The Legal Technologist role is relatively new to TLT, and the legal profession, but it has quickly become key to the delivery of our legal services, enabling us to harness the power of legal technology to deliver better client solutions. Increasingly, these roles are also of interest as an alternative career path for law graduates or for legal professionals looking for a change in career.
I fall into the latter category, having previously been an IP Senior Associate within TLT’s Tech and IP team. I changed careers after an interesting secondment to FutureLaw, our dedicated innovation team, following my return from maternity leave. I originally intended to use it as an opportunity to get some innovation and legal technology experience. However, after becoming involved in lots of different projects and enjoying seeing my solutions transform how legal work is delivered, I decided to move over permanently as a Legal Technologist in Summer 2021.
Due to ever increasing demand for our services from both our external and internal clients, our Legal Technology team has since expanded rapidly and we are now a team of four that sits within the wider FutureLaw team.
So, what is a Legal Technologist at TLT?
Our role bridges the gap between law and technology and we use our legal experience to assess, identify and apply technology to transform the way our legal services are delivered.
Our team gets involved in a variety of projects which can include:
- Designing, building and implementing legal technology solutions: successful solutions are needs-led, rather than tech-led. By actively listening to and understanding the needs of our clients, we create bespoke solutions that help our clients achieve their goals.
- Transformation of client matters: using technology to help our lawyers deliver work differently. From implementing technology to optimise and embed better processes to using automation to streamline the delivery of work; technology allows the firm to deliver better services to our clients and often to deliver services which would not be possible without the tech;
- Legal technology consultancy: helping our clients to make sense of a crowded and confusing legal tech marketplace, selecting the technology or technologies that will have the most impact for their team and helping them deliver more strategic value for their business or organisation;
We make sure the right tools are used to create solutions, with the objective of increasing efficiency and ensuring quality. There is huge variety in the role which is what, for me, makes it so interesting (with the same focus on client service delivery I have always enjoyed).
What do you do on a day-to-day basis?
In my role as a Legal Technologist at TLT, I help to design, build, configure, implement, maintain and advise on technology solutions to be used both internally and for external client facing projects. My tasks from day-to-day can include:
- using AI tools to assist with contract reviews;
- automating documents to speed up production;
- designing and building platforms to assist with the management of projects; or
- evaluating and demoing new legal technology solutions to see if they can assist with any use cases we have identified.
My specialist area of expertise is large scale contract review projects. These types of projects are often complex, costly and need to be delivered within a short time frame. Technology can help both with reviewing and repapering contracts as well as the management and delivery of projects. In turn this optimises efficiency, reduces risk and allows us to take the pressure off our clients’ in-house teams while helping to deliver projects as cost and time effectively as possible.
I am also heavily involved in our ongoing internal transformation programme: identifying pain points, providing recommendations for process improvements and implementing solutions which may (or may not) include technology.
What skills do you need to be a Legal Technologist at TLT?
You don’t need to be a lawyer (although some experience of the law/legal operations is helpful) and conversely you don’t need to be a software engineer. Legal Technologists are usually good problem solvers, organised, adaptable, able to challenge convention and are passionate role models for technology and its application to the legal sector.
For me, communication skills are most important – we need to listen to our clients and understand them to effectively assess what they really need and how we can help. Other skills such as design thinking, business analysis, transformation or change management are also very useful but can be learned. The job often attracts those who are creative, curious and critical thinkers.
Finally, legal technology is already being used to deliver most legal services and it is only going to increase in importance. Those who strive to stay ahead will be rewarded and we are here to support our clients on their legal technology journey, at whatever stage they are.
Kiera Dale
Legal Technologist, FutureLaw
for TLT LLP
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