Technology as a Lawyer′s Allied

I take part in several debates and studies about the lawyer′s new role and the necessary competences in the face of technologies implemented in offices and legal departments.

Do you know what the Brazilian lawyers have in common with lawyers of other nationalities?

All of them have the same doubt about how to build a successful career in this moment of technological (r)evolution in the Legal Ecosystem – offices, legal departments, court system and educational system - when they talk about the substitution of lawyers by an artificial intelligence, robotization, and legal activities automation.

I recently took part in an event made by the Mattos Filho_Office “The profile of the New Lawyer: the professional challenges in a market in constant evolution”, with the presence of Toni Jaeger-Fine, writer of the book “Becoming a Lawyer - Discovering and Defining Your Professional Persona”, Ariosvaldo Mattos Filho, Luciana Gross and Jose Eduardo Carneiro Queiroz. During the debates, I could notice that the dilemmas are really the same:

1. What can we expect form the lawyers that are coming into the labor Market with great academic skills and zero self-knowledge about soft skills?

2. Where do the professionals stay in a market where they see their activities, totally or partially, developed by technological solutions, being obliged to reinvent themselves in order to keep themselves competitive, useful and valued?

3. Besides the technical content, how can the universities help their professionals to develop behavioral competences?

The lawyer profession is not disappearing but changing. This reality is already happening. Lawyers and students of Law that are not aware of this change will not survive in the labor market.

Repeated operational activities such as, for example, filling up the procedural progress, searching for online documents, filling up and even making contract drafts of low/medium complexity will be made with more precision by machines and with an infinite better productivity that will dismiss humans.

That′s why it is not enough to be technically good because this is basic and the expected. It is necessary to be more strategical, knowing other themes, searching for formations that go beyond the study of Law and more, and as I said before, developing soft skills that will make us complete.

Soft Skills are abilities related to the emotional intelligence that help us interact better with the other

The new scenario of work environment has been built with the main abilities to a new mindset more attached to a transformation: curiosity, creativity, adaptability, communication ability in multidisciplinary scenarios and collaborative spirit

Leaving the comfort zone

The lawyer that stays in the comfort zone repeating the speech” this has always been done like this” or with the posture “this is not up to me” will not survive for long time…

The more strategic the actuation, the more necessary the direct involvement with new projects that need innovative solutions, ” out of the box” thinking modulating risks X business opportunities.

At his book “21 lessons for the 21st Century”, Yuval Noah Harari faces the labor question X the automation of activities, especially with the usage of Artificial Intelligence. If on one hand there is a line of comprehension that says that in two decades billions of people will be economically redundant, there is another that believes that the automation, in a long term, will generate new jobs.

Despite of the existence of many uncertainties, the author, when he planned the future of work, is clear about the necessity of a constant reinvention of the professional, of people having more than one profession and practice them in collaborative and cooperative work environment between the machine and the human being. And in order to deal with technological and economical ruptures that will come, it′s urgent to develop new social and economical models. I recommend the reading! Link to Amazon.

 I finish this article inviting you to a questioning:

Are your ready for the changes that are coming? Do you know your differential in order to keep yourself competitive and strategic to the market? Let your comment bellow. I ′ll be pleasured to answer.

About the author

ANA PAULA HALLA – Lawyer and Coach an enthusiast of technological innovation for the legal field integrated with people management. Apart from the juridical management, I also help people in their search for personal and professional achievement for a better life. Bachelor degree in Law at the Fluminense Federal University, Specialist in Contracts with Executive LLM in Business Law, MBA Business Management at FGV, Executive Education in  Transforming Leadership at Funda??o Dom Cabral, Business Marketing Strategy by Kellogg School of Management. Specialization in Mastercoaching and Member of the Brazilian Society of Coaching.

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