What can today’s law students expect in tomorrow’s world of work?
Over 60 junior lawyers, law students and academics from universities across the city came together for a SuperTech WM event, “Navigating the Future of Legal Careers in a Tech-Driven Landscape” with Shoosmiths, Birmingham City University and LawTech company Casey, to provide insights into the future of law and how technologies will transform and support future career paths.
Key takeaways highlight the continued focus on developing strong legal foundations, but also new opportunities to upskill and develop broader skillsets more quickly. It is also clear that there are genuine, high-growth innovation opportunities presenting themselves in this sector.
“LawTech is the new FinTech: legal tech is expected to experience similar explosive growth in the coming years with similar transformative effects such as PayPal and Stripe created in the financial payments world.”
As a sector, the legal field has been slower to adopt technology compared to other industries. However, advancements like word processing revolutionised legal work 40 years ago, and today AI is changing legal processes in a similar way, in a number of areas.
Productivity
Examples include the use of AI in document review, noting a dramatic improvement in efficiency. For example, in public inquiries, where there are often over a million documents to review, Shoosmiths cited an example where AI reduced document assessment time from 14 months to just 4 months. AI tools are also available for reviewing contracts and amends in minutes, helping lawyers provide faster services to clients- in the time it took for them to make a cup of tea!
AI is also being used for legal research, though it still requires human oversight as with other areas.
In litigation, using AI to analyse large volumes of documents will create a powerful single point of reference which will improve pattern identification, spot inconsistencies and offer deeper insights.
Alongside the legal work, lawyers have daily administrative tasks and Shoosmiths provides AI tools to its lawyers, such as Microsoft Copilot, to support them in their daily tasks, to deliver efficiencies and to familiarise them with AI.
“We have to be delivering to our clients the fastest, best, smartest service we possibly can. AI is and will be a part of that.”
Ethical use of AI
It is not only AI’s role in supporting compliance such as how it can support working with regulations such as GDPR, helping companies manage data subject access requests by analysing large amounts of documentation for relevancy, but it is also the need for compliance around the use of AI that will be a huge growth industry for the legal profession – the legal liabilities associated with using or not using AI within the legal world will grow and need experts to respond and support.
Strong legal foundations matter – Before diving into LawTech, a solid grasp of core legal principles is essential to drive meaningful innovation and key to ensuring 'human intelligence' remains central to the experience provided to clients.
“Human-centric core values are ever more important as lawyers will be leading in areas like the ethical use of AI.”
Changing role of the legal profession
Using AI effectively to refine ideas and improve productivity is key, but critical thinking and applying one's own judgment remain essential. It is a tool for upskilling, not replacing thought processes and creativity.
AI is changing recruitment practices, with businesses likely moving away from traditional CVs and application forms. Applicants should seek out guidance from the business about whether they invite the use of Ai at the application stage, such as Shoosmiths’ guidance.
Shoosmiths is beginning to assess candidates for AI literacy, which will become a regular part of the junior recruitment process. Using it in daily life to gain familiarity will support how AI skills can be demonstrated in job assessments.
Shoosmiths are rolling out training programmes on innovation and growth mindset. It’s not just about teaching people how to use of AI but encouraging individuals to adapt their approach to their role so they can be open to more opportunities to think innovatively.
There are new career pathways within law firms rather than the traditional routes, as they incorporate technology and innovation into their operations. Emerging roles include innovation seats, legal data analysts, legal engineers, and legal operations. These positions show how law firms are placing a high value on technology and innovation.
“Students must be equipped with both knowledge and practical skills, such as familiarity with legal tech tools and platforms, to be employable in the future.”
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AI is a tool created to aid humans, not replace them. AI can help with tasks that were traditionally time-consuming for young lawyers, allowing them to focus on more human aspects of law like empathy, negotiation, and client support. While AI will change the profession, it will create more opportunities, not eliminate jobs. AI can perform heavy lifting, leaving lawyers to do what they do best, such as critical thinking and reasoning. Their future is bright, as AI will make their work more efficient rather than taking it away.
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Drawing a parallel to financial services, where technology has created new roles over time, the legal industry is moving toward new roles, particularly as technology becomes more integrated. Legal tech has already created roles like legal engineers (lawyers who can code and program). These new roles, such as developing legal workflows and fine-tuning large language models, offer massive opportunities. The key point is that those who embrace these changes and develop the necessary skills will seize the new opportunities in legal tech. The legal profession is evolving, and those who adapt will benefit from these emerging roles.
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Client trust in AI's reliability and transparency is increasingly important. Clients are often sceptical of AI, especially when it comes to legal matters, because of issues like "hallucination" (AI generating inaccurate or fabricated responses). To build trust, AI tools need to be transparent about their data sources, and lawyers should be able to customise tools to better align with their practice.
What next?
LawTech is a growing sector in the region, as this event clearly demonstrated. As the regional representative for the National LawTech Cluster Network, SuperTech is working with firms, legal services tech developers and academia to power innovation capacity and adoption for the West Midlands. Through its WM LawTech Forum, firms are actively engaged with national updates, and a platform to discuss innovation led topics, challenges and technology opportunities.
To apply to join the WM LawTech Forum visit: SuperTech Lawtech-Forum — SuperTech