‘Being connected through the internet of things means stepping from home to car to office is a seamless data process of arranging the day’s agenda, absorbing the morning news and responding to overnight developments in the practice at overseas offices. A file that needs to be shared with a client has been processed, not just in terms of the content relevance, but also through the most efficient channel...’ So begins ‘A day in the life of a future lawyer’, one of the articles recently published in Raconteur’s special Legal Innovation report, which features Totum and was published in The Times.

Data future

It's great fun horizon-gazing piece that poses a future driven by predictive analytics, blockchain technology and cryptocurrency.  How much will actually come to pass remains to be seen but given the role that technology has played in business to date, there’s little doubt it will have transformative power in future. But we also think that the people dynamics in law may be an equal game changer – albeit propelled by advances in technology. In the article, Alessandra Almeida Jones, head of marketing and communications at Baker McKenzie, makes the point that the make up of legal teams will change: ‘This is the most exciting time to work for a law firm. We use the term ‘the new lawyer’ to mean a much more commercial individual taking a more consultative approach, surrounded by broader and more diverse team members. ‘Legal project management and analytics will become core to what is currently provided, going beyond just the contract, the legal advice, and incorporate more non-lawyers into legal teams.’

Diverse capabilities

We have already seen how far business services functions have evolved in legal practice. Not only have traditional functions in BD and marketing, HR, finance and IT grown in size and sophistication, but many new roles and functions have emerged in law too – in legal project management, process innovation, change management, programme management, project and business analysis, and data science. In our view, experts across these functions will play an ever-bigger role in the day-to-day life of the future lawyer. When clients choose their law firm suppliers, it will not just be for their technical legal expertise or indeed for their technological capabilities, but for the hugely diverse range of legal and business skills the leading law firms will offer. Click here to read the whole article, ‘A day in the life of the future lawyer’, as well as other articles from Raconteur’s Legal Innovation report.