LegalTech is the reaction to the disruption that technology is having across all sectors of the economy. Considering that the legal sector is one of the most resistant to change, due to its conservative nature, we can see just how different the future will be. In this course, IE professor Marti Manent will guide you through the essential stages of this disruption in technology, giving you the key tools and ideas to consider when starting your online business. In the course, Marti explains the key market trends that you will encounter and will provide you with a handy practical toolbox. The course features interviews with industry professionals as well as very motivating and interesting lectures that will help you open your mind and better understand everything in the course. Be part of this disruption that technology is having in the legal sector and join Professor Marti during this exciting new course.
Professional skills for lawyers with Javier de Cendra
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Legal Tech & Startups
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Marti ManentProfessor
Director Programa Legal Bridge to Silicon Valley
Hi, again, We are here with Javier de Cendra, the dean of IE Law School.
And now we are going to talk about the law firms,
which kind of law firms we will have in the future and
which professionals will work in the law firms.
Javier, you have a vision, from the United States,
you visit a lot of law firms and how you
imagine that we'll be working in those newish company?
I don't know if we can call law firms in the future.
Yup. Oh, thanks so much Marti for that question.
Of course to make predictions
is very difficult especially if they are out of the future you all know that.
That said, of course,
there are some trends that we are seeing that can help us to
project into the future and to see how
the legal sector will look like a few years from now.
And so, obviously, what I think that we will have
more and more legal service providers with real law firms,
or alternative business structures,
or something yet to be invented that will be competing in the field
to provide legal services to clients all over the world.
So, I would say that many of the emerging law firms or
legal service providers will be tech-based and will have a global markets.
And then, in the global market, they will see how to pitch to
a specific segment and it can be specific jurisdictions,
specific segment of the market,
so clients with high purchasing capacity,
or clients somewhere in the middle,
or clients that traditionally would have been out of the market.
So there is going to be a lot of variety.
I think globalization and technology bring variety as
opposed to harmonization and I think this is going to be very good.
I think we will see that in the market.
We will see very large global law firms, a few of them.
We will see also ultra specialized boutiques that will be able to focus
on one or two very specific areas but will have global reach.
Okay, do you mean that I could have a very small company,
its a particular firm, and you could provide services worldwide?
I think you will be able to do that.
I think if you select well the market that you are pitching and you
are able to sell your product and say that you are the best on some very specific,
some very specific service you will be able to work with law firm,
with clients all over the world. Okay.
You will have, you will have obviously other companies which have nothing to
do with the legal sector that we are getting to
that market providing legal advice for instance to clients.
We have seen that especially in the Anglo-Saxon world.
Banks, supermarkets, or market chains doing
exactly this and offering legal services at a very low price and of a very fair quality.
I think that that is one of
the most interesting change of the business, of the legal business,
because a lot of you know that when we think about legal business we think about
a law firm and you explain that outside providers,
outside companies, will provide law firm service.
But they are companies.
They are not a law firm classical.
Yeah, absolutely.
And there was a- even with the system we have right now,
lawyers certainly have the capacity to defend,
to represent clients in courts, okay?
And that's something that is going to be highly regulated,
has always been, you know,
by bars and ministries of justice in different states and different jurisdictions to
guarantee that the fundamental service that lawyers are
providing to clients is of a certain quality because a lot is at stake in their rights.
You need to protect the rights of your clients.
But beyond that there is a lot of work that lawyers have been doing in
law firms that can be done by any company in better ways,
more efficient ways, cheaper ways.
So a lot of competition will come in and is
very difficult to forecast which competitors we will have
but we will have a lot and especially a lot of
entrepreneurs that can focus on very specific issues.
And they will be able, for instance,
to contract with law firms the provision of due diligence or the provisions of data,
of the analysis of data.
And that is happening right now and there is an enormous market that
is being generated especially in the U.S. in that regard.
You will have different structures.
There are law firms now that are composed by solo lawyers working a kind of
loose network and are able to provide high level expertise
at very low costs because there is not a lot of overheads involved.
We know the examples that exist and-.
Which one, which examples?
I mean, Axiom, for example,
is the typical paradigm of this way of-.
What is Axiom for people that don't know it?
What is interesting about Axiom and this is a new concept in a way where top lawyers
coming from top law firms are coming together in
a loose network to offer their expertise without overhead.
They work per projects for specific companies.
So, Axiom, I would say,
is a nice example of a company that emerges without really challenging the status quo.
Because Axiom needs top lawyers from top law firms that
bring their expertise and are able to offer that without the overheads.
But they still need that.
Now, what I think that we will have other professionals that will work together with,
with people that has knowledge about the law,
not necessarily graduates, that will be able to compete.
We are seeing now in some jurisdictions a big revolution
in the way in which access to the profession takes place.
And we are seeing, for instance, the UK,
the idea of paralegal is very strong.
They have alternative ways to get into the profession without going through university.
In the U.S. we are starting to see that.
In part it has to do with the crisis in law schools
that comes from enormous tuition fees they are charging to students and
the difficulty for the students to pay back the loans that they normally
acquire in order to be able to study so we will
see different ways of accessing the profession.
And that brings us back to the area of uncertainty,
volatility, and the need to be open to change.
So how will law firms,
coming back to law firms, will law firms exist?
Of course they will.
Will law firms- the best law firms we have now,
the ones that are more able to change and to innovate
will still exist and will be successful.
Now what does innovation mean?
Innovation means that even those law firms that have the best talent,
the best lawyers, will need to outsource or externalize what is not their core business.
They will need to be able to do that.
And they will also,
as a matter of fact, many of the big law firms,
major service law firms are doing this,
are externalizing a big part of the work they do to try to lower the costs.
We'll see also, within law firms,
other professionals working side by side with lawyers.
So the traditional partnership,
in a way, has to change.
Which professionals will jump inside that?
Well, you will have,
I mean and I think it's very specific to this course,
we will need to have important teams of engineers,
or software developers, and data analysts.
Okay, engineers, data analysis, what else?
We will need, obviously, we'll need to have important marketing departments.
Marketing department?
Absolutely. Okay. And a strong financial department.
Financial department? Absolutely. Probably consultants as well.
Okay. And, perhaps, more paralegals.
This debate has been going on for a while in many jurisdictions.
It's not a figure that is taking hold if you want but I think
they will be able to provide a lot of very high quality work at a much lower cost.
They will complement that.
And so we will see, I mean,
I think how to see the law firm of the future.
Very much, very much like any firm,
complex firm, that operates at a multinational level with the same type of departments.
And the last professional that we could have, robot?
Wooh.
[CROSSTALK] Absolutely. I think we will.
I think we- just to bring it a bit closer to this time, to this year.
We will have a lot of bots.
Yeah, that's it. We have been talking in the videos with,with robots that
will be a different technology in the legal sector.
[CROSSTALK] Javier, thank you very much.
No problem.
Let's talk about, a little bit later,
about how that learning of the legal business will change. Let's hear it.
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