The in-house perspective on legal ops and new tech tools reshaping legal services
Thursday 27 July 2023
Carlos Taboada
Consortium Legal, Managua
ctaboada@consortiumlegal.com
Conference report
Biennial IBA Latin American Regional Forum Conference: Technology, social media and artificial intelligence: challenges for the legal industry in the digital age
24 March 2023
Plenary session
Co-Chairs
Maria Carolina Pardo Baker McKenzie, Bogota
Fernando Pelaez-Pier FPelaez Consulting, Miami; IBA Honorary Life Member of Council and Association
Speakers
Xavier Careaga, META, Mexico City
Hector Garcia Bayer, Bogota
Mary O’Carrol Ironclad, San Francisco CA
Suzette Recinos PepsiCo, Miami FL
Isabel Sica Google, Sao Paulo
Scott Taylor Merck & Co, Mexico City
This session focused on new tech tools and new ways of providing legal services from the perspective of in-house lawyers. It addressed examples of innovations which add client value and how law firms can improve the services they offer by the use of new tools. The session also covered future expectations of companies.
The two co-chairs and six panellists shared their experiences and perspectives about the use of technology. As the pace of business increases, so does the need for legal departments to keep up and support their businesses. Many in-house departments are behind with the adoption of technologies which could help them better serve their internal clients improving the ways in which legal services are provided. Success stories included applications which have helped companies improve the oversight and control of regulatory compliance, improvements in internal communications between the legal and business teams, processes automation, among other areas in which technology is helping.
The experts shared their views about the impact of legal tech on the practice of law, particularly for in-house departments. Panellists drew attention to how lawyers view technology and the importance of embracing this new wave of technological advance. To achieve this, it is important lawyers recognise there are new ways to undertake certain tasks. While changes usually encounter resistance, as technology advances, a point is reached by which there is no alternative but to adopt the change. For example, even for those who preferred in-person meetings, the pandemic has forced the adoption of online meeting technologies. Panellists gave special attention on the psychology behind new technology adoption processes. Lawyers need to think differently and celebrate innovation as the way to change working practices. While legal tech might seem intimidating to lawyers, focusing on usability and how it might help simplify the work process can be critical for its successful adoption.
One of the main topics was the need for lawyers and law firms to modernise to carry out relevant, impactful, productive work more effectively and efficiently. To add value, review of processes is relevant in identifying repetitive work which can be automated. The panel expressed the ideas that while some thought technology might substitute lawyers, others believed that efficient lawyers would substitute inefficient lawyers. Technology can help improve lawyers’ efficiency with the right tools. That is why it is important to define the problem which needs to be solved and the objective of legal tech adoption, to avoid mistakes in legal tech implementation.
Digital transformation in legal departments is relevant from a talent management perspective too. Tools can be useful in attracting and retaining fresh talent. These might include tools which automate processes, such as legal bots, AI legal search applications, dash boards and contract tools.
The use of legal tech applications does not necessarily require important investment, as many are readily available without the need of starting from scratch. In such cases, the adaptation of existing tools might be a good starting point without the need for significant investment. Implementing legal tech can be achieved with reasonable budgets.
One of the opportunities that legal tech offers lawyers is data management, key for problem solving in organisations. One of the examples given by the panellists referred to contracts. Every organisation deals with contracts to document its relationships with clients, suppliers, employees and other stakeholders. Within the boundaries of data protection laws, the information contained within an organisation’s contracts can be very useful for other business areas beyond the legal department.
Another example of the successful application of legal tech shared by the panel was how a company had developed a data protection tool. The legal and business team of a global company committed to implementing validated technology in order to spot trends and mitigate risks relating to data protection issues. The company developed the legal tech tool internally, hiring gamers who tend to give importance to results (productivity) and data. With collected data from relevant uses, trends could be identified, and the team were then able to prioritise where efforts should be made. In this process, they found that contracting was a major problem and focused their efforts in taking simple work away from lawyers, so that they could focus on more complicated tasks. In this case, the automation of information on applicable regulation across different jurisdictions.
Many important trends were identified throughout the session, as panellists shared their relevant experiences. It was clear that while lawyers need to keep up with the rapid changes in the business environment, the in-house perspective is positive on how new tech tools can help lawyers to become much more efficient. As a final consideration, panellists agreed on the importance of understanding the tools which check regulation compliance. As legal tech tools are kept up to date, this understanding will maintain the alignment of the application of legal tech to the regulatory framework.