Legal Tech: Offering unhappy lawyers a way out

Countering Clockblockers with Claudia King

‘Recovered lawyer’ Claudia King is on a mission: to help liberate unhappy lawyers while making quality legal help available to everyone, everywhere. A legal innovator and entrepreneur, she sold her law firm in 2017 to go ‘all in’ with Automio, the legal tech company of which she is founder and CEO.

“Legal innovation, technology and disruption have had a massive impact on my career and company as it has led to me taking big risks and going down a rather non-traditional path,” said Claudia. Automio’s success and considerable potential persuaded her to commit to legal tech, and she has not looked back.

“In the last couple of years, we’ve started seeing some cool stuff happening with NewLaw and legal tech companies helping to lead the way and change traditional mindsets and attitudes. This change still feels slow though. Unfortunately many in the legal profession are disinterested and afraid of the changes happening. Some fool themselves into believing that change is futile – I call these people the ‘Clockblockers.’ These Clockblockers need to sort themselves out; not being interested in these changes will directly affect their careers and income earning potential, and that is irresponsible to their firms, their families and themselves.”

Claudia is excited by the potential of legal innovation to improve the lives of lawyers and the practice of law.

“It’s an incredibly exciting time to be a lawyer. Never before have lawyers had so many opportunities to be innovative, successful and happy. There’s great tech to use, there’s good information to allow lawyers to gain new knowledge and skills, and there are lawyers full of awesomeness doing inspired, interesting stuff.

“I’m excited that legal innovation offers unhappy lawyers a way out. For example, dissatisfied and miserable partners and lawyers in law firms can break away and create their own modern startup firms that use cool tech, run lean and shine brightly with the founders’ values. There are real opportunities for lawyers, particularly women and mothers, who have experienced sexism, sexual harassment, or inflexibility for family situations and can find the courage to start their own firms and leverage legal tech to support their lifestyle.”

Firms who fail to embrace innovation will soon start to struggle.

“There are also a lot of firms who claim to be innovative for PR purposes, but they’re often inauthentic and not innovative at all. These firms will be in trouble too.”

Within the next decade, Claudia sees the end of legislation and contracts as we know them.

“Legislation and contracts will instead be created using AI legal bots, so instead of reading legislation and trying to apply it to a specific situation, a person who wants to understand how the law applies to them will ask an AI legal bot about their situation and then the bot will apply the law. This does away with the need to draft written legislation – instead the law can be written in logic flows. When a person asks an AI legal bot to apply the law to their specific situation, the AI legal bot can then, if required, go on to record the intentions of contracting parties via a variety of technologies – smart contracts, video, text, audio and illustration. Law firms will have workforces that are part digital – AI legal bots – and part human; lawyers will possess legal technology skills to create new bots and improve existing bots for both the law firm and its clients.”

To stay relevant in this age of change, Claudia encourages new lawyers to upskill in legal tech.

“University isn’t going to prepare new lawyers to get jobs, and the sooner new lawyers realise this, the faster they can act and upskill in their own time. New lawyers need to be resourceful and keep a close eye on trends in the legal sector, particularly with legal tech, AI and blockchain. Connect with thought leaders in the space on LinkedIn and Twitter. New lawyers also need to learn skills outside of the law, like strategic planning, coding, digital marketing and leadership, to help identify opportunities for themselves in a changing market.”

She sees the Centre for Legal Innovation (CLI) playing an important leadership role for the profession.

“The Centre for Legal Innovation can inspire legal professionals by putting CLI’s spotlight on lawyers and law firms who are really getting to grips with what their clients want, and then putting proper strategies in place that leverage technology to better serve their clients.

“There is a lack of leadership in many firms. The work being done by CLI will continue to inspire and challenge legal professionals which I hope will encourage firm leadership to make better, faster decisions on how to better serve their clients, rather than only looking for ways to cut costs internally.”