Advanced Legal: Third of legal professionals not confident in their firm’s leadership to run a modern digital infrastructure – new survey reveals
Advanced report shows 22% think a robot would be better at decision making.
Nearly a third (30%) of legal professionals are not confident in the leadership of their company to create and run a modern digital infrastructure, according to the new Advanced Trends Report 2018. This also reveals that 22% say a robot would be better at decision making than their boss if it had access to the right business intelligence, in contrast to one in three professionals (34%) in all industries.
The annual survey is the third to be commissioned by British software and services company Advanced, with over 1,000 professionals1 in UK organisations having their say on how British businesses are faring in the digital era. These latest findings will come as a blow to many legal leaders who are under more pressure than ever before to digitally transform the courtroom.
Although steeped in traditional practice methodology, the legal sector is expected to rise to the challenge of delivering a modern digital infrastructure, which is spurred on by the Ministry of Justice’s plans to deliver a modern courts and justice system through technology.
Worryingly, though, respondents admit there is no clear leader driving technology change in their organisation. Just 37% of C-suite/Managing Directors are said to be driving change while 53% believe responsibility falls to IT and 18% say it’s the job of the finance team. It perhaps comes as no surprise, then, that just 21% of employees think more than two-thirds of people in their organisation are ready to adopt new technology to change the way they work.
“Disruptive technology is bringing into question everything that makes up a typical legal firm,” says Doug Hargrove, Managing Director – Education & Legal – Advanced. “While robots are unlikely to take on the job of decision maker – the reality is that they are simply not suited to such complex tasks and will work side-by-side with humans – our findings suggest that employees are dissatisfied with their current leadership, want to get rid of arbitrary decision making and want to challenge the norms. So who is it that needs to step up, provide the clear direction that people need and take charge of the intense change happening as a result of the digital era?
“The C-suite should be responsible so it’s disappointing to see that only a small number of senior leaders are taking charge. There are a number of reasons for this: to ensure that any digital strategy aligns with the overall business strategy, and that it’s led from the top and ripples down across the organisation successfully. The wider workforce has a role to play too, so its critical leaders must encourage an open and collaborative culture. This means looking to new candidates in entry-level roles working on the ground who are likely to be more digitally savvy and working more closely with their peers. They would make great ambassadors for driving change and ensuring innovation happens for all. As a result, we will see more people place confidence in their leadership in the digital era.”
The report also shows an appetite for legal professionals to adopt disruptive technologies to change the way they work. Nearly a third (31%) want to see Cloud services in their daily working lives – on a par with Business Intelligence (BI) – followed by Artificial Intelligence (AI) (29%), predictive analytics (27%) and Robotic Process Automation (RPA) (15%)2.
More than half (57%) say they would be happy to work alongside robotic technology if it meant less manual processes – most likely because automation acts as a workforce multiplier, increasing output while reducing time wasted on repetitive and low-skilled processes. The majority (74%) have already adopted technology to automate tasks and processes, albeit many of these are likely using simple commands to handle defined actions.
The fact that many legal professionals want to see disruptive technologies in their daily working life is encouraging. This will drive productivity, helping workers – and their bosses – win back critical thinking time. For example, 42% said they would spend an extra 60 minutes thinking where to take their business next. But, as the research suggests, there must be an openness to embrace change for every individual in the workforce if any technology innovation is to succeed in delivering the anticipated business benefits.
The Advanced Trends Survey was carried out online in September 2018. The highlights of the report can be found here: www.oneadvanced.com/trends with the full report being available from Monday 19th November.
