How should we reshape legal professionals to meet a new demand for legal services?
For years the notoriously static legal industry has shielded itself against the prospect of undergoing significant technological and cultural transformation. Yet for some time, there has been a call for the legal industry to innovate and to change not just what legal services are provided but also how they are provided. ‘And for me, I think that is the biggest shift – the focus on how we do things as legal professionals versus what we do’. Twenty years ago, being a great lawyer meant being an expert and a great problem solver, whereas some of the other skills that other professional service providers need to have, lawyers maybe did not need to have as much – think of communication, empathy, and self-awareness. That is fundamentally changing.
But what does innovation mean in the context of the legal services ecosystem? To what extent are (aspiring) legal professionals sufficiently equipped to meet the new demand for legal services and encourage further innovation? What knowledge and skills will become more relevant? How can we tackle existing barriers? And where do we move from here?
In this episode of The Law of Tech Podcast, I explored these and many more related questions with Michele DeStefano, professor at the University of Miami School of Law, Affiliated Faculty at Harvard Law School Executive Education and IE Law School, author, speaker, and independent consultant on innovation, technology, culture and cross-practice, cross-border initiatives.
Michele is also the founder of Law Without Walls (LWOW), a part-virtual experiential learning community that leverages intergenerational, cross-culture, multi-disciplinary collaboration to create innovations in the business of law and, importantly, change the mindsets, skill sets, and behaviours of legal professionals.
To find out more about this amazing initiative and the programs offered, head over to the website http://lawwithoutwalls.org/. You can also reach out to Michele by sending an email to md@law.miami.edu.
Excited to announce that The Law of Tech Podcast had been featured in the top 20 LegalTech podcasts by Feedspot. Check out the amazing LegalTech podcasts listed on Feedspot via https://blog.feedspot.com/
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