Where there’s a will there’s a way
Corporate lawyer-turned maverick legalpreneur Gene Turner’s New Zealand-based firm LawHawk could be called an upstart rather than a startup.
The Wellington legal services outfit has broken the matrix by providing automated legal document templates online - and in the process giving people and businesses better access to the law.
“The idea is to make access to the law easier for everyone; something lawyers and their clients desperately need,” says Turner, whose last job was as a corporate and finance partner at Buddle Findlay.
“It is estimated that half of adult New Zealanders haven’t even got a basic will – which reflects badly on lawyers and the way people see them and the value they offer, and something desperately in need of repair.
“When I started looking at document automation, I was focussed on individual documents, that were mainly ‘legal’. Even on a stand-alone basis, the ability to take the hours of work needed to prepare a single document and reduce it to just a few minutes is powerful.”
But the opportunity is much larger, he says.
“Increasingly I see document automation as just a relatively small part of business process management.
“By understanding the real jobs that people need to do, and the whole end-to-end process, we think the benefits of automation can be so much greater. Efficient online workflows can be designed, so that the right things occur at the right time.”
He says the need for people to copy and re-enter the same information over and over – can be greatly reduced.
“At the time that a document is required it can be quickly generated (perhaps without direct involvement of a person, as the information may already exist from earlier stages).”
Battleground of the future
As part of this, there are a lot of people working hard on designing portals in which all these workflows can be managed.
“This could be a real battleground. Because we are operating in such a narrow niche, we hope that we can seamlessly fit into any of these types of platforms so at points where people need to create a document, they can do so quickly and easily.”
This is the innovation mindset that Turner will be taking to the Centre for Legal Innovation.
Turner says technology and disruption has had a substantial impact on his professional life.
“I was doing well as a corporate and finance partner at Buddle Findlay, but I really felt that – like all law firms - we could be working a lot better than we were, if we could use technology to do the things I thought it could.
“I was particularly interested in the opportunity to use document automation to reduce hours of work to minutes, with greater quality and lower risk, but found it hard to do while also trying to manage a team and grow my practice.
“With the rapid emergence of cloud technology, I felt there was an opportunity to make document automation more easily available as a service so that any lawyers can access it, without needing to figure it all out for themselves and go down all the dead ends I had."
He does not think legal innovation and technology has had a great impact on the profession - yet.
“But it will soon because there is so much happening, and a lot of it has the ability to work with, and reinforce, other technologies which will accentuate the impact. Lawyers will not be able to delay or avoid technology as they have in the past.”
Over 700 free wills downloaded
And he says the new technology and innovations will present opportunities for lawyers.
“There are so many new technologies coming, that it is opening up a lot of new opportunities for lawyers to do different work, or to work really differently.
“It doesn’t need to be purely ‘legal’, and it doesn’t need to be limited so much by geography. It should be possible to work profitably at lower prices, which should open up new markets of people who can’t currently afford lawyers. I usually see the glass as half full anyway, but there are plenty of upsides for lawyers.”
He says the biggest challenge will be faced by lawyers who either can’t see the changes coming, or think they can wait until the last minute and then deal with disruption.
“Because of the nature and speed of new technologies, a competitor or new entrant could unveil a new offering ‘overnight’ and quickly secure all of a client’s work, or much of a market. By the time that happens, it will be too late to catch up,” says Turner.
“In response to the large number of people who don’t have wills, we have just released a completely free will that anyone in New Zealand can use. It’s a high-quality document drafted with help from expert wills lawyer Matt Hay of Succeed Legal. Lawyers who see their job as drafting these documents may see this as a threat. But forward thinking lawyers should see this as an opportunity to let the clients do the “boring” and unprofitable drafting, and spend more time talking to clients about their particular needs and ensuring a great end-outcome. We’ve had over 700 downloads of the will in the first month. That could be 700 people who have no existing lawyer and who could become long-term clients for conveyancing, family and other personal legal services – if lawyers offered a different service and value proposition.”
Curiouser and curiouser
He says the CLI will play an important role in supporting lawyers in navigating the coming changes.
“A lot of lawyers tell us that they know that things are changing, but they don’t know what to do,” he says.
“They’re working harder than ever, and their recovery rates are falling. Many lawyers are deeply unhappy. They’re being bombarded with messages that disruption is coming, and with offers of new products and services, but they’re not ‘technology people’ and don’t know where they should focus. They really want help to make sense of it all.
“The CLI can make a big difference in this area with its practical focus.”
Against this background he urges lawyers to “be really curious”.
“This is not something lawyers traditionally have been. Things will be constantly changing, and so you have to always be looking at what might be coming up, trying things out and testing how they might be useful,” he says.
“You will need a broader range of skills (and pure knowledge of the law will be much less valuable) but also need to be more focussed in your practice, so you can offer a deeper and more valuable service than others or what people can get for themselves over the internet.”
“I would look to the technology world and the way they collaborate (for example, open source), and try lots of different approaches knowing that often they will fail but that’s ok!”
He urges younger lawyers to be responsible for their own careers.
“With so much going on, you can’t expect older lawyers to manage your life for you, and the skills and experience they used to be successful won’t be the ones you will need. You have to work out what you want or need to happen, and find ways to do it.”