Legal technology is a trap: Diversity is more important to legal innovation
Introduction
At some point in the last 5 years, the legal industry became technology-obsessed.
I get it.
‘The robots are coming for your jobs’ is a really compelling narrative and the prospect of AI proof-reading your contracts is enticing.
But honestly, the most important innovations in our industry won’t come from legal technology startups. In fact, technology can make only a limited impact when confined by old ways of thinking and working.
Real change will come from lawyers, law firms and legal companies who reimagine the way we deliver legal services. I believe that the most effective way to achieve that aim is to increase diversity in the legal profession.
Improving cultural and gender diversity within the legal workforce is the most under-utilised and potentially transformative legal innovation. Diversity is true innovation, and it doesn’t require technology.
‘You don’t look like a lawyer’
This is a tweet from Alexandra Wilson, a 25 year old black barrister from Essex.
Wilson was exhausted because she was stopped and mistaken for a defendant three times in one day at court.
The legal profession is dominated by the idea that success, ability and competence look a certain way: white and male, dressed in a suit, working in a CBD office. We do not assume that a young, black, female barrister might be a leader in law, likely because there’s insufficient evidence of that possibility at the top of the pyramid.
Women make up only 27% of partners in Australian law firms, despite the fact that over 50% of law graduates in NSW have been female for the last decade.
The industry lags even further behind on cultural diversity markers. A recent survey by 11 of Australia’s biggest law firms polled 5,000 staff across Australia and found that while 20% lawyers and 25% of law graduates were of an Asian background, just 8 per cent of partners were Asian.
It goes without saying, but I’m so frustrated that I’m going to say it anyway — the lack of diversity in law firms is shocking, unacceptable and detrimental to the industry.
It is a handbrake to growth and progression.
Diversity breeds innovation
The upshot of the legal profession’s homogeneity is that our ideas about improving legal practice have been produced by a small, unrepresentative subset of the overall population. Our dialogue lacks breadth, depth, or experiential value because it neglects the voices of so many. As result, opportunities to be better are left on the table.
Research strongly suggests that diversity unlocks innovation and drives market growth. One survey of 1,800 professionals examined two types of diversity: inherent (traits you are born with, such as gender, ethnicity, and sexual orientation) and acquired (traits you gain from experience, for example working in another country).
The survey found that firms with both inherent and acquired diversity are 45% likelier to report that their firm’s market share grew over the previous year and 70% likelier to report that the firm captured a new market.
That’s an enormous improvement. Diversity could help firms grow, capture new markets and deliver better results for those clients. Is there any technology, or combination of technologies, available today that could deliver that kind of benefit?
Conclusion
Nothing will change if everything stays the same.
I didn’t write this to demonise legal technology. Believe me, it’ll be useful.
But lawyers and our clients would be better off if we diverted some of our energy away from software and into the bigger issue of improving who we are as a profession.
We will not deliver faster, better, cheaper, more impactful legal services unless we include women and culturally/ethnically diverse people in the conversation.
Diversity the key the future of the industry and to unlocking true innovation.
