‘It’s been like doing a legal innovation PhD in just two days!’ is how I summed up the Legal Innovators UK conference that took place last Thursday and Friday. The event was also introduced as an ‘ecosystem of change agents, working to improve the delivery of legal services’ – and it certainly was that as well.
What took place at our biggest ever event, with such tremendous speakers and a highly engaged audience? To know that you just had to be there – and that’s the Legal Innovators way, but a huge thank you to all who spoke, sponsored and attended. You make these events what they are!
So what are we going to look at today? The answer is the ecosystem itself, because aside from all the great content that Legal Innovators offered, it also represented an increasingly dynamic network of people and organisations (which are of course the result of people) all engaging in some way in the legal innovation ecosystem.
In fact, some have asked why have representatives from such a broad range of the system’s constituents? The answer is two-fold: first, we can all learn a lot from each other; and second, we are all connected.
The legal tech company’s software that a lawyer is using today is there because of certain investors who backed the voyage into the unknown; it got started because of former law firm associates who became entrepreneurs and that includes someone who came through a law school’s legal innovation course; and that the tech company perfected its product in a law firm incubator; and that it’s now also working with several inhouse teams on legal ops related needs, which also happen to be clients of that law firm, and so on. And at the heart of this, at least within the law firms, is the legal innovation team, who are bringing aboard new tech, working on new processes and new ways of leveraging the firm’s talent, and making the change real.
Plus all of the people involved in all of these stages may eventually move roles. The law firm lawyer may go inhouse, or may join a legal tech company, or stay at the firm and focus on innovation. They may one day become an angel investor, or take part in legal education, or become a consultant to the sector, the list of opportunities is ever-growing.
That’s why we call it an ecosystem – it truly is all connected.
Plus, everyone here is involved in some way in improving how the world of legal services operates. And that’s a great thought – hundreds of people, maybe thousands, all around the world, working to make something better! It’s vibrant and it’s growing, and that’s what Legal Innovators is all about.
So, here is a map I made this morning. No doubt there are aspects to be added, but hopefully this gives a sense of the scale of the ecosystem we are building globally.
And much of the above was represented in some way at Legal Innovators over those two days last week. That is perhaps why it felt like a massive educational download, plus from the looks of it there was a lot of fun and a lot of enjoyable networking too.
P.S. Event organisers Cosmonauts took plenty of pics and hopefully a link will be made available soon, which will be shared by this site.
P.P.S. Legal Innovators UK will be back again in 2023, while we will also be holding Legal Innovators California in San Francisco for the second time in June next year as well. Looking forward to building out and connecting with the ever-growing legal innovation ecosystem again.
A huge thanks once more to everyone who came to the conference last week, it was the biggest yet and a huge success – and it was all because of you! Thank you.
Richard Tromans, Founder, Artificial Lawyer, Nov 2022.