Inside G+T’s innovation revolution
Caryn Sandler has been a major catalyst of change within Gilbert + Tobin. As Partner and Chief Knowledge and Innovation Officer, Caryn leads a team which identifies and implements innovation within the firm and also works with clients to optimise their own internal legal functions.
“It is clear that clients are increasingly focused on working with external advisers that are committed to providing cost-effective, innovative legal solutions,” said Caryn. “The Legal Service Innovation team which I lead, alongside our internal innovation unit, g+t<i>, was established to continually improve and innovate delivery of our legal services - whether through re-inventing or re-imagining legal process, developing in-house technologies, adopting and customising third-party software to refine and/or automate a legal process, or creating new partnerships for legal services.”
Driving a ‘step-change’ in how G+T works
In addition, the team runs events, design jams, campaigns and awards to promote, upskill and reward contributions and ideas from within the firm.
“Innovation updates and training sessions on new tools are regularly provided to our lawyers, to increase awareness of what true ‘innovation’ looks like at G+T, and show how we are prototyping, building and (perhaps most critically) using solutions internally and with clients. This team has dedicated funding to support innovation initiatives.
“This has created a step-change in how we deliver services to our clients and consequently our position in the market as a leading innovative law firm, willing to embrace disruption.”
“Improving legal productivity will be fundamental to the ongoing success of any law firm, especially in a highly competitive market like Australia,” said Caryn.
Gilbert + Tobin takes innovation seriously and is investing in its capability to transform legal service delivery. Caryn’s promotion to equity partner in July 2018 is clear evidence of this commitment and the importance of her role in the future success of the firm.
Challenging traditional ways of legal service delivery
“Legal innovation provides the impetus to rethink and challenge traditional ways of delivering legal services,” said Caryn. “With the rise of technology capable of automating routine, simple tasks, we can free up our lawyers to spend their time on high-value complex legal work. I see this is a positive development for our lawyers and clients.”
Caryn’s own career path – from fee earning lawyer to legal operations professional - shows what possibilities are available to lawyers looking to pursue legal innovation.
“As traditional service delivery shifts to more contemporary offerings, roles like mine will pave the way for different career paths – ones that will be increasingly relevant to the delivery of legal services in the future.”
Those most threatened by disruption are, in Caryn’s view, those unwilling or unable to embrace the change over the short to medium term.
Significant legaltech investment ahead as AI advances
Caryn predicts increasing venture capital and private equity investment in legal technology and NewLaw or alternative service providers, citing the recent US$50m investment in AI technology company, Kira.
This comes alongside advancements in legal AI and moves to unbundle legal services.
“Over the last few years, we have seen new types of AI emerge to solve pain points for lawyers regarding legal processes. At present, AI tools can assist lawyers to perform certain discrete parts of a legal process at scale and with consistency, such as finding patterns in documents and recognising clauses,” said Caryn.
“For example, pattern analysis AI tools search large document sets for clauses in the due diligence process and highlight potential areas of legal risk. This same task would take an inordinate amount of time for a human lawyer to complete manually. We’ve also seen how historically AI has transformed the approach to litigation discovery. Many of the newer AI products are still in their infancy, and there is much potential for this AI to help lawyers deliver more efficient and timely services to clients in the future. Developments in AI over the next few years will result in the next stage of transformation.”
Caryn also predicts an aggressive move towards the unbundling of legal services, with legal work increasingly provided by traditional law firms alongside alternative service providers and technology-driven providers.
Education is crucial to help lawyers thrive
Focusing education more on legal technology, both at the law school level and with continuing legal education, will help lawyers succeed and thrive in a changing environment.
“Ensuring lawyers are both technically competent and have the broader skill sets to operate in a world of digital technology, data, artificial intelligence and an increased focus on leveraging efficiencies (such as those provided by legal project management) is paramount.”
To this end, Caryn has been working with universities and other educational institutions to challenge the current curriculum in light of the future capabilities required of lawyers, and the changing nature of legal work.
“In my view, it is absolutely critical to the legal industry that educational organisations, professional bodies, in-house teams and law firms collaborate with one another to ensure we provide technical skill and capability development that will enable lawyers to thrive in the disrupted legal environment,” Caryn said.
“I would encourage new lawyers to still be the finest technical lawyers they can be – this will be even more important as lawyers focus on high value, complex work. Alongside this, a natural curiosity, adaptability, the ability to embrace change and high EQ will be skillsets demanded of talented, well rounded lawyers.”
Given the key role Caryn expects education to play in preparing lawyers of the future, she regards the Centre for Legal Innovation as providing an important service for the legal profession.
“I think knowledge and education is absolutely key to ensuring the profession responds positively and proactively to the inevitable disruption and change. The CLI will play a critical role in this.”