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Why open-minded law students will re-shape the legal profession

More often than not, the technology environment that you see in a law firm is like going back in time. On top of that, there is an underinvestment in tools to help lawyers, such as document review, drafting, and data analysis. No doubt there is room for improvement.

At the same time, there are some good reasons for law firms being behind the curve. They are, necessarily, tightly managed environments that handle a high proportion of confidential information such as client data. And this responsibility has quite understandably bred a conservatism which is useful in the sense that it protects clients and guards against potentially costly mistakes. Another factor is that lawyers are very time-poor. How can you change the way you work when everyone is trying to deliver 1,500 billable hours a year?

But for the law firms that can find time to consider more efficient ways of working there are considerable opportunities. They use technology to free people up so that they can focus on adding value. In my particular area, drafting, one of our tools corrects and proofreads documents allowing us to solve creative problems.

A useful comparison here may be global professional services organizations.  They are similar to law firms in the sense that they are full of clever people solving complex problems. But on the whole, they have a much more advanced approach to innovation. One factor may be that they tend to be called upon by clients not only when there is a problem or an event, as is the case with a law firm, but when there is a broader conversation to be had about, say, the strategic challenges facing an organization over the next year and a half.

For law students preparing to enter the legal profession, technology, in my view, presents far more opportunities than threats. Some work that used to be done by trainees is being systemized to be completed by people without legal training or even to some extent assisted by “artificial intelligence” systems. But this will allow lawyers to “trade up”. Perhaps more importantly, though, it’s the mindset of tomorrow’s lawyers that will hold them in good stead. Coming into law firms fresh, these digital natives have no set ideas about the way things should be done and will be more willing to challenge what is already there.

If I were a trainee lawyer right now, I’d be hungry to receive as much tech-based training as possible, and also be curious about how tech applies to other industries. In this respect, client secondments would be particularly valuable, as would a wide variety of work experience at the student stage. I’d say that those in my peer group that have had continued success are those that have taken the time to think beyond their current industry, learned new concepts, and applied these to their current roles. To me, the legal profession seems ripe for these sorts of people to make their mark.

According to the text, we can say that law students will be engaged in the legal profession _______.