Originally written in February 2020, for National Accident Helpline‘s Future Legal Minds competition.
“Law is one of the great healing professions. Whilst medicine heals the body and the Clergy heals the soul, the law heals societal rifts”[1]
Law has simultaneous yet inconsistent reputations of both grandeur and humility. It is no coincidence the likes of Mahatma Gandhi and Abraham Lincoln: among history’s greatest pioneers of (very different), societal change once studied law too. Despite fuelling such a legacy, the legal sector appears broadly averse to embracing technological change. Law exists as a “powerful instrument for helping people”[2] – and if inevitable technological advancement was seen less as a threat and more of an opportunity – this ‘instrument’ could be streamlined.
My ambitions channel this notion of lawyers as ‘healers’, contrary to the reemerging Dickensian sentiment that “the one great principle of English law is to make business for itself”[3]. Ideally, I would work for a firm or company which embraces technology as a way of improving productivity, client connectivity, work-life balance thereby freeing itself up to contribute to pro bono or charity work; meeting unmet needs of society. At the crux of my ambitions sits realism. I would like to work in civil law but am undecided as to specific areas of practice; I want to be guided by my experiences and seek to work in a firm which shares my values and rewards hard work with fair opportunity, to enable me to achieve my ambition of becoming a senior partner with a strategic role. Whilst my experience of court hearings so far makes me feel I may enjoy advocacy, I would value developing that skill in the context of a professional niche, be that marine law in Plymouth or Parliamentary law on the bank of the Thames, with a varied workload and versatile skill set – given estimations that 3.5% of Solicitors’ work will be replaced by algorithms in the next twenty years (compared to 94% of paralegal work). Clearly, technology is making significant inroads and the successful lawyers of tomorrow will those who can continually embrace change and use technology as a tool for personal and professional development.
Indeed, perceptions of the legal industry as Luddites are not unwarranted. An aversion to change is unsurprising considering that central to legal practice sits the idea of seeking guidance from precedent. This approach translates into a risk-averse mindset in legal professionals which perhaps explains why the utilisation of technology has struggled to gain traction in the legal industry. Accordingly, Law Technology Today observed, “in 50 years, the customer experience at most law firms has barely changed”.[4]
Whilst this is partially explained by law’s relatively little incentive for streamlining services via cost-cutting, for example, disbursements are paid directly by clients – even into the mid-2000s many firms were resistant to even utilise email, opting for letters instead. Whilst caution is comprehensible as even minor technological errors could have significant financial consequences for a client,[5] this risk adversity nevertheless stifled the ease of communication. Had email been embraced, clients could have had near-instantaneous communication.
Conversely, the Government’s imminent launch of an online portal aiming to enable whiplash sufferers[6] to make ‘quick and easy’ claims without the assistance of a lawyer reminds us of the inverse issue. As claimants are still expected to obtain formal medical evidence as part and navigate complex software – the portal has been described by Gordon Dalyell, the president of the Association of Personal Injury Lawyers, as presenting “real issues in terms of access to justice”.[7] However, considering the government’s overriding objective of reducing the volume of whiplash claims and the amount of damages payable by insurance companies – perhaps the new online portal will simply deter claimants from bringing claims at all. This reminds us technology should be used to enhance existing systems – not outright replace them.
References
[1] Steven Keeva, Transforming Practices: Finding Joy and Satisfaction in the Legal Life (10th edn, American Bar Association) 91.
[2] Moein Khawaja, ‘A powerful instrument for helping people’ <https://www.law.indiana.edu/student-life/
assets/khawaja-moein-15.shtml> accessed 2 February 2020.
[3] Charles Dickens, Bleak House (1853)
[4] Bob Goodman and Josh Harder, ‘Four Areas of Legal Ripe for Disruption by Smart Startups’ (Law Technology Today, December 2014) <https://www.lawtechnologytoday.org/2014/12/smart-startups/> accessed 3 February 2020.
[5] Ibid.
[6] Civil Liability Act 2018
[7] Oliver Ralph, ‘UK reform of whiplash claims system faces delay’ (Financial Times, January 2020) accessed 5 February 2020.