There’s work…and then there’s “decent” work
What has lawtech got to do with the UN’s eighth global sustainable development goal - and the concept of ‘decent work’? We asked Weightman’s product and innovation director Catriona Wolfenden to give us her insight.
Dr Catriona Wolfenden, Production & Innovation Director, Weightmans LLP
catriona.wolfenden@weightmans.com
Fifteen years ago, it wouldn’t have entered a lawyer’s thought process that clients would want their lawyer to be happy and with a work life balance that didn’t just mean work.
Fast forward to 2022, and after living through the covid pandemic where everyone became much more cognisant and accepting of people’s family situation, with the advent of the ‘O shaped’ lawyer and the insatiable rise of ESG, the situation is now changing. This is set against a dual background of:
- The evolving expectations of millennial lawyers as they enter practice; Bleasdale and Francis have conducted the first empirical study of the experience of young lawyers who have entered an increasingly uncertain profession following a highly competitive education and recruitment process and it is an interesting read for those wondering what the future of the legal profession may look like. [1]
- A seemingly ever-growing rise in the volume and types of lawtech available. The Law Society defines lawtech as a term used to ‘describe technologies that aim to support, supplement or replace traditional methods for delivering legal services, or that improve the way the justice system operates’ and includes things like chatbots, document automation and the use of algorithms.
It will be interesting to watch if this combination of factors results in an increased use of lawtech; it certainly has the potential to and in this short piece I shall suggest why.
Goal 8 of the UN’s global sustainable development goals requires the promotion of ‘sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment and decent work for all’. This is increasingly evidenced through supply chain management and procurement processes.
In the legal profession, the ethos of goal 8 is set against a backdrop of discussions about the skills those entering the professions will need and how lawtech impacts on the day-to-day work of a lawyer. Little has been written on the interaction of lawtech and goal 8 — can lawtech help ensure that lawyers have ‘decent work’?
It is clear legal tech can help with target 8.2 of the UN’s goals, hoping to realise enhanced economic productivity through technological upgrades and innovation. This still leaves the concept of ‘decent work’, which is often framed around productive activities, enhanced productivity, and decent job creation. It would appear so far, so good if viewed from the lawtech side of the fence.
A whole industry has been spawned and new companies and roles created precisely to try and help lawyers be more productive by leveraging process change and new technologies (or at least, technologies not traditionally used in law). From the lawtech side, the concept of ‘decent work’ seems to be satisfied.
“Fifteen years ago, it wouldn’t have entered a lawyer’s thought process that clients would want their lawyer to be happy and with a work life balance that didn’t just mean work…the situation is now changing.”
Let’s consider the advent of lawtech from the perspective of the users. That is, lawyers who for example would have traditionally reviewed contracts or leases as part of a due diligence exercise on paper (or at best on a computer screen) that can now use technology to assist with the document review. We use this kind of technology alongside our lawyers, and the ability of the technology to provide the lawyers with the key information for them to then analyse is impressive.
Do the lawyers feel that they have been able to do more productive activities or have enhanced productivity? Is the lawtech helping them with ‘decent work’? I am going to give a lawyer’s answer of ‘it depends’! It largely depends where any given lawyer sits on the technological fence that ranges from the extremes of ‘I loved my Dictaphone, I magically got my work back and never touched a computer’ to ‘heck yes, bring on automation, NLP and I talk random forests over breakfast’.
As with most things, the truth is likely to be somewhere in the middle — many lawyers will see the potential benefits that lawtech can bring but may not have the time to stop the day job for long enough to explore them and truly embrace them and therefore may not realise the ‘decent work’ aspects that using lawtech can bring.
This is where innovation teams can help, doing a lot of the trial and error and filtering of technology and ideas in the background to present to lawyers a less raw solution, tailored to a use case or explained in language that resonates with them. Innovation teams can help demonstrate to lawyers the ‘decent work’ benefits that lawtech can bring.
With the increased proliferation of lawtech, the possibility for lawtech to assist lawyers with repeatable or more mundane tasks such as information extraction or document review is high and is likely to have an impact on perceptions around ‘decent work’. Much will depend upon how the lawtech is positioned to the lawyers. Used as an augmentation tool, lawtech is likely to free up the time of a lawyer on what may be perceived as humdrum tasks and help with the productivity of those tasks.
If this freed up time is then spent on tasks which require legal input or with client contact, this is likely to be perceived by lawyers as ‘decent work’, enabling them to do the things they were trained for and love.
It will be interesting to see over the next decade if lawtech lives up to the considerable potential it has to ensure lawyers have ‘decent work’, a work life balance and to help meet ESG objectives.
[1] Bleasdale and Francis, ‘Great expectations: millennial lawyers and the structures of contemporary legal practice’ Legal Studies (2020), 40, 376-396.