Time to upskill – are you prepared for the digital era?

As the digital era has an impact on the legal profession, it is time to consider what skills lawyers will need to differentiate themselves and adapt to the changing times, writes Mark Andrews.

The digital era, coupled with changing client expectations, puts particular pressure on lawyers in terms of their skills development. It is easy to suggest technology skills will be the key in these changing times but, while important, they represent only a small component of what is necessary. The five key skillsets will be:

1. Commercial – being able to identify business issues and take a commercially pragmatic view to the provision of advice.

2. Technical – having black-letter law skills.

3. Technology – being able to adapt to and make use of technologies to assist in the delivery of services.

4. Relationships – having the capacity to build strong client and colleague relationships.

5. Innovation mindset – having an inquisitive mindset, developing greater risk tolerance and accepting the fact that not every innovative idea will result in a successful outcome.

1. Commercial

There is nothing new about this skill in the legal sector because client expectations during the past 10-plus years have evolved and many clients now expect lawyers to be able to advise rather than just analyse and report. Such skills are not always simple to develop as the nature of traditional legal education is very much technical rather than commercial.

To be commercial, a lawyer must be prepared to provide opinion backed up with analysis and to actually take a position on issues. Developing skills in this area may come through in-house legal roles where there is more direct exposure to business operations.

For those in private practice, the key is to ensure you are working with general counsel (and other in-house peers) and those outside the legal teams, including chief operating officers, finance directors, HR, marketing and operations teams. Undertaking further study through short courses and other professional development activities is also crucial. Areas that should be covered include finance, marketing, HR and strategy. Appreciating aspects of all of these disciplines helps lawyers adopt a more commercial approach.

Reading widely and identifying particular industries of interest also builds commercial nous. Rather than seeing yourself as a technical expert, try to position yourself as an industry expert with particular technical skills; someone who is able to discuss trends in an industry from a commercial perspective.

Another aspect of commercial skill is around estimation and legal project management. The ability to scope work, provide fee estimates and manage work according to schedules and budgets is a critical commercial skill. Gaining project management accreditation, or at least a fundamental level of training, is important.

2. Technical

We should never downplay the importance of technical skills as they are fundamental to the profession. Given the range of options available in this area, it does not need too much discussion in this article other than to flag an area I have previously discussed in this forum. Technical skill development is not going to happen in the same way that it did in the past. Some areas of legal work that served as good technical learning opportunities may well be performed by technologies such as artificial intelligence.

In developing technical skills, always consider whether the skills you are developing could be replaced by a ‘thing’ rather than a person. If the answer is ‘yes’, then it is important to challenge yourself to develop further technical skills and an ability to link disparate bodies of technical knowledge to develop greater insight. Do not underestimate the necessity of black-letter law and, equally, do not overestimate its sufficiency to meet the challenges of the digital era.

3. Technology

To make this area of skill development practical, set yourself a technology challenge in your personal and professional life. The challenge should be simple to define, but not so easy to accomplish. Select one aspect of how you perform work and one aspect of your life outside work and, during the course of the next six months, make a change in both areas through the use of technology.

Ideally, try to select areas that require some adaptation on your behalf. You may want to purchase some new piece of technology that you have been interested in for some time. If your changes seem to be sticking after a few months, consider some further technology-based changes. The objective in terms of skills development is to be working and living a little differently in 12 months. If someone were to see you working now and see you working in 12 months, you want them to be able to see a difference.

4. Relationships

Terms such as ‘trusted advisor’ and ‘counsel of choice’ are used frequently and should act as a guiding force when developing supporting skills. A useful exercise in skills development is to complete a professional relationship map whereby you categorise your various professional relationships according to the strength of the relationship; the profession of the person with whom you have the relationship; the role the relationship plays in your professional network; and any other aspects you feel would be interesting to map. Once the map is developed, you can assess if there is an opportunity to add some more diversity of professions to the map; whether you are neglecting some relationships; and whether you are happy with the depth and breadth of the map.

Developing relationship skills requires a diverse network and a desire to engage with people in the network. Starting close to home is always a good approach – and make sure the professional relationships with the non-lawyers with whom you work in your firm are as effective as those that you have with lawyers. Of course, client relationships are vital and the ability to relate to clients remains a key differentiator in the digital era.

 5. Innovative mindset

This point is last but by no means least. The impact of education on risk disposition is the key to this area of skills development. It is very hard to be trained and practice as a lawyer without developing strong risk-aversion skills given that much time and energy is spent identifying and mitigating risk.

Risk aversion does not sit well with innovation, yet developing an innovative mindset is perhaps the most critical skill of the digital era. To start to reduce your level of risk aversion, try some simple tasks that have a high risk of failure but which are likely to have a low impact if you fail. You can do this in the work environment in conjunction with trusted colleagues where, as an example, perhaps you could agree for a day that all your communications with a colleague will be via pictures rather than words. This might seem strange, but it will force you to rethink the way you communicate and it is also likely to fail. Both these things will help cut your risk aversion.

A further example of how to develop an innovative mindset is to ask team members to generate ideas about how you might do something differently and to commit to adopting at least one of these ideas. Select a specific area, such as how you conduct meetings, so the degree of change is relatively small and you can realistically implement the idea.

Evolution of skills

The skills required to be a successful lawyer in the digital era represent the ongoing evolution of the role of a lawyer. It is no longer enough to be the technical expert with a commercially pragmatic approach. One must also be adept at developing trusted advisor relationships, be able to adapt to new technology and adopt an innovative mindset.

As the digital era unfolds, we will see significant change in the role of technical skill as bodies of knowledge will be codified and advanced technologies will be able to perform aspects of legal work without too much difficultly. It is happening already. Commercial judgment is much harder to model and codify, so lawyers who can combine technical, industry and commercial knowledge will continue to have an advantage. Relationship-building skills remain as important as they were before the digital era and are likely to continue to be important in the future.

Of course, technology skills are far more critical in the digital era and it is no longer a wise option to be in denial about the importance of technology use and adaption in law firms. An innovative mindset is the standout skill given it is both somewhat counter cultural but also provides an advantage in the digital era as it increases the probability that you will recognise opportunities for new services and ways of working.

Test your readiness

Give yourself a skills assessment in each of the five areas discussed. Set some three- and six-month objectives and make sure you take the technology challenge discussed in this article. Good luck.

Mark Andrews is Director – Global IT Service Delivery at Baker McKenzie. He has a varied background, including time in the public and private sectors, along with considerable professional services experience. He has held roles ranging from HR to management consulting and has previously been a guest lecturer as part of University of Technology, Sydney’s Executive MBA program.