I attended Lawtech UK’s “GenerativeAI Series: Roadmap to 2030” event held at the Law Society earlier this week, with panels expertly chaired by Christina Blacklaws (she/her) and Richard Susskind. I was amazed though to hear that almost all legal tech start-ups aim their businesses at in-house legal departments and SMEs – not law firms. The few that do work with law firms focus effort on limited point solutions, explicitly not anything disruptive of business models. Law firms, I was told, are simply not interested in those kinds of tools.

The time will come (I believe quite soon) when law firms either become interested in these, or lose vast swathes of hybrid tech/human work that could be well profitable if delivered with business models better aligned with their performance drivers than the century-old billable hour, “Tournament of Lawyers” business model.

Our deck “The Sixth Generation Law Firm” shows how. It can be downloaded via the link here. If you find the deck useful, please feel free to pass it on.