Innovators and Disrupters: The Women Leading Lawtech

Technology

Innovators and Disrupters: The Women Leading Lawtech

Whether it is creating or using lawtech, women are leading the way in legal innovation, creating new career paths, and disrupting how legal services are delivered

The Lawtech Landscape

The UK tech landscape is changing the way lawyers perform legal services and how they deliver those services to clients. Approximately 48% of global lawtech investment is in the UK, with over £61million invested in 2019 1 . The ecosystem is incredibly cutting-edge, bringing together data scientists, innovators, lawyers, and technologies to solve client challenges.

Whether it is through incorporating lawtech, or technology more broadly, legal services delivery is becoming increasingly efficient, transparent and accessible. By placing an increased focus on the client and their needs, technology is a useful tool for lawyers to find new ways of delivering value. It has also contributed to a real resilience during the pandemic, enabling businesses continuity and new industry norms.

There are vast ways in which technology can assist legal services 2 . For example, lawtech can include:

■ Basic operations (i.e email, Office 365, video conference tools)

■ Document automation (i.e. template or contract creation)

■ Practice management tools (i.e. billing, case management)

■ Transaction management and collaboration (i.e. checklists, document upload, sign off)

■ Predictive tools (i.e. document analysis)

■ Smart contracts

■ Knowledge management and research systems

While some of these areas are more emergent than others, digital transformation has really accelerated over the last year. There is also an increased focus on interoperability between products as the market diversifies, which makes their use easier. For tech solutions looking to scale-up, focusing on userfriendly access in a world where clients have several logins or dashboards to look at will be essential for success.

Despite the list of solutions above, this is only the beginning. There is certainly still a lot to be discovered. This includes how lawyers capture and analyse data, incorporate the full functionalities of cloud or AI into their IT systems, or utilise the full range of features already present in common tools such as Microsoft Office. For now, however, the priority needs to be around improving digital skills across the profession and approaching technology with an open mind. These are essential pieces of change management that will enable the culture shift needed to digitalise a better client experience.

The Many Roles of Women in Lawtech

There are many women leading the way in lawtech and legal innovation, but there is still much more room for growth. For example, only 15% of lawtechs report being female founded 3 , and 19% of UK tech workers are women 4 . Despite these figures, there are some positive examples of women building communities to help others emerge in this space and using their voices to lead change in the ecosystem.

Meet the Women

Shruti Ajitsaria Partner and Head of Fuse, Allen & Overy “Being made a partner in a legaltech role whilst working part time, I have had first-hand experience of challenging the status quo and balancing a demanding career with my young children. Without representation in leadership positions, these diverse experiences can easily be ignored or misconstrued. More than ever, it is important that we have good role models who are honest about the struggles and joys of their career, to enable those entering the legal profession to see a role they seek to emulate.”

In the public sector, the City Corporation’s Head of Financial and Professional Services Technology, the Director of LawtechUK, and the Ministry of Justice’s Head of Legal Services Innovation are all roles currently held by women. Women are also in leadership positions at the Solicitors Regulation Authority, the Law Society of England and Wales and the Law Commission, each of these bodies working to shape policy and with it, legal service delivery.

Mary Kyle Head of FPS Technology, City of London Corporation “I look forward to a time when we don’t talk about lawtech and legal services as two separate concepts, but instead simply have a legal industry that is tech enabled and innovative in how it operates and delivers its service to clients.”

Jenifer Swallow Director, LawtechUK “We do not have to be bound by how things have been. Lawtech offers an opportunity to look through a fresh lens – to break out of the mould. The sense of this is palpable in those who are pioneering in this space, including the many incredible women. The reverberations can reach way beyond law. We can break the mould in how and why we work, how we collaborate and support each other, and how we choose to lead and be as women, at all levels.”

If you look at the private sector, women are leading experts in the application and legal analysis of blockchain and other new-age technologies, innovation and knowledge managers, CEOs of alternative legal services providers, and heads of accelerator programmes. There are also many respected female leaders in legal design, strategy and policy, and other cross-functional roles.

Priya Lele Legal Operations Lead, Client Solutions, UK/US & EMEA, Herbert Smith Freehills and Co-Founder, She Breaks the Law She Breaks the Law is a global community of women leaders and change makers (aka #lawbreakers) who are passionate about the power of innovation and collaboration to drive positive change in the legal ecosystem. “Dismantling the barriers women face starts with us coming together to share our experiences, support and empower each other and make our voices louder.”

The roles of inspirational women in tech does not stop with jobs at traditional legal firms either. Women are founding legal engineering and design firms, lawtechs, and leading digital transformation departments that assist with the profession’s overall development.

Isabel Parker Executive Director, Digital Legal Exchange and Founder, Doyenne Consulting “I qualified as a solicitor 24 years ago, when female leaders in the profession were a rarity. Although some progress has been made, legal services remains a very male dominated profession, particularly at the top. One reason for this may be that the traditional law firm pyramid does not readily accommodate women with childcare or caring responsibilities. According to the SRA’s recent report on diversity in law firms, in firms with 50- plus partners, 50% of the lawyers are women but only 29% are partners (no change since 2017). The good news is that a clientdriven focus on innovation has created new leadership roles and new opportunities for women. Women who think differently, who challenge the status quo, who focus on human centred design to deliver an elevated client experience and who relish the opportunity to lead diverse, multi-disciplinary teams are thriving in these newly created roles. It is a very exciting time to be a woman focussed on digital transformation in legal, particularly as the growing community of senior women provides a strong support network.”

Career Progression

New roles in legal technology are being created every year, as well as alternative business structures that are more flexible and inclusive. As women take on more leadership roles, they build a community that can support other women in not only entering lawtech but thriving. For example, the European Women of Legal Tech 5 awards were created to increase visibility of women’s work in legal technology and to support further innovation. Other groups such as Women in Tech 6 or London Tech Advocates 7 exist to challenge gender bias and provide a forum for discussion.

This is an enticing space with room for creativity and women’s voices are vital to the conversation, paving the way for accommodating work practices that don’t hinder career progression.

In fact, now more than ever, careers that facilitate different lifestyles or responsibilities are essential for women. A survey recently reported that 70% of women were doing all or most home-schooling during Covid-related school closures. 8 1 in 5 mothers reported reducing their working hours to cope with increased duties, and more than a third felt impacted in their careers in a way that didn’t occur for their partner. 9 In addition to that, women have been taking on more household responsibilities and life admin, almost amounting to additional full-time roles.

While these realities are exacerbated by the pandemic, they are not new.

The Skills of the Future

As legal services delivery changes so do the skills modern lawyers need. We are seeing an increasing number of women interested in developing digital skills, illustrating their ambition to lead. For example, the City Corporation recently hosted a legal innovation programme, Innovation Ambassadors 10 , which brought together representatives from across the legal sector in a variety of roles to learn about lawtech and challenge the status quo. The programme was a beacon of hope, with a 50 / 50 split of men and women in attendance.

The ability to empathize with the client, use design thinking, and challenge traditional ways of doing things is what really matters in this space. Soft skills that might have been overlooked previously are now essential keys to success in innovation. For example, emotional intelligence skills such as harmonizing relationships or ensuring a client feels heard are important in gaining – and keeping – work.

The Opportunity for Disruption

The story is just beginning. Whether it is the use, development, or incorporation of lawtech, there is a lot of opportunity to disrupt this space. It shows that practice can be combined with lifestyle without sacrificing efficiency, high-quality service delivery, or our own wellbeing.

Collaboration, mentorship and a general coalescence around common goals will remain important if we want to increase gender parity. Sharing stories of successful women and ways that lawtech can challenge the status quo will play a key role in advancing the ecosystem. Over time, we will become more familiar with women in STEM as successful data scientists, coders, or entrepreneurs, guiding the way for more female founders. And the solutions developed along the way will become entrenched ways of working.

I am left with a sense of optimism about the way this will positively impact the legal sector. In the future I hope we can expect a more inclusive and diverse legal ecosystem, that has been made better by the women working within it. ■

Theresa Yurkewich Hoffmann

Theresa Yurkewich Hoffmann

Senior Policy and Innovation Advisor The City of London

Theresa works in digital innovation, with a focus on the technology, legal and professional services ecosystems. She has a background in law and communications and has advised clients on innovation projects around the world.

1. https://www.theglobalcity.uk/industries/lawtech

2. LegalGeek is working on a new lawtech start-up map. For now, view their older version and lawtech categories here: https://www.legalgeek.co/startup-map/#startupmap.

3. As of May 2020: https://technation.io/lawtechuk/

4. https://technation.io/insights/diversity-and-inclusion-in-uktech-companies/

5. https://womenoflegaltech.eu/

6. https://www.womenintech.co.uk/women-in-tech-in-london

7. https://tlawomenintech.org/

8. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/mar/08/half-ofwomen-in-uk-fear-equality-is-going-back-to-1970s-survey

9. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/mar/08/half-ofwomen-in-uk-fear-equality-is-going-back-to-1970s-survey

10. https://www.theglobalcity.uk/resources/innovationambassadors