City lawyers "need help from their firms" to engage with technology - Legal Futures

Lawyers have been reluctant to engage with artificial intelligence (AI) and other technology partly because law firm partners haven't given junior staff enough time to learn how it can help them, according to a government-backed report. Funded by government agency Innovate UK, the report found widespread agreement among mainly banking and finance specialists from six large commercial firms that technology was increasingly important but that they were in the dark over what worked best. Focusing on the behavioural science questions of what motivates and inhibits lawyers' choices, legal transaction platform Legatics worked closely over two years with partners at Herbert Smith Freehills, DLA Piper and others, along with some 100 lawyers from Pinsent Masons, Osborne Clarke, Reed Smith and Eversheds Sutherland. Key findings were that 95% of all trainees and associates agreed on the importance of implementation and use of new legal tech, an assessment shared by three-quarters of partners. But fewer than four in 10 understood what was available, with a lack of time for learning or training and insufficient incentive to adopt it two main reasons.