How important are tech skills in the legal industry?
By Murphy Bong
There is a plethora of literature arguing that technological skills are increasingly important for law graduates. TechUp Law columnist and Monash Law student Murphy Bong decided to interview a lawyer from a top-tier commercial law firm for a different perspective on the issue.
As law students, we are often under constant pressure. If the pressure of assignments, exams and tests wasn’t enough, we are also told of the need to ‘stand out from the crowd’ when applying for graduate jobs.
Beyond the short-term outlook of law school, law students often hear of the ‘automation threat’ reducing the importance of lawyers in the long run. This is a view supported by the Foundation of Young Australians, which found in their report, ‘New Work Order’, that 90 per cent of roles will require digital literacy, skills and capabilities.
According to The New York Times, research conducted by academics from the University of North Carolina School of Law and Massachusetts Institute of Technology confirms these concerns - their paper determined that the implementation of new legal technology could result in a drastic 13 per cent decline in lawyers' hours. This supports the emphasis placed by Monash Law School lecturers and library staff on the effective use of legal technology, for example, proficiency in using legal databases such as Westlaw.
Nick Li agrees that "making effective use of research skills and legal databases is one of the key to success for law students".
As a Monash graduate lawyer at Allens who works in the Technology, Media and Telecommunications practice group, he talks of the advent of cloud technology and the need to understand its digital implications. He advises that "not having specialised skills like coding won’t be a deal breaker … but it will definitely make you stand out."
Nick qualifies this by saying "reasonable minds will differ", but, to him, technology is the icing on the cake rather than the standalone cake itself.
"For example, Allens is very good at adapting to new technology. We have new price management tools, databases that make discovery more manageable, and we have legal databases on the cloud to ensure confident sharing of information."
For Nick, a lack in technology expertise won’t be a detriment so long as the firm that one works at, is able to keep up with changes in the legal tech space.
"It changes your clientele, however," he concedes, suggesting that studying elective units (such as ‘Biotechnology in the Law’) will make a budding lawyer more comfortable with a diverse set of work. With more billable hours, he notes, come better opportunities for career advancement.
At another leading law firm, Gilbert + Tobin, the value attached to technology appears to take a whole different meaning. According to Computerworld, the firm has recognised the importance of coding, arguing that teaching legal practitioners to code and utilise technology in the application of their work is so important, it is essentially akin to a new form of literacy essential to lawyers.
The firm puts the majority of their lawyers through coding and technology programs. This includes a two-hour workshop in HTML and JavaScript, and while this does not make a full stack developer it "does create a window into how to design a product."
This does pose the interesting question as to what extent law students need to proactively seek out these opportunities. Will they slowly become part-and-package of the training process at law firms? Should law schools introduce digital capabilities into their curriculum?
Analysis
Noting the importance of technology, law schools in Australia have started to shape their curriculum with the future in mind.
As a result, technology courses have been specifically created to allow law students to learn about the automation of legal tasks and advice, how to design and build legal information systems, and use technology to generate legal documents.
For example, UNSW has recently teamed up with Gilbert + Tobin and Neota Logic, a software company, to introduce the course, ‘Designing Technology Solutions for Access to Justice’, which aims to provide law students with practical experience in using state-of-the-art legal technology.
To the average law student hoping to get ahead in this tech environment, these are some simple steps you can make:
- Remain proactive and open-minded about changes in technology — Legal disruption is evident and may slowly take over traditional law firm practices. For example, new firms such as LawAnswers, LawSquare, LawTap and DragonLaw are improving access to justice by digitising the orthodox ‘client-advice’ process into an online forum;
- Make sure your basic computer skills are up to scratch — this means knowing the ins and outs of Microsoft Office, Google Drive and legal databases. When there is an urgent task at hand, having basic word-processing skills is important;
- Understand that academics, communication and technology skills are not discrete categories — they all work together to provide a well-rounded individual. Although this does not mean everyone needs to learn coding over the summer break, having that skill will be impressive.
Conclusion
We understand the importance of not over-stating the importance of technology as a ‘be-all and end-all’. But the legal landscape is changing in response to the rise of 21st century technology. Having some basic technological awareness will go a long way.
This article originally appeared in TechUp Law, a student publication written by Monash Law Student Ambassadors that specifically caters to law students’ understanding of digital technologies in the legal sector.
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