Ops Future-Proofing the Legal Field Ken Crutchfield, vice president and general manager of legal markets for Wolters Kluwer Legal & Regulatory U.S., discusses the results of the 2020 Wolters Kluwer Future Ready Lawyer Survey.
CCBJ: Please give us a brief overview of the 2020 Wolters Kluwer Future Ready Lawyer Survey. What was your goal in conducting this survey? Ken Crutchfield: It was an independently conducted survey of 700 legal professionals across the United States and in nine European countries, and it was really done to assess the future readiness and resilience of the legal sector. The survey was conducted in January 2020, so it was pre-COVID, but the goal was to identify how well-prepared legal organizations are to drive and deliver higher performance in the future. It covered five areas: (1) top trends in readiness across the legal profession, (2) driving successful client
relationships, (3) changing legal departments, (4) changing law firms and (5) technology. What were the key findings? The two top-level findings were that technology is very important and that there are gaps – gaps in understanding, gaps in readiness, and gaps in terms of the ways that law firms and corporations look at the problems here. The survey was conducted before the crisis fully took hold, but it already revealed that legal professionals see technology as a key force in change in the profession, and it’s critical to improving relationships, performance and productivity. The increasing importance of legal technology was the top trend for 76 percent of respondents across the U.S. and Europe – and that’s across law firms and corporate legal departments and business services firms. The survey also identified gaps in understanding, expectations, experience, priorities and capabilities, both within CORPORATE COUNSEL BUSINESS JOURNAL
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