A&O AG Create New Career Paths to Meet Legal Tech Needs Artificial Lawyer

Two major UK-based law firms, Allen & Overy (A&O) and Addleshaw Goddard (AG), have both announced new career paths to help them to adapt to legal tech's impact. Both initiatives are a clear indication of the growing importance of legal technology, in terms of showing the need for law firms to have the right skillsets internally and that legal tech capabilities have moved far beyond'operational' needs of just'keeping the lights on' and have now moved front and centre in terms of strategic growth planning for law firms. Machine learning/NLP tools are clearly part of this movement given that they can help in the direct production of legal work, such as via review, but legal tech's impact also includes a whole new wave of technology that connects to risk and compliance analysis, litigation prediction, contracting automation tools, smart contract and blockchain technology, and a range of incremental changes to more well-developed tech such as DMSs and collaboration platforms. In short, there is now so much new legal technology having an impact on how lawyers operate on a day to day basis and most importantly how they actually produce work that the more forward thinking firms are adapting their recruitment and career paths to meet these needs. This is all the more important when one considers that the clients are becoming increasingly savvy to the benefits of this'new means of production', leaving law firms that want to retain market position little option other than to adapt, while this market change is also offering early adopters the chance to compete more effectively against rivals in the legal market.