This is not an overall lawyer or legal professional competency model as one might find in the Delta Competency Model or as defined by the T-Shaped Lawyer. These are legal professional skills and knowledge as framed through legal innovation and technology. So, for example, we are not concerned with how to draft a contract or even what constitutes a good contract, but instead on tools and information that can be used to ensure a contract drafting process is done efficiently and the contracts drafted are error free and in alignment with organization’s standards.
But what do we mean when we talk about legal technology and innovation? And who needs to use these types of tools or incorporate these concepts into their work?
What is Legal Innovation?
To borrow and adapt a joke about Big Data frequently seen on social media: Legal Innovation is like teenage sex: everyone talks about it, nobody really knows how to do it, everyone thinks everyone else is doing it, so everyone claims they are doing it.
And it’s also like Justice Potter Stewart’s famous concurrence in Jacobellis v. Ohio about obscenity: “I know it when I see it.”
Legal Innovation is a constantly changing landscape and yesterday’s innovation is today’s standard practice. Thus, a strict definition of Legal Innovation with hard perimeters about what it contains will not be forthcoming. The best definition that I can come up with is:
Legal Innovation is the act of working to improve the performance of and outcomes in legal and justice work, either by using technology, improving processes, or removing other types of barriers.
- Process Improvement? Legal Innovation
- Change Management? Legal Innovation
- Creating more equitable and welcoming environments? Legal Innovation
- Regulatory Reform? Legal Innovation
- Legal Technology? …. some of it is Legal Innovation
The fun and frustrating thing about Legal Innovation is that it is more of a lifestyle choice than a set of concepts or tools that one can check off a list and then declare oneself to be “innovative.”
The move towards innovation is a bumpy and non-straightforward path. Incremental changes are great! Failures are great! (As long as you learn from them.) The important thing is to not be stagnant and to keep working towards making things better.
What is Legal Technology?
You would think this question – What is Legal Technology? – is relatively straightforward and easy to answer. It probably could be, but there’s lawyers involved so…. no.
The definition used for the purposes of this resource is this:
Legal Technology is technology used by legal professionals to enhance their work as well as technology used by public agencies, legal organizations, or legal professionals to deliver services or information to members of the general public.
- CLM tools? Legal tech
- Microsoft Office? Legal tech
- Legal Zoom? Legal tech
- Law library pathfinders? Legal tech
- Court website with instructions for self-represented litigants and a link to an A2J Author form? Legal tech
Who is this for?
You may have noticed that the word “legal professionals” is used instead of “attorney” or “lawyer” and that we’re not limiting ourselves to issues only solved by the inclusion of them in a process.
Yep, that’s what we’re doing.
It is the author’s belief that all legal professionals need to have a general baseline understanding of technology. Depending on the type of work they do, they will need to go deeper on certain verticals.