Changing Lawyer. David's going to give us some scoop. So, David, what was your journey into legal tech?

How did that happen for you?

00;01;57;11 - 00;02;30;01

David Curle

Well, how much time do you have is the question. I'm no spring chicken, and my first exposure to legal technology was in the mid-1980s when Lexis and Westlaw were brand new. And when you talked about legal tech, that was about it. I taught their students Lexis and Westlaw School, and I went on, I found I didn't really like law school very much, didn't want to become a lawyer, but I did want to work with legal information.

I had a job in the law library and was fascinated by the way legal sources were linked together and also the way you know; these new online databases were working. It was pretty primitive in those days. You know, we, I, I used an acoustic coupler to connect, you know, dial up connection to Westlaw and, and all that.

So, I spent a few years at Westlaw. I also, later in my career, was an analyst for a market research firm that tracked Thomson Reuters and LexisNexis. And the other information, legal information providers did a lot of research on those businesses in that industry. And then and then later wound up at Thomson Reuters, the Thomson Reuters Institute, and did a lot of this similar sort of research that I'm doing today that we'll be talking about today.

You may be familiar with the Thomson Reuters report on the alternative legal service provider space, but I was active in doing some of that research and some of the other publications that T.R. put out that I came to. Kira did some of the same stuff there, and then suddenly one day found myself part of Litera, which was great.

00;03;45;17 - 00;04;08;05

Sherry Kappel

That's awesome. I as you were talking about your primitive experiences with Lexis. That was my first introduction about the same year. I remember walking into one of the data rooms and I saw the CRT screen and the coupler with the phone on it. And I kept saying, well, what is that? This looks so cool.

And they said, Well, that's Lexis. And I'm like, Cool.

00;04;10;25 - 00;04;11;00

David Curle

Lexis.

00;04;12;13 - 00;04;29;20

Sherry Kappel

Yeah. So, yes, very exciting technology in its day and to this day. So, what are the most significant changes that you have observed with all of your research and an awareness of the marketplace in legal tech in the last five years?

00;04;31;04 - 00;04;48;11

David Curle

Well, I'd say you know, maybe a couple of things. I guess the most profound change I'm seeing and I'm starting to feel, and I think I feel a little optimistic about this is I think we were just talking to about this too. I think there seems to be a recognition that legal tech is not just about the technology.

You know, it's about change management. It's about getting people to rethink the way they run their business, their business models. And as a consequence, it's requiring the brains of a lot of different kinds of people to work together, lawyers, but also all the other professionals that work in the industry. And I'm getting more optimistic about the idea that that's going to work.

In the past, it wasn't it didn't work so well. And I'm getting more optimistic about that. And that's probably the biggest change. And another change, I guess, that I think is really important is the growth of AI. I think in the past five years, we've seen, you know, we've seen it go from sort of, you know, futuristic dreaming about the future to, you know, real concrete benefits coming out of AI. And it's being used every day in the industry, all over the place in a lot of different applications.

00;05;48;05 - 00;06;01;21

Sherry Kappel

So, with all this technology change and introduction, I wondered what your perspective is on the challenges that you see for lawyers as they're navigating all of these shifts right now and those that are coming ahead?

00;06;03;09 - 00;06;44;28

David Curle

Well, you know, I think that the challenge is becoming open to change and you know, able to even have the bandwidth to be open to change. You know, we all know that for a lot of lawyers, their work is very intensive. Long hours, a lot of pressure, a lot of deadlines. And, you know, as I just said, I think the you know, the legal tech involves a lot of change management these days and getting people to sort of step back from their day to day work and the legal part of their work to focus on the technology and the business side of their work is a real challenge.

So, I think that's one of the biggest hurdles right now. It's not you know; the technology is coming along pretty darn well in a lot of fields. But it's that human side, human side that that's the challenge.

00;06;59;18 - 00;07;18;21

Sherry Kappel

I think you set this up perfectly to what we're going to discuss next. This brings us to learning more about The Changing Lawyer. So, David, let's start with what is The Changing Lawyer? Is it a publication, an award ceremony, a marketing piece for Litera products? What is it?

00;07;19;03 - 00;07;42;11

David Curle

Well, it's a bunch of stuff rolled into one. And I have to say, I was when I came over from Kira, I was happy to find that there was this program already in place that was doing some of the you know, looking at some of the questions that I have about the industry and that I think are very important for the industry to sort of take a step back and look at. The core of the program is this report that we're talking about today.

By the way, I should mention, it's available for download. There's a banner on the top of our of the Litera's website, Litera.com. So you can click through and download it. But it's more than just the report. Last year we had a daylong marathon virtual conference that dealt with a lot of the themes from last year's report.

This year, we're going to probably do it a little differently with a sort of a series of webinars once a week. That are going to but do this really to do the same thing to try to get underneath some of the issues in the data in the report and talk to some of our customers, talk to experts in the field and really build up some robust discussion around that.

And there's also an Awards program attached to that. So, watch for that as well. There'll be some invitations to sort of submit applications to that program as well.

00;08;43;28 - 00;08;59;22

Sherry Kappel

Very cool. So, tell us about this year's edition. To be honest, I'm always so curious, you know, how does the toaster get built or how does that camera work? I'd be really curious. How do you go about producing a report such as this?

00;09;00;19 - 00;09;40;11

David Curle

It's a long process. And it actually, you know, as soon as we're done with those webinars this fall, we'll probably start up, you know, late this year or early next in sort of planning for next year's edition. And it involves, you know, taking a look at what's happened under the under the course of the year and finding some topics that are worth exploring. And then what we do is we build a survey, and that's guided by me and others in Litera who, you know, give us their input on what questions should we ask, what questions would our customers want to get answers to and what topics would they like to discuss and challenges. And then so then the survey is fielded. And by the way, I have to check my notes here. The survey went to 300 lawyers this year, all of them at law firms of 80 lawyers or larger. And then 100 of the surveys went to allied professionals. And we'll get to that in a little bit.

But sort of non-lawyers who are working in the industry that are becoming a critical part of it. And there's a whole section of the report about that. And it was also international, so we had North America represented, UK, but also several countries in Europe were represented in the questionnaire. And then after that, after we get all that data back and look at that data, we do a series of qualitative interviews with experts, with lawyers, with law firm leadership, and pick apart some of the issues and get some insights from them directly that sort of illuminate the statistical data.

00;10;43;17 - 00;11;07;19

Sherry Kappel

I'll tell you the stories. You know, it isn't just the call and the quotes in the stats, but it's the stories that the people tell in The Changing Lawyer that really make all of this come alive, you know, in more dimensions than we're able to experience. It just doing our own jobs. Right. So, thank you for all of that great work.

So, you, in fact, tipped your hat on the allied professionals. You know, in the foreword, which I understand our CEO, Sheryl, wrote the foreword to this year's Changing Lawyer publication. I was really struck by one of the lines which referenced Allied Professionals. Tell us a little bit more about that moniker and why it matters. Matters now.

00;11;31;23 - 00;12;04;19

David Curle

Yeah, well, it matters, and I think it's hugely important. And it's one of the central themes of the report. Allied Professionals are all those people who are not lawyers. And I know I slipped a minute ago and used the term non-lawyers, but, you know, I think by using the term allied professionals, we're trying to elevate those people a little bit because there's always been this sort of dividing line between the legally trained people in the firm and that and those that aren't legally trained.

But as more and more technology comes into the industry, as more and more processes get changed from the way things were done in the past. There're all kinds of people coming into this industry that are process managers, data analysts, you know, all these different skills that are needed to sort of keep this stuff going.

And so, we really wanted to focus on those roles. And there's a whole section or a whole article about that in the report.

00;12;38;17 - 00;12;53;21

Sherry Kappel

And it's devoted to those allied professionals. But I think it's also really cool what you've done to connect those professionals to the lawyers and say, here's how these things can all work together. So again, fascinating research.

00;12;54;04 - 00;13;29;21

David Curle

And I think it's a really interesting kind of a mixed message that I think we heard in the research, which is, you know, there's still one of the statistics is that 58% of lawyers are still worried that that allied professionals will take work from them. And that's a really interesting statistic. My gut reaction to that is, you know, there's a lot of work that lawyers should be begging somebody to take from them, all the routine process-oriented work that you don't require and don't need a law degree to do.

And so, there's that. But then at the same time, there's a number of similar statistics, like. 83% of the lawyers think that allied professionals make their jobs easier. So, it's you know, there's I think there's still a lot of dancing around the relationships and the roles going on in the industry.

00;13;49;25 - 00;14;12;28

Sherry Kappel

A lot of formation really because it's unraveling sort of an ages old dynamic let's call it and the technology is enabling it to be a whole lot different. So, you know interestingly what we've just done David, is to take the one of the five key takeaways is allied professionals and that impact we're about to now talk about the second key takeaway which is that automation is everywhere. This section opens up with a thought exercise, which I enjoyed so much. Imagine a future where legal cases are decided by Internet courts, where individuals don't have to appear in person and matters are resolved by non-human judges, not non-lawyer judges, but non-human judges. David, is this from a movie or is this real?

Is this a real thought exercise?

00;14;46;06 - 00;14;49;17

David Curle

It seems to me more like a yeah, more like a movie preview or something.

You know that that starts off a whole section on AI and AI and court in court processes. And I think it's sort of like staked out the extreme position. And I don't think we're there. And I, I personally don't think we'll ever be 100% to that exact description of what's going on. Although there are courts, as the article points out in the report.

There are courts in China that are doing something close to that description but what I think that that article goes on to say is that it's not so much the AI and it's not so much the AI taking over the legal decisions. That's the big impact in courts these days. It's automation in a more broader sense than just AI.

Right. So, I think the pandemic has really accelerated this in terms of bringing along courts that have suddenly had to use Zoom to hold hearings and had to find alternative ways to let people file and deliver, you know, delivered pleadings and that sort of thing. People often talk about you know, AI in the courts or when what they're really talking about is technology more broadly.

Some of the technology is being applied in the courts. Are not really, they're not advanced AI They're just basic nuts and bolts, you know, improving processes with the use of technology. That's kind of where that whole section boils down to is we're not really at that science fiction scenario yet, but we are definitely going a long way to improving the processes in legal and legal systems.

Sherry Kappel

So why don't we move on to the actually the third one, which is technology and data that technology and data coupled together improves the delivery of client service and provides real time insights about law firm performance budgeting and the like. So why don't you tell us a little bit more about that?

00;19;13;16 - 00;19;27;20

David Curle

Well, this is this is, I think one of the more interesting parts really to me because, you know, the data point, one of the headline data points here was that 78% of lawyers agreed that technology helps them offer a better client experience.

What's interesting about that is that, you know, I think a little while ago, lawyers wouldn't have thought about it that way. They would have thought of legal technology as something that makes my life better. But now all of a sudden, they're realizing, oh, it can make my client's life better, too. And that's an important breakthrough, I think. I think as more and more lawyers and law firms are understanding that, oh, if I provide better data to my to my law firms, that that makes us a little sticky, that makes them want to come back because they understand where their matters are and they understand better how much they're going to cost and those kinds of things

So, I think there's many ways in which the technology, which was probably, you know, over the first phases of legal technology was entirely focused on just making life easier for law firms and lawyers to actually turning some of their technology outward into the client's world.

00;20;28;21 - 00;21;04;26

Sherry Kappel

Wonderful insight. The next one, the fourth of the fifth of the five cloud-based solutions, the tenant being that they're taking over. And they're you know; this was driven partly by the need for remote and blended work access. But, you know, one of the one of the realizations that I've had about this topic is that, you know, it wasn't that long ago that, you know, we all said law firms are they'll never do exchange online a cloud based, you know, email routing system.

They'll never do that, that they want everything on-premises and everything local. And now what we're seeing is that cloud-based solutions are taking over. Yeah. And so why don't you tell us a little bit more about this one?

00;21;18;15 - 00;21;42;14

David Curle

Yeah. I mean, I hear I'm going to jump ahead a little bit. I know we're going to talk about ILTACON we were both there and heard some really interesting things. And I think this whole discussion about cloud was really cemented for me at the last keynote at the ILTACON conference, where you know, a group of different global 100 and global 200 law firms get together.

And there was a session sort of a sort of a readout of what they were talking about all day. And on the first day of the conference and it was pretty much data security, security, data protection, security, cloud etc., etc. That's all those guys think about those CIOs of law firms. And what struck me was how the extent to which the train has left the station.

I mean, they're on board with moving to the cloud for the most part. And, and now they just see the challenges. We need to stay on top of the security challenges and make it work for us. And then the interesting thing the other corner that has been turned, I think, is that they're now thinking of not just now they're thinking of the cloud.

It's not just dangerous anymore, but they're actually putting a positive spin on it. They're thinking of it as an opportunity. They're starting to see the flexibility and the creativity that can come when data and systems are hosted in the cloud. It's easier to combine systems. It's easier for systems to share data. And they can do all kinds of things with, you know, with the help of their lawyers to take advantage of the cloud in a way that they would never have been able to do with closed on-premises systems.

00;22;59;00 - 00;23;32;05

Sherry Kappel

It's so fascinating that you say this because just what last week I was having a conversation with a firm. And basically, the second question they asked after, what does your technology do? The second question was can it be hosted? Can I take advantage of your hosted, you know, setup of this? And it just struck me at that moment, like, wow, we have come so far because that wouldn't have even formed in anyone's lips five years ago.

So, I think it's a really great, great trend. So the final key takeaway from our changing lawyer publication is that of changing work expectations that due to differences in the ways that individuals need to work, that that it's a significant driver, granting those flexible work arrangements is a significant driver of technology adoption, which we all know is a really hard thing to force you know, and that it's also driving lawyer recruitment and retention.

So, can you tell us a little bit about this and how it's impacting the new generation of lawyers that see technology as a path to better Work-Life Balance?

00;24;19;26 - 00;24;43;26

David Curle

It's both a carrot and a stick. I mean, I think it's the newer lawyers are coming in with a set of expectations, I think, that are not always being met. And so, they're driving forward some of the demand. But from the firm's perspective, they can't find people, they can't find enough people, they can't pay enough money to keep, you know, to keep people on hand.

And they're realizing that just throwing money at more bodies is not the solution. That if we can, you know, if they can change the processes, automate what needs to be automated, they can not only get the work done with fewer people, but keep those lawyers working on those on that stuff a lot happier. And I think I think there's just sort of, you know, it like anything, there's a learning curve and it's hard to get people to adopt technology.

But once they do, I think they increasingly realize the extent to which it can make their lives better. So, I think that's a message across legal tech is that, you know, this is this is such a better way to work to do to use automation, to eliminate the tedious and repetitive parts of legal practice and actually maybe make parts of the work fun more humane.

00;25;44;18 - 00;26;18;08

Sherry Kappel

And, you know, taking it back to some of the other takeaways of, say, technology and data it's always so wonderful to see a user who has adopted some kind of piece of technology, but then suddenly sees that that technology, when coupled with this technology when coupled with that set of data that they can achieve things and learn insights that they literally would have had no way of doing otherwise.

And so that is to me, it just a kind of key next step for all of this. And it's so exciting to see that it's continuing to change, and those outcomes will all get to benefit from. So, I promised our audience, David, that we would have a little bit of a scoop on what's coming next with the changing lawyer.

So, tell us what's next.

00;26;45;16 - 00;27;05;22

David Curle

Well, I think you know that, like I said, the webinars are coming up and we are looking to make those really interesting discussions that I think people will want to tune in on. And we're going to be able to do, you know, what we've done with 5 minutes on each of these topics. You know, we'll be able to dig into it for a half an hour or an hour or so.

And that's exciting. And then, like I said, we're looking ahead to next year's report already and starting to think about what, you know, what are going to be some of the themes. what's happening this year that we're going to want to ask more questions about next year. So, you know, the plan is to keep this going and continue to provide these kinds of insights to the industry.

00;27;29;26 - 00;27;53;19

Sherry Kappel

It's a wonderful piece and an initiative. So, coming back to you for just a minute, your role in Litera is so fascinating. Personally, what are some of the trends you'll be following and pursuing next? Some probably more of the same, some new paths that you discovered, maybe at ILTACON.

00;27;54;04 - 00;28;12;06

David Curle

Yeah, I think that's I think I'm going to answer that question by itself, talking about my experience at ILTACON. and I really saw came away from me, all taken with sort of four categories of thoughts about what I was hearing, and I spent a lot of time going to the sessions and talking to people I know in the corridors.

And the number one thing, and I think this is probably likely to be a big part of next year's Changing Lawyer as well, is the whole idea of integration and interoperability of legal tech systems is was huge it was everywhere. Every session had some aspect of that topic. It seemed that people are understanding we're beyond the point of just seeing legal tech as a, you know, a point solution that solves one problem and seeing legal tech as a, you know, the source of all kinds of data that can be mixed with other data to do other things.

And all these systems have to work together. And, you know, we're doing a lot at Litera, as you know, to make our systems work better with each other. But we're also working hard to open them up to other vendors systems that that, you know, are our customers are already using. And that's going to be an ongoing theme, I think, for sure.

Now, I heard an awful lot about that at ILTACON. You know, another one was that back to the topic of AI, you know, even just even like the most recent in-person you ILTACON that I was at was 2019. And even there AI was still I was still kind of for most people, this sort of future state. And nobody really knew much about it.

What is it? What is AI this year? There were a lot of really concrete, practical examples of, you know, people demonstrating how they're using AI every day, whether it's, you know, using a product like Kira for contract analysis or whether it's analyzing their price matter data for pricing trends and insights and all all these things. Lots going on with AI and it's very pragmatic and focused. And that's a little similar to the third theme, which was regardless of whether it's the discussion in AI or any other kind of technology, a lot of the speakers were talking about just being patient, being incremental.

Don't be looking for the silver bullet to fix all your problems. But solve a problem, solve, you know, solve one thing that is costing you money or causing you to deliver less than, you know, standard result to your client. And then use what you have was another phrase I heard over and over again. You know, there's lots of people who sit on top of financial matter management systems or CRM systems that has lots of data that they could be using.

And they probably don't necessarily need to go buy a new product to be able to leverage some of that stuff. So, use what you have was a good starting point, the piece of advice for most people. And then just really the fourth big takeaway was what we've already talked about, about the about the cloud. I was I was really struck by how much these, you know, CIOs of these top firms are totally bought into the cloud.

They obviously care about security. They spend a lot of time talking about, you know, what are their best practices for dealing with security issues and what are the challenges. But they're totally in on it. And then, as I said, they're starting to turn the corner and think of the cloud as a big opportunity for them to deliver better legal services.

00;31;35;15 - 00;32;04;11

Sherry Kappel

I think the cloud also enables such expansive reach, you know, with collaboration being supported by it or mobility being supported by it. It's a gift that keeps on giving, as it were. And so, I'm glad they're all focusing on that and taking great care with protecting the data at the same time. So those are great, great trends to have all of us excited about.

David, I can't thank you enough for joining us today. On our podcast and thanking you for the great work with The Changing Lawyer and the insights that you'll be sharing that you've shared already and that you're going to be sharing in the future. So, thank you so much for being here.

00;32;20;05 - 00;32;25;07

David Curle

Thanks. I appreciate the opportunity. And as I said, go to Litera.com and download the report.

00;32;25;22 - 00;32;28;28

Sherry Kappel

Great. Thank you so much, bye everyone.

Thank you for listening to Legal Tech Matters. Be sure to subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.