The Lawyer of the Future - March 2025
Introduction
I think everyone recognises that we have seen more change in the LegalTech market in the last three years than the thirty before. It begs the question what will the successful lawyer and partner of the future look like? I recently spent some time discussing this with Matt Newton on the Transforming Legal podcast Webinar | Transform Legal - Sector Trends as this is a theme increasingly coming up in client discussions.
My thoughts have been triggered by three things:
1. In a period of increased digitisation (where we are seeing both unprecedented velocity and volume) it is fairly obvious that the skills needed to deliver great work and great client service in the future will be different to the past. Evolution will not happen by accident. We either need to develop our people or recruit people with the right skills but to do this we need to be clear what these will look like.
2. Secondly, a while back I was acting on behalf of a corporate client in assessing law firm tenders. The tender involved a large IT component, and a partner dialled in from holiday to present. He was given quite a grilling on the IT solution from the client, and I remember thinking to myself how well he handled it. He was not a full product expert or technologist but knew enough about the system’s functionality to make some proactive suggestions as to how problems could be sorted. Sadly, they did not win the tender for other reasons, but I remember thinking that is what a law firm partner of the future will look like.
3. Thirdly, we work a lot for corporate clients. They are increasingly digitising and if they do not have the budget for bespoke legal tools, Microsoft 365 is their “weapon of choice”. The way they use it and their knowledge of its functionality are strong. I had a client talking to me the other day explaining how they had thought about a new way of milestone reporting for a project using Power Automate and Power BI. The law firm lawyer they were talking to did not know what the tools did. This level of awareness needs to change, and it would ideally be law firm lawyers coming up with these solutions for clients as opposed to reacting to them.
We need to develop our people. Lawyers do not need to be coders, but they increasingly need to have a good working knowledge of technology and legal operations and know who to speak to for help.
The Lawyer of the Future
And so, what does the lawyer of the future look like:
1. They do not rush in. Most lawyers I know are very hard working and very keen to respond quickly and deliver client work. The lawyer of the future will pause and reflect more. In the past there was really only one primary way of delivering work which involved a lawyer with the right skills applying themselves to a piece of work and spending time on it. Now there are many more methods, a number or which involve technology and being more creative. If a lawyer receives an instruction, in some cases they perhaps need to stand back and think if there is a better way of dealing with things using matter management, no code systems, AI or Microsoft technologies. We have been involved in a number of instances where lawyers, instead of just rushing in, presented their clients with say three options of different price points with different risk positions. The client has ultimately been happier as they have choice and received better quality work quicker, and the law firm has made a greater margin. Lawyers do not need to become technology experts, but they do need to be able to spot where there is a better way and know who to engage with.
2. Microsoft 365 Knowledge. As per the above, this is increasingly the weapon of choice for in-house clients (albeit many are now winning the business case to build out their wider systems). Microsoft’s current market capitalisation is $3 trillion dollars with an estimated 1 in 7 people on the planet using their technology. Satya Nadella has played an increasingly canny game in relation to his AI strategy, and so you would not bet against him. It is vital that both in-house lawyers and private practice lawyers each understand these technologies and how exactly they can be applied to best effect. We have worked with one provider who built a simple Power Automate flow and used Copilot Studio to analyse and screen NDAs. We need to see more of this.
3. Prompt Training and AI. Again, lawyers do not need to become technology experts, but we know that AI is going to increasingly become be part of our futures. Microsoft Copilot may end up being ubiquitous. They need to understand what AI can and cannot do and how to get the most out of it with prompts. In addition, they need to understand the domain specific AI systems such as playbook tools or tools such as Orbital Witness and Avail in the real estate arena. We will get to a point that if these tools are not leveraged, working “manually” will simply no longer be viable. People need to start this journey now in the same way lawyers needed to learn to type when PC’s and e mails hit their desktop many years ago.
4. Risk. We have written an article on this - Generative AI: A New World of Risk — Hyperscale Group Limited. In short, the risk profile of doing business is going to change due to AI. There are a number of components to this such as Deepfakes, KYC risk, incorrect data sets, data poisoning, copyright breaches, data seepage, hallucinations and the need for verification. The list goes on. PI insurance is still one of the largest overheads for a law firm and our regulators still expect work to be properly supervised, irrespective of whether or not AI tools have been leveraged but what does this look like and how do you demonstrate this on your file? The Microsoft Future of Work Report - NFWReport2024_12.20.24.pdf, identified how more junior people had an expectation they should be paid more as they could do more advanced work but again this brings with it new risks. We need to temper new working methods with a recognition that risk profiles are altering and that the people delivering work (and partners supervising them) need to recognise this. They will need education in this area.
5. Pricing. Client’s expectations will alter. Technology and AI in many ways will reduce the cost of delivery but equally may increase operational overheads and supervision costs. They will also, over time alter different aspects of overhead as some costs diminish and others rise. Clients too will adopt these tools and their expectations and perceptions of value will alter. Accordingly, pricing will have several dynamics, and it will no longer be good enough to just quote on an hourly basis. On some occasions by working smarter and leveraging tools, huge margins can be achieved and otherwise unachievable deadlines met. On other occasions the way work will be delivered will be different, e.g., sample due diligence that is screened by AI and we are going to see the emergence of products that deliver different benefits. To handle this, lawyers need to be educated much more on pricing and new pricing strategies and need to come up with innovative solutions. They will need help with this.
6. Tools of the Trade. We have previously written an article about what lawyers could learn from builders - A Conversation with a Builder — Hyperscale Group Limited. In short, on building sites people are trained in specific disciplines such as carpentry or electrical work. They will also be trained on the tools of their trade and in many cases will be mandated to keep training certifications up to date. We have none of this in law bar historical CPD training but increasingly we will need to move in this direction. To be a great corporate lawyer you need to understand AI, portals, deal execution platforms, and due diligence tools relevant to the work you are doing. Increasingly we need to train people in the different scenarios they will encounter, how to use the specific technology tools in their area and ensure they are kept up to date. This is also beyond the basics of legal operations and certifications such as LTC4 on more basic technology skills which we also cannot neglect.
7. Envisioning. This is perhaps a point for partners of the future. Increasingly we need lawyers to reinvent the way they work and completely remodel what their teams look like, their skills and value propositions. I commend businesses such as Exizent who are trying to revolutionise how probate work is being delivered with digital dashboards, digital grants of probate and auto settlement. We need to see more of this with the delivery of law literally being reinvented but the partners who succeed in these areas will be the people who can see the potential and reimagine how work can be done. There are several examples where partners have leveraged technology and have remodelled their teams, but we now need to go beyond this as the technology landscape is becoming more advanced. I think the other key skills for the partner of the future will be the ability to sell this vision to clients and to market in a completely new way. Also, I suspect these partners will be the type of individuals who will be relentless in winning support and financial backing from their existing law firms to make this happen. This will require investment but will potentially bring large returns and it will be interesting to see how law firm profit sharing policies cope with this.
8. Data Literacy. We are moving into a world where we have more data than we have ever seen before. In a digital world this trend will continue to grow. Legal work will become more data driven – this will range from geotagging in road accidents to determining chances of success in litigation or “market positions” on the back of previous public information. Real estate firms will pre scan titles using AI to determine how complex they are and will price accordingly. Having the right data or corpus to leverage AI will be key too but once this is achieved the possibilities are endless. If for example all divorce court approved financial settlement documents are combined in a dataset could future financial settlements be determined by AI on the basis of a series of questions to both parties? Firm’s like Weightmans are a great example of this with the work they have done for insurance clients PREDiCT: Transforming Large Loss claims handling | Weightmans as is the work carried out by OneNDA and OneSaas. “What is market” will become much more of a science. Lawyers will need to learn much more about how to handle, interrogate and use data as it will become much more central to what they do.
So how do we make this happen?
This is an area we need to start thinking about now. It is important that Boards, HR departments, IT/Innovation Teams and Learning Development experts start addressing their minds to this area. I do not think there is any one answer but approaches we are seeing include the following (as well as some other confidential approaches we are working on):
a. Academies
b. Trainee boot camps
c. Trainee innovation projects
d. Use of eLearning platforms such as The Professional Alternative.
e. Dedicated partners conferences
f. The emergence and development of career competencies, setting out what knowledge and experience people need to have in this area to progress to the next stage.
On the latter is it unreasonable to expect a solicitor to have worked on a transformational client technology project to be able to progress to become an associate? Which skills are needed at different stages of people’s careers?
I think this whole area also brings into question the role of a modern-day professional support lawyer too? What is the role of learning and development and IT/Innovation teams in helping to deliver this?
One thing that is clear is that some firms are addressing this, and we are fortunate to work with many of them. Those firms that get it right will be well positioned for the future, but I suspect there will be a finite time period during which firms can execute these changes.
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