A recent UUÂãÁÄÖ±²¥ survey, ‘Escaping the in-house legal labyrinth: using technology to demonstrate value’, explores how in-house counsel are increasingly reliant on legal technology to do their day-to-day work. The survey, with responses from more than 200 in-house counsel, shows how legal departments are struggling to manage constantly growing workloads and missing out on opportunities to showcase value, and how legal tech has provided and continues to provide a solution to such problems.
It shows, for example, that legal tech has become a crucial tool for staff recruitment and staff retention.
In the rest of this article, I will explore the benefits of legal tech and demonstrate how it improves recruitment, maintains staff retention, boosts in-house productivity, and ultimately amplifies overall return on investment.
In-house counsel are constantly expected to do more with less. That is why legal tech has become so vital and continues to grow in importance. Indeed, more than four-fifths of respondents (82%) to our survey said that tech skills will become more important for in-house counsel, a number that rose to 88% for larger teams.
Alongside the need for greater tech skills in legal teams, general counsel hoping to recruit top legal talent need need to consider that in-house lawyers increasingly consider access to modern legal tech as a necessity for their job. So much so, in fact, that 50% of respondents to the UUÂãÁÄÖ±²¥ survey suggested that they would not join a company that did not already have legal tech in place.
That is quite a stark statistic – and one that all companies need to take seriously. In-house lawyers now expect certain legal tech to be in place, and the failure to offer that tech may result in recruitment issues. Natalie Salunke, general counsel of , says legal counsel may reject companies that neglect tech:
Prospective employees scrutinise the companies they are considering joining. They research structures and managers, ask questions during interviews, and even reach out to existing employees in their networks. And the companies failing to offer effective legal tech may find themselves struggling to compete, as talented in-house lawyers seek companies offering the right legal technology that will help them make their new job a success.
As much as legal tech is necessary for companies aiming to attract the best legal talent, it is also vital for staff retention. That’s because, in short, legal tech improves working life. It helps to reduce workloads, streamlines processes, and ultimately reduces how much time is spent on low-level tasks and redirects that time to strategic, high-value work.
Simply put, lawyers performing tedious tasks are less likely to stick around, less likely to feel valued and therefore loyal towards a company, and less likely to buy into overall strategic goals. Lawyers performing high-value and meaningful tasks, lawyers serving important business needs, are more likely to stay, more likely to commit to a company, and more likely to feel affinity with their organisation’s strategic goals.
Companies should do what they can to automate low-value and repetitive tasks, not simply to meet business needs but also to retain top in-house talent. Andy Cooke, general counsel at , puts it succinctly:
Productivity is the current top priority for legal teams, as shown in the UUÂãÁÄÖ±²¥ survey. But the definition of productivity for in-house lawyers has evolved. In-house lawyers are looking to offer more than simple legal expertise to their business. Rather, they are expected to be adding greater value by demonstrating commercial and technological acumen alongside legal expertise, and contributing to successful commercial outcomes.
The second biggest benefit, cited by over half of respondents, was automation of simple and repetitive tasks. The two benefits are interrelated, even contingent on eachother. Automation of day-to-day tasks is helping legal teams to boost their productivity, freeing up time for in-house counsel to focus on tasks that require their expertise, tasks dependent on adding commercial value.
The many benefits of in-house legal tech are clear. Legal tech supports effective recruitment, maintains staff retention, boosts productivity, and ultimately leads to a greater return on investment. But, despite the above, we are still seeing a reluctance to embrace tech from some companies – and that reluctance will lead to a competitive disadvantage in the future.
Productive in-house lawyers depend on legal tech. And companies need to embrace that tech, taking advantage of the many benefits it brings. Emma Dickin, Head of In-House Practical Guidance at UUÂãÁÄÖ±²¥, sums up the situation: ‘It is time legal departments forge a new path by taking their investment in legal technology to the next level and showcasing their real worth.’
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