Australian Corporate Lawyer - Autumn 2017

theAustraliancorporatelawyer
WILL LAW FIRMS BECOME
SOFTWARE COMPANIES?
– the potential implications for in-house lawyers
Peter Connor
After a diverse and global in-house legal and
business career, Peter launched AlernativeyLegal.
As Founder and CEO he provides training and
consulting to help in-house lawyers throughout
the world innovate and change the way they
work. His Everything But The Law program
focuses on how to use technology and
‘non-traditional’ skills and provides a vision and
comprehensive end-to-end framework for legal
department change.
Peter will host a workshop for ACC Australia
members entitled Change4Legal in
Sydney on Thursday, 23 March, 2017. For
more information, visit the events page at
www.acla.acc.com.
In 2011, Marc Andreessen, the co-founder
of Netscape, wrote the widely acclaimed
essay ‘Why Software is Eating the World’ 1 .
The key message from that essay, and the
commentary it inspired, is that software
has evolved from having no part of most
businesses, to becoming a way to run your
business… and now, increasingly, will be
your business.
But surely the imperative to become a software
business can’t apply to the legal profession,
can it? This article briefly explores the titular
question, and considers how this business
trend might apply to the corporate legal world
and its implications for in-house lawyers.
BigLaw 2 and Software
Let’s start by looking at what so-called
BigLaw is doing with software and explore
whether BigLaw (‘firms’) are becoming
software businesses.
On the whole, firms are increasingly using
a range of software products to run their
business. The diagram below – provided by
Sam Nickless, the COO of Gilbert+Tobin –
provides an interesting perspective on the
gradual penetration of technology in firms.
However, does the internal use of software
and other technologies signify that firms are
becoming software businesses? What does
being a software business actually mean? It
involves many things, but the very essence
of being a software business is providing
software for customers to use. So, the critical
question becomes: are firms providing software
to clients in addition to legal services?
Online legal services – like Baker McKenzie’s
Law in Context, Allen & Overy’s aosphere and
Pinsent Masons’ Out-Law – have been on offer
for many years. Also, in recent times, a number
of firms have established R&D/innovation
units and some are increasingly collaborating
with Legaltech 3 and NewLaw 4 businesses.
These are excellent examples of firms starting
to think and act more like software companies
but typically fall short of the above definition
of being a software business.
But how can firms be expected to develop
software for clients when it is a difficult task
even for technology companies whose core
business is software? My experience, as
VP Technology Products for a compliance
firm, is that it is achievable if you have the
right resources. Leading a team of software
engineers, data scientists and product
Tech Penetration in Law Firms
LEGAL SUPPORT
Finance, EASY Other
WP, CRM
People
LEGAL PROCESS
LEGAL
REASONING
e-Discovery, INTERESTING Junior
LPM,
People
automation,
workflow
Big data, SCARY Me!
expert systems,
Al
Source: Gilbert & Tobin
22 VOLUME 27, ISSUE 1 – AUTUMN 2017