Reshaping the legal world, where to start?

*DISCLAIMER: what you’re about to read is likely to include some (French) Sarcasm*

 Recent studies have shown that articles with a picture of Harvey Specter* are more likely to get views so here it is.

*Iconic (and handsome) character from another one of these very legal series where lawyers know it all, solve it all and doing it so quickly that it makes you wonder why have you trained all those years for..

Do “Naysayers, boring, bottleneck, business preventers, NO to department” to describe Lawyers, In-House lawyers or generally speaking everything that looks, sounds or even smell *legal* sound familiar to some of you? If they do, raise your hands (*me raising both of them* at the time of writing this)

I must admit, I was fairly disappointed to come across these adjectives, being close to the business and supporting it were some of the main reasons why I chose In-house over private practice in the first place.

When I started to develop my in-house legal experience across different companies but also when getting to know other legal fellows, this topic had become a recurring subject to the point where, I had to figure out what the potential root causes could be.

My journey towards finding some truth then started (Notice me using *some* as I am sure we will be getting on some interesting debates) and after trying to find the bottom line of it, here are my two cents:

The genesis of the traditional positioning

1.      Law school

I went to law school in France and when doing so, the first years of studies were focused on things that were somewhat remote from everything that is actually happening on planet Earth.

 I literally hated my first year of law for the following reasons:

-         I had to sit for hours to hear about things that did not grab my attention such as the history of law

-         The Civil code, originated from the Napoleonic era did not make sense at all, the content was drafted using an old French from the 19th century at the very earliest

-         Speaking of unintelligible things, I’d rank case law between an unpronounceable medical prescription and a foreign language that I would have come across at school without learning it. Clearly I could not get it. 

In other words, my journey towards a legal career started with lectures using a language that only law teachers and legal practitioners could understand and teach. On the top of that, we were taught about things that are somewhat remote from the ‘real life’.

When we ‘finally’ came across things closer to the real world such as business law, this was often through the prism of theoretical aspects (e.g the ‘cause’ of a contract under French law) not to mention the emphasis on worst case scenarios (law suits, bankruptcy)

To sum it up: we’ve been trained on developing a risk adverse approach that we struggle to communicate, using non-practical nor accessible language that only our peers can understand.

I think this somewhat explains the challenges we (or at the very least I), as legal professional(s), may encounter when it comes to communicating with people outside the legal circle.

2.      Us VS them type of approach 

I will always remember the first time I’ve come across the ‘layperson’ persona in law school to suggest a comparison between those who know the law and those who don’t. It is also very common in the legal industry to hear ‘lawyers VS non-lawyers’. We are all the layperson of someone and I’ve never heard any professional from any other industry opposing people who are in the same field against those who aren’t.

I mean have you already heard a doctor saying ‘the non-doctors’ to describe people outside of the medical field?

This approach to me does not help building a sense of collaboration which is a bit ironic in the service industry. 

Now that we’ve looked at some of the root causes and for what it is worth, here are my two cents on some ideas to reshape the legal world. I will logically start from the beginning of the legal journey, the legal education.

Reframing the legal education

It is no secret, lawyers (understandably) like foreseeability so the legal sector is not the fastest industry when it comes to changing the status quo and yet, we need to start somewhere.

If I had some magical power to impact the legal education, this is what I would do:

1.      Leveraging different formats

Reading and writing (a lot!), this is pretty much what we used to do in law school. Of course, understanding the legal jargon and being able to master the legal reasoning is a key component of the legal education. But why would this only be through tons of lines where we could explore other formats such as:

-         Visuals: we often say than a picture is worth a thousand words, why would this be any different in the legal sector? Teaching law students through the use of visuals such as infographics would help them understanding, pardon the pun, the bigger picture.

In case you do not know already, I enjoy simplifying legal concepts through visuals, the Sanityzer is an example of how training about commercial contracts could look like

-         Humour and sarcasm: You will soon (if you have not already) noticed that I use humour and sarcasm a lot as I believe them to be extremely powerful tools to get the message across. Law does not need to be boring, in fact, there are ways to make it fun, when we decide to leverage it accordingly. Who has not already laughed out loud when coming across law memes on social media? Not only students would have a good time but they are more likely to remember the core content of what we are trying to teach

2.      Teaching new things and differently

Why everything should be about legal in law school? And have we ever considered teaching differently? For what it is worth again, here are my two cents.

P for Practicality and Purpose: something that I personally missed at law school was the practicality of what was being taught. It is all good news to get to learn from courts decisions that occurred God knows when but what is the purpose of us learning all of this? What are the impacts, the consequences of a decision ruling in a certain direction or another? Most of these questions remain unanswered where we live in an era where people are looking for a purpose in what they do.

Customer driven: the irony of the legal services is being known for not being customer centric at all, probably because the legal education does not take into account the needs of the end-customer. 

Legal professionals are often perceived as “not being accessible”, quite pricey for delivering a service for which the value is questionable. Having the end user in mind for the delivery of the legal service should drive the legal education from the start. We could for example consider including workshops with certain potential end clients teaching law students about their expectations? 

Emotional Intelligence: it goes with the last point, but being able to wear the end client’s shoes, appreciate that we’re not equal in terms of legal knowledge, and therefore, writing a beautifully legally worded opinion of dozens of pages to an end client does not do him any favour. Being able to empathise with the end clients, understand their expectations, provide practical and bespoke solutions are things that we come across a bit too late in our legal career where it could be addressed from the start.

Finally, I would very much welcome the day where law school won't only be about law only. It could benefit from other industries knowledge in multiple ways.

Whether through being able to master tech tools, leverage creativity and different formats, learning to be more customer driven, I am a strong believer that legal professionals could add more value to their customers and also fulfil their true potential often not shown through the law only education.

What are your thoughts on the legal world? How could we make it better?