Meet the Mentors: Tara Waters

Q: Tara, could you tell us a little bit about your background? How did you find yourself in your current role?

A:?So, I actually have a slightly unusual background. I started out in the tech industry, and then made the switch to law after about seven years. I moved to the UK after I graduated from US law school and I’ve been based in London since.

?Our offices are pretty close to Shoreditch, where all the tech things are happening – and I’ve been fortunate to stay in touch with what is happening with the tech sector here in the UK.?

When I first graduated and moved over, tech generally in the UK was evolving. Law firms that weren’t very tech-focused were starting to realise that it was rapidly becoming a core industry, that needed attention. This is both in terms of new client basis and also using technology internally.?

I’d just moved to Ashurst around this time, and I think that kind of timeline ended up crisscrossing at the exact right point for me to get involved with the lawtech space at the firm.

Eventually, my role evolved to where I am now as Chief Digital Officer, spearheading most of the lawtech or digital initiatives internally.?

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Q: What excites you about the lawtech space just now? Are there any trends you think are worth highlighting?

A:?I think what really excites me, and what we’ve seen increasing over a period of time, has been intra-lawtech collaboration. In the early days – say around 10 years ago – the opinion was very much that lawtech was a threat to the legal industry. But I think what we’ve actually come to see over the past decade is the development of a really vibrant ecosystem. It hasn’t been about usurping anyone else – instead, it’s been about asking, ‘how do we work together to solve industry-wide problems?’

I’ve always been a strong believer that when it comes to the legal sector, it is not about one law firm or one company winning. It is about us working together, understanding problems, and solving them collaboratively. So, I think that this trend of collaboration –? whether that's through LawtechUK and the Mentoring Programme, or other relationships and organisations. We are working together, not just being transactional with each other.?

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Q: How did you find the mentoring process?

A:?I think mentorship is general is really important and helpful, particularly for lawtech companies. This is my second year of being a mentor with LawtechUK. I’ve really enjoyed it so far. I had a great mentee during the first cohort, and I felt able to add a lot of value. I think LawtechUK did a great job of matching up what I had to offer with what my mentee needed. This year, we’re right at the start of the programme, but it seems like a great pairing again.

There are those moments in conversations where the feedback I hear from the?mentee, is?‘oh, I hadn’t thought about it like that’. I think that is because what you can offer as a mentor is a new perspective. Because I am a practicing lawyer, but I also sit within a digital innovation team, I feel able to offer a slightly broader perspective – which I hope adds an extra dimension to the relationship.?

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Q: Tell us a little bit about your first mentee

A:?My first mentee was in the contract negotiation space – a legal problem that lots of companies have sought to tackle. We don’t have many success stories yet in that space. Drafting, automation, and contract management analysis are all areas that have all been tackled really well with lawtech solutions. But, contract negotiation in that space is challenging.?

So, I felt my mentee was tackling a really important problem that hadn’t yet been solved. And, personally, I thought they were starting to develop a really genius solution.?

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Q: Finally, what advice would you give to anybody looking to develop an idea in the lawtech space?

A:?First, really get to know your problem. Focus on user research, hone in on that unique thing that your product brings to the table. The market is quite large and varied, in a really exciting way. But that makes it difficult for new entrants to stand out if they’re not doing something really different. So really get thinking carefully about your USP.?

And, then secondly, the real piece of advice is to think about your USP in the context of what I call the ‘law firm tech stack’. A lot of us are moving towards a more integrated platform-based approach, which means that just because your offering does this one amazing thing really well, it doesn’t fit into the bigger picture, – if it can’t integrate with other systems very easily – it’s going to struggle to break into mainstream usage.?

I think sometimes people don’t always think about how their product will integrate with other technologies. They?deprioritise?integration or interoperability. But I think it is of growing importance."

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