From the expansion of alternative legal service providers to the increased expectations of legal clients, there are various trends within the global legal sector which are driving new roles and opportunities.

"The rush to the bar from Ballads Of The Bench And Bar, Or Idle Lays Of The Parliament House (1882). Original from the British Library. Digitally enhanced by rawpixel." by The British Library is licensed under CC0 1.0

Alternate Legal Service Providers (ALSPs)
 For many generations, businesses have had to turn to law firms alone to provide their legal services. This, however, is changing and now Alternate Legal Services Providers, also the ‘Big Four’ professional service giants ( PwC, Deloitte, E&Y, KPMG) are now offering legal services and competing with even large scale law firms. The 2018 Thompson Reuters’ Alternative Legal Service Study revealed 60 per cent of corporate legal departments currently using Alternative Legal Service Providers for at least one type of service and that is expected to grow.  For example, PwC and EY have launched legal practices in Hong Kong and Singapore with Deloitte Legal International also practising in Singapore. New opportunities to utilise your legal skills may well arise beyond the limits of a specific law firm and instead be with an ALSP.

Cross-functional data
Across all sectors, the role that data plays is of increasing interest.  In-house law teams and corporate law firms, in particular, may well see an increasing interest in the value of legal data when it is combined with data from across the business. This type of cross-functional data may be seen as increasingly valuable and therefore being comfortable with data and data tools can be a valuable skill to develop in your legal career.

Micro-niche firms
Having a ‘technology practice team’ or a ‘healthcare practice team’ will no longer suffice for most law firms.  Instead, the clients of those law firms are now looking for bespoke expertise which is going to meet their precise needs. Therefore, these clients are looking for firms with specialists within 3D printing or genomic editing, for example. Being aware of the challenges law firms face to make themselves highly relevant and bespoke is a valuable attribute as you progress in your legal career.

Tech-driven hybrids
The impact of AI on commercial law firm clients, regardless of sector, is inevitable.  Indeed some law firms are specifically capitalising on this opportunity by pivoting their practice towards both serving the AI companies themselves (e.g. deep learning) and/or serving a sector, or sub-sector, which will be dramatically disrupted by AI, such as FinTech. Large scale firms are already preparing for these changes with Clifford Chance in the UK, for example, bringing together 400 of its lawyers to work in a new technology group across a range of practice areas. Having an understanding of how the legal sector is responding to developments in AI will be important moving forward in your legal career.

Technological change
Technological changes, such as automation, are having a dramatic effect on the legal sector.  From speeding up research time to improving archive management, technology is enabling law firms to be much more efficient in their interactions and transactions with a client, which in turn has an impact on how law firms bill for their time and services.   Whatever your role within the legal sector, having a clear grasp of the latest technological landscape and an appreciation of how a law firm, and their competitors, are responding to that changing landscape is essential.

Legal consumerism changes
Previously, clients were happy to agree to (and pay for) whichever products or services their legal counsel recommended. More recently there has been an increase in the savviness of clients’ legal consumerism, with many clients showing much more reluctance to be billed for work which they believe can be done much more quickly and cost-effectively by a technological solution or by using a non-legal provider. To counterbalance this shift, law firms need to be able to effectively showcase their genuine legal expertise to reassure clients, particularly those with in-house legal teams, of the benefit and value of using their services in the future.  An appreciation of this type of challenge to the provision of legal services can be valuable when considering how you might market yourself to future legal recruiters.

The increasing need for business development
No clients mean no business so whether you are based at a major corporate firm or a much smaller practice being aware of the need to drive the business forward is also important when developing a legal career. Increasingly law firms are realising that business development needs to be a central strategic objective if they are able to fend off increasingly stiff competition and manage to retain and attract new profitable clients to their business.  From cross-practice collaboration to sales and marketing, having a clear understanding of how a legal business grows and thrives as commercial enterprises is a valued attribute for your future legal recruitment.

Green law initiatives
As climate change is an increasingly common feature of the news agenda around the globe, environmental law or ‘green law’ is becoming a significant growth area of practice.  From meeting new environmental regulatory requirements to providing the necessary legal services to new businesses within the growing environmental sector, such as renewable energy, green law is a growth area.  Having an understanding of the opportunities which environmental law presents law firms, in addition to a law firm’s own environmental and CSR policy, is important in developing your legal career going forward.

Legal Process Outsourcing (LPO)
In an increasingly competitive global landscape, many law firms have shifted some of their legal process work to alternative bases, including some overseas. This legal outsourcing, either off-shore on on-shore, enables firms to reduce costs of some aspects of the legal or para-legal work they deliver clients.  The development of technology has enabled LPO and also means that clients can be provided with around-the-clock service covering a range of time zones. There are various LPO destinations, with India leading as the most popular, based on both the English-language skills of Indian staff and the English Common Law derivation of India’s own legal system.  Having an awareness of opportunities through LPO can also be advantageous to your legal career going forward.

Virtual law firms
Enabled by enhanced technology, an increasing number of legal professionals are working remotely from their home or from a ‘virtual’ law office.  Software-as-a-service (SaaS), sophisticated mobile devices and robust online technologies mean that more lawyers are able to work more flexibly and potentially have a greater work/life balance during their legal careers.

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Last modified: Tuesday, 7 January 2020, 11:42 AM