legal Tech Monday legal take one I'm not ready take two legal Tech ai ai for lawyers Knowledge Management Innovation Solutions we have so much of new terms that's coming to our work as lawyers we had enough we don't have time for this we can't follow we are overwhelmed there's so many events so many conferences new people in the market are talking that they have been working as lawyers for many many years and they love Innovation and technology and now they're coming up with a new solution what is the meaning of legal Tech can someone please explain it to us in an easy way for that reason we thought let's bring an expert in the room my guest for today is Sophie best the owner and CEO of knowledge Nexus good morning Sophie and thank you very much for coming with us morning I'm very grateful to be here thank you so much can you please unlock this expression or these Expressions we have so many but let's start with legal Tech what does it mean and when did this Expressions have came to light so it's an interesting one actually if I had to put it in to say a couple of words I would say innovate um adapt and embed and the reason for that is that I actually think the word legal Tech kind of needs to go I think it kind of doesn't really do us any favors these days so I think years ago and I started out 20 years ago almost now and legal takech wasn't even a word it was just technology for lawyers automation you know there was not really a word and and actually over time it's it's evolved and the word now kind of I think scares people it's you know I actually think that's why we need to kind of move away and actually what we do as as lawyers is we focus too much on the technology which is why it's failing us and actually I always say to people we need to move away from the technology and we need to go back to people and processes because the best legal Tech and the legal Tech that's going to help kind of Empower us to be better lawyers to give us more information to make better informed decisions to give better advice that needs people you know the technology isn't going to be you know some rocket that's going to launch us into space it's meant to guide us along the way and I think that message has got lost because everyone is telling us about this technology that's revolutionary and it's going to change your life and you know sorry legal Tech providers because I know you all kind of vouch for that but actually I think sometimes we're you know we're forgetting about the people and for me that's something that I've kind of always been passionate about I always feel like you know that there's always going to be a need for the people I.E the lawyers in the room and I get asked so much every panel I speak on every room I walk in you know is it going to take our jobs are we going to have a job you know what's what's the meaning of being a lawyer now and actually what I think is that it's coming we can't stop it and we have to just embrace it we have to kind of adapt and actually we have to start looking at the positives we have to stop being scared because you know we didn't people didn't go to law school to sit in a dark room and you know do grunt work as such and actually that's what I think the positive of technology is it's kind of transform the way that lawyers work and I think given the kind of other crisis that we have on the whole kind of mental health you know kind of burn out that thing I actually think legal Tech is going to be a benefit for that I think it's going to change the way that we that we work and yeah I totally agree with you I mean I I don't know if you remember the other day when we were at the panel of Bea and uh we uh we were talking and I mentioned this example of moving away from from the typewriter to the electronic typewriter and was a a kind of a step and that was a hardware technology that use that time to develop the work of the lawyers and I understand very well that the technology in general uh not not necessarily legal Tech is really helping all of us so I guess WhatsApp can be uh called a technology that helped lawyers a lot is not designed uh per se for for lawyers but but we use it legal Tech as I understand it as as the expression can can can be translated or interpreted in in a way uh is the technology or the software that is designed specifically for lawyers and I see it as always like I don't know Case Management Services Research uh softwares that that help in and the document management and things like that what do you see how do you see this technology let's say or the legal Tech or these Innovation Solutions helped uh our work as lawyers for example I mean you practiced for a while it's an interesting one actually and and funny enough I you know I'm actually not a lawyer by trade but because I've worked with lawyers for so long you know I almost have kind of ended up in that field and the one thing that I really do a lot of is working with lawyers on the process and and if we look back over the last 20 years technology is already transformed I mean you know if you you said yourself facts typewriters you know floppy discs you know one of I one of my friends who's a lawyer she was saying to me about her her one of her children and she was trying to explain to them what a floppy disc is and they're like Mom what what is that and you know where kind of this aha moment of we feel old you know so we've already seen that right we've already seen the evolution which is why again I think we don't need to be scared of it it's happened we just we it just happened over time and now we're seeing It sped up so in the world of law like when I've been working kind of as a legal consultant I've seen it in every single practice like if we look at m&a that's probably one of the early adopters so traditionally companies would have an m&a deal you'd have you know a company looking to divest or fund raise or list on the stock exchange and they would then need to kind of you know create a due due diligence progress like program process and they would need to speak to other lawyers they would have account you know Finance and that was done in what we call physical data room so you know the lawyers would have to compile boxes of documents and I remember back in my career in London working you know with a firm say link laters for example and they would get a new deal and the the lawyers would all Scurry around to get all of this content which by the way is everywhere all over the world you know you're trying to wait for people to get it and an m&a deal is like it needs to be quick yeah you know so we saw that evolve we saw people move away from sitting with a box of documents trying to figure out to you know how do we arrange it so that investor comes in and they can you know do what they need to do as a lawyer and then that got changed to data rooms you know so that was like what my first idea of legal tech and and that was something that I've done for many years and I got to see the transformation I actually worked for a large data room company called meril Data site and when I was working with them I actually used to be involved in a lot of the products when they were actually evolving to be kind of the next iteration and I would sit with the lawyer and work out okay what do we need how can we get you from this process of manual what do we need to it to look like on the tech side and and actually that transformed things because an m&a deal can now be done in a matter of months um maybe not we all we all want it to be done in a matter of months but you want it to be in a matter of month tends I mean legal listen legal T's not magic right it's not a magic button it's not a rocket to the moon but it has it has sped it up because the lawyers can now be on a flight they could be traveling all around the world and they can access this so you know we have everything at our fingertips now yeah so for that that's been you know that's transformed the way that companies transact and that's meant that there's less money spent on these deals there's less risk there's you know these these deals can be wrapped up quicker and Al and you know with that they can take on a more Global aspect because you don't have to think about okay what if I have an investor in the US an investor in China in Australia London you know and wherever else that's so easy to to do now so like that that was one industry um and then you know and again that's not necessarily AI but it is technology and this is the other thing I think we need to do we're so transfixed on this generative AI thing yeah and yes okay that is gamechanging but we actually forget about all of the other legal Tech that could help us you know we don't need to look at these great big can do everything we can like make small changes that can actually help us and then you know if you look at other areas litigation so Tech assisted review has been around for you know probably 15 plus years yeah and so you know litigation lawyers are well versed to the fact that they need technology to mine data you know you cannot go through terabytes of data there's a second request project or a litigation you need technology and you need to find tune so that you can find and make your case that's been around so that's been transformative for the legal industry it started with eisc Discovery you know we've seen tools like relativity you know and but now because of the AI advancements all of the old tools that were good now we look at them and I'm like they're not so good anymore because yeah yes they're still better but AI is kind of meaning that these Technologies can just become you know hundred times better than we even saw then so this is the point is like the law years and the law firms are so overwhelmed there's so many legal Tech Solutions there's so many solutions as you said 15 years ago 10 years ago and they're well established and they are uh here in the market for a while and they've been helping a lot of lawyers and now every other day there's a new company or a new uh offering where can we go and and what I don't know where do we start for example if I want to um make use of that yeah it's one I think that many teams struggle with because and I think again we see all these kind of snazzy adverts and marketing and like I said you know we're going to we're transformative revolutionary and we're going to cut your you know day in by 40% we're going to you know and actually I think that kind of marketing doesn't really hit home with lawyers anymore because it's not just about time it's about risk it's about efficiency accuracy confidentiality data protection there's so many other aspects all of this now is so important especially in the Gulf I mean if you think of data protection regulations like we're seeing everything change right yeah whereas years ago we didn't it's not that we didn't have to worry about it but it's just become more prevalent and regulated and that's a good thing by the way yeah but actually I think what we focus on are these great big oh how can we bring in AI to transform everything actually what most legal teams need to do is to take a St back so I do one of the other hats that I wear is a is on the Consulting side so I work lot with a company called Jameson legal so they're more known as a recruitment you know legal recruitment company and they formed a company called Jameson legal Tech and they come over to Dubai quite a lot and they're actually over here next week we're in Riad and then we're in they're back in Dubai and one of the things that they came to me about a year and a half ago and said was you know we work with so many lawyers we place lawyers and they call come to us because they're like how do we you know we just don't know what to do we're so overwhelmed like you said and actually that's when they said to me you know would you you know could you come in and kind of help us you know so you know one of the reasons that I consult with them is to to kind of give them something that they can give back to the to their clients and and with that I've worked with many clients where I say you know they say to me okay we want to bring AI in you know we need to we need to buy Ai and I'm like okay so what do you want that I don't know we just need to be better we need to be more efficient and I you know yes that's good but I always say to them okay let's completely unpack let's let's not just go and look at a 100 demos what do you want to change and again this is where we bring it back people and process you know because if we take it back to a what do you want that outcome to be what what kind of process you know what does the process look like and I think we have to and by doing that we need to actually we need to talk to people we need to interview the legal team we need to ask people well how are you doing this right now like how do you engage your clients how do you contract what's the day-to-day life that you see you know are you are you dealing with third party Contracting because everyone's trying to sell you these days contract automation you know create no NDA hassle automate your templates great that's so needed but most companies nowadays they're not creating their own templates as a lawyer you actually spend more time reviewing third party contracts so actually automating your templates only helps you a certain amount what you really need is contract analysis you need a tool that can help leverage data so I would say to that lawyer okay so actually what's a blocker for you is you know and I had this conversation with a GC last week in Qatar and he was like I reviewed 15,800 contracts within our legal team last year manually you know and they're a federal company they're having to make sure that they're dealing with you know that the suppliers you know don't have connections with XY Z that's a big risk right you know they need an army of lawyers and massive amount of time and and it's not even money right it's time it's risk yeah so actually that's where AI can come in and again that's where we need to get into the actual use case of what would help you is to have something that can leverage what you do as a company what what is your positioning what is your fullback you know what what Clauses do you you know what is your kind of hard stance we can't move from this because actually if you've been contracting for years and you've got that database we can leverage that knowledge that's where AI becomes useful we don't want it to make the decision for you because it's not a lawyer and you can't sue AI so what are you going to do if it goes wrong but what you can do is to use it to get the data so for me if I'm a GC and I can within 10 minutes say okay this new contract has come in I've been asked by the business to review it they've already told me it's urgent and they've Rong me five times even though they only sent it to me an hour ago asking me why have I not done it I now don't have to go and look at 5,000 contract trying to figure out you know where does this fit with our positioning I can use Ai and I can have a redlined contract in word because we all know lawyers love word and that's just what we're using daily yeah I have a redlined contract and it's you know instead of me manually track changes in word I've now got this you know this negotiation and I can then go back to my business or a client and yes I still need to check it and I need to you know kind of what I call do the lawyering I always say let the AI find the data and then you do the lawyering but that GC or P of legal or associate whoever it is now is in a position that they weren't in before right that could have taken them weeks like maybe even longer and so they're now in a position where they can they can transact better so again you know we're kind of taking it away from that whole big legal Tech discussion to what can we actually use to to do what we need to do and and when when you start talking to lawyers about that they get excited they're like okay I get it I'm not scared now like that would you know transform my my legal practice you know that GC who was reviewing 15,000 contracts he now in his head is thinking okay well if I can get this piece of technology that fits our processes it's not just a one size fits all my legal team is going to be freed up to do more proactive things we're not just putting out fires or sitting reviewing contracts answering to the business we can actually do what we need to do and that for me is again you know what legal Tech is it's allowing us it's allowing us to do our jobs it's allowing us to be better lawyers it's allowing us to have you know the the the information at our fingertips to advise better and and if I had to put it in one word data think of AI as data don't think of it as uh something that's going to come and take away your legal mind because that's the most important piece so basically what I understand now is people need to put in their minds that there is no legal tax solution that fits every Law Firm there's no legal tax solution that fits every GC there is no uh legal Ops or AI tool that helps everybody you need to have the understanding of what is missing or what are you doing and what takes time from you and what you like to optimize in the process and then to understand which solution fits you the most otherwise you're going to be subscribing to these legal Tech Solutions or AI Solutions or whatever legal AI new software Innovative thing that doesn't fit you yeah and and that's it and I'm sorry to all you legal Tech providers out there because I'm not saying you're not brilliant and then you're not you know doing great things but again we need to make sure that we you know we need to make sure that we get something that fits our needs and and that doesn't mean that like I said there are brilliant Technologies out there I I've been fortunate enough to work with many of them because of my career but again you know I think for the for the legal Tech vendors themselves the more they understand how lawyers work and what they need you know they're in a better position to partner with these firms because what you also don't want to do as a tech company is work with companies and have a turn you know turnover rate you want to be a trusted partner you want to work with these firms and create stickiness because ultimately if you're helping transform their work they're going to stay put right no one's going to spend months implementing something to the next year just be like okay well let's run a let's run a tender review process just to save a few books you know it's not about that and and then you can you know you can look at exact processes and the other thing that often you can do with legal Tech is you can you can solve individual challenges right so you might solve contract review that's a big piece of the pie for you but then you might say okay well actually the great thing then is what comes next the next part is is the actual kind of post signature so that's where we we start to look okay well as a lawyer and a company what are our contractual obligations because we've gone through the hustle of negotiation we've gone through the signing Hassle and now we need to make sure that we upold these contracts because there are huge business ramifications right there's risk of you know litigation there's risk of um you know monetary risk I mean you know years ago I remember speaking to clients that would lose millions of dollars because they didn't know that contracts were autoing so a big company has an office in New York London Dubai and they go and sign a new lease and they didn't cancel the old one because they have hundreds of them technology can solve that that's quite simple you know a company can look at having a you know a a CLM a contract life cycle management tool where they can actually have a contract database a repository again it's quite simple and then the GC never really has to worry about having oversight you know they can come in and say okay well once a month like what's coming up what's expiring what's you know what contracts have a change of control that's coming into place again this is all data that lawyers need to know so the lawyer you know one thing I always home back on is the lawyer is still needed the lawyer still comes in and does the decision making process you know analyzes the risk but what the lawyer shouldn't have to do is kind of remember when this happens or manually scramble thinking oh no that contract I need to look through my email and I got to email this person and they're busy because they're flying and oh that person's left right what do we do now you know and and and this is where I think technology is so important because you have have stability you have information no matter what where and you have it at your fingertips and I was at a conference recently and and someone said actually knowledge is not power anymore unfortunately it's just just a matter of fact because it's out of fingertips but that's actually really powerful because the more knowledge we have the more we can do and that's going to kind of change everything from from you know lawyering to to any other industry and actually that's really exciting so what are the starters kit what are the examples of the software AI tools and legal Tech solutions that are available in the market and lawyers and GCS can use and benefit so that's a good thing right okay yes there are a lot which is provides the problem of you know being overwhelmed but the positive is that there's so much out there and there's so much out there for everyone you know every firm is different and I always like to think start simple you know don't start with AI which is you know something that people are still getting their heads around I've been doing it for 20 years and I'm still learning but actually I'd say like let's take it to the basics right like if you when you're a child you know you learn how to ride a bike you know you have your stabilizers on you don't just get on a mountain bike and you know go for it you'd break your legs probably yes and legal Tech's no different so you know we need to look at the basics of where do we start like and actually for most of us the start is things like intake how do we work with our clients how do we you know what do you do on a day day-to-day basis you look at your email right yeah and then you T you know and you maybe have a manual thing of oh and I need to put that onto a system so if we look at law firms first you know law firms can take away all of that with practice Management Systems so you know they can use systems like Cleo and and various other things I manage you know there are lots of tools out there that transform the way that they engage with those starting points of you know clients and and you know staff effectively so again you know time management they're not manually kind of you know having to manage all of that so practice Management systems for for law firms are brilliant because it just takes away the admin side so we've see we see firms like that and then you've got like three you've got Elite 3E and and I think one of them got bought out so I'm probably out of date on that but there are so many you know things that we can look at now again it's all about saving time freeing up the lawyer to do you know what what they were trained to do if we switch it to the general Council you know that's different because you know again legal Tech this is where we also need to be careful a law firm works very different to a GC right and we we were at the beer conference that you you were doing a panel on a law firm is a different model yes we all work together and you know they're all lawyers but it's a you know it's completely different yeah our work is not the same we interact every day together but what they need is not the same as we exactly so for legal Tech what works for a law firm might not work for a general Council we have to accept that and actually what you need are legal Tech providers that have software that is built for you because as a general Council I've seen so many where you know they don't want to be talking the same you know talk as a law firm you know they're talking to their business yes so it's different so for them they're more looking at what I call kind of a legal front door say you know again a case management system they're like what how's that going to help me you don't need that but actually if you start talking in again a language they understand you know they want you know a legal front door and the reason I think that's so effective is because what does a general council do or a legal team that's in-house they interact with the business they're not just lawyers they wear many hats they're making sure that the business can function on a day-to-day they're dealing with seae they're dealing with the board they're dealing with different teams HR procurement sales so for them kind of the legal front door is a great way to start because it opens that up and that can transform into um into kind of matter management so that their legal workflow you know how they interact with the rest of their team again none of this spreadsheet trying to work out who's doing what email you know five we we get emails just all day every day now yeah if you're tracking your to-do list on that you know you're already kind of at a disadvantage so for for in-house teams there's some great software that they can use now when it comes to CLM as I call it contract life cycle management it's not even even just about intake and the legal workflow it's then about insight and again this is again I say about legal Tech all the time it's data data and insights and as a general Council what is it you want you want insights so you can report to the board so if you're using a system that's managing your workflow how you interact with your team you get data you can bu you can download nice graphs that you can show to the board because they don't really want to know you know yeah the the ins and outs of okay you what you're talking about with your Council and so if we look at that we we're transforming the workflow and and the triage if you like of of legal tasks but then we're also transforming maybe the contract management side so as a legal team we're managing risk because at any one point the legal team can be like okay what's expiring what you know something happens you look at liable came in and everyone was having to you know repaper because the rates were changing covid happened everyone was looking at forceur like you know like this is a real issue and a problem and everyone was scrambling because they didn't know the contracts that were going to potentially impact them negatively so again a contract management system you can handle these you know kind of what do I call them impacts and and you know scenarios that happen you know globally and it's giving you the data to actually mitigate against risk for that whereby you can do it without it taking five months because by then it's too late and then you can also you know you can interact with your stakeholders your suppliers in a much better way you know as a as a legal team you can decide okay well I can start to look at you know how can I you know how can I kind of re you know rework the way that we speak with suppliers well for one I need to know what what what we're doing you know who do we have what what are our positions with these you know with these contracts so for that I think it's it's again a big a big positive and we're not even really talking about AI to some extent here right yeah so you know we've got the practice Management systems on the law firm side and then on the corporate side we've got that kind of legal front door um and you know we've got companies like law view that that do that do that really well there are companies like link squares amongst others and really I think what these companies do is they help the legal team therefore you know lawyers inhouse yeah and again that's where I think they can see really great kind of you know efficiencies within their legal team and then you can actually bring in AI into that so law view for example has you know the whole kind of legal front door CLM but then what they have is the AI tool where you can actually say okay well actually now let's look at third party review Let's Build A playbook let's build a Playbook with positioning and let's look at okay how can I ingest a contract and how can I negotiate without having to review it and spend five million hours and again because they're using this contract repository all of their data is there yeah they haven't got to go anywhere else so again you need to look at things of how can we we don't necessarily have to solve everything in now Rome wasn't built in a day but we can start to bring in technology that does pieces of it now some people might already have a CLM tool you know maybe they're using D trust or or another firm you know because they've already got it for their board you know management again there are so many different ways that are ER can manage what they're doing you know Dilly trust for example are are looking at governance and stakeholder reporting and you know how do we manage entities from a from a governance aspect but again if you're using them for a CLM tool you still want to leverage other things like third party contract review or or other you know use cases so then you've got the beauty of there are other tools that you can go out and look for so maybe you don't want to look at a law view because you've already got that you can then go out and look at a Robbin AI who are you know focused on analyzing contracts a legal AI assistant being able to kind of have a I call it like a pocket paralal and be able to talk to a system like you do Google and say you know how you know I'm drafting a contract for client X you know help you know what did we do in the last you know three iterations and then but maybe actually that's not what you want and you know maybe you don't need need to build reports so then you might go and say okay well maybe a legal on is better for me because they're not only leveraging our data as a client I.E you know I want to leverage the data that we have within our contracts I also want to leverage what's best practice with the law I want to know okay well this Clause is good for me creating a you know real estate contract but what about you know if we look at the laws in the UAE or the UK you know does this is this the best suggestion so you want an AI tool that can be like this is your position as your company but also you should take this into account and this is for me where AI gets really really interesting because as a lawyer your whole method of you know creating contracts reviewing contracts the day-to-day of your life has just become easier yeah with all this in in mind I one of the terms that come to mind is is one of this also new terms that come which is legal Ops legal operations I'm now thinking where a traditional Law Firm or a traditional legal uh uh Department in one of the corporates uh they're not used to all of these new technologies and now they want to uh embrace the technology and go into all of this but they're afraid that they will interrupt their operations so they want to take a little bit of an advice how can we get an advice on the legal operations based on the new technologies and what what is the connection between the legal Ops and the and the legal Tech at the moment so legal Ops I think is is is a necessity actually and I think the problem that we see here is that law firms are well you know they're well kind of versed on this right they have Innovation teams you know Knowledge Management you know they all kind of work fairly differently but they're all you know they're generally Loy you know people that have the legal background so they're lawyers by Nature so they understand what lawyers are trying to do and and they but what what they're doing is focusing fully on that right because if you're a partner in a law firm you don't really have time to be doing this and that's what happened years ago you know they would just be given an extra hat and of course if you've got a client and you're working on a litigation case or an m&a case you can't prioritize that you know you've got the the GC or the CEO of ADN not ringing you up you know you're not going to say hang on a minute I need to I need to speak to the team because we've got a legal Tech initiative you know they're going to they're going to run to another Law Firm so that's what we saw the challenge but now that people are creating teams to do this this is where we're actually now able to actually build function so law firms have been doing this for quite some time but the in-house teams obviously not because they're you know not because of their any work you know it's not because law firms are better it's just because the law firm model has needed it quicker so for the in-house teams now they're now kind of thinking oh like we need this now you know everything's transforming and we need to get on and I think the problem now is how do we do that like you said you know legal Ops what is it it's such a new word to some extent yeah and and you also need to have someone that's got a legal background that's a techie that understands processes like this is hard like this isn't easy there aren't a a whole host of people that do it I mean I've been doing this for 20 years and I actually had a conversation with a friend the other day and she was like I understand what you do now I've been friends with you since we were like three years old and it's only because everyone now is talking about Ai and legal tech for years I think even my friends are like what does she actually do you know she's she says she works with lawyers but she's not a lawyer and I think this is the this is where we're moving to so for legal Ops I think you know you need Consultants you need you know you need you need to kind of look at again someone that can come in and understand your processes and you need to put someone in charge of that that can it can be their job and the interesting thing here with the legal in-house Community is that my knowledge Nexus hat the company that I run is all around that kind of legal training empowering lawyers to you know to to to be able to kind of you know do their jobs effectively you know without you know in a in an industry where we're just doing too much and we don't have time and one of the things I think that's going to really help that is the the the D team the Dubai legal Affairs Department are you know are constantly looking at ways they can support the industry that they regulate and they are actually about to roll out a legal Ops qualification so you know I think I think again it proves that the industry knows that there's a need so we're hoping that that's going to come out around you April time and that has been created in um conjunction with GLS Global legal Solutions who are experts in this so they have a global consultancy business and they help companies set this up they go in and kind of create entire you know teams and and processes and networks so they've built a 50h hour I think qualification course and again it's not say to lawyers oh it's another another training it's actually built to help you you know if you're a general counsel and you're going to hire AE of legal Ops because you know you need to what does that role even look like how how are you even going to post a job advert because most people don't know right how do you Benchmark it for pay how do you how do you look for the right people so the the this qualification I think you know or I know is going to help that and this is what the industry needs and and we need to look at okay how can we Empower then from a legal operations role I always think that you're you're so important actually as a team because you are the ones that are going to connect the lawyers to the business to it to stakeholders you're going to be kind of the backbone of legal Tech in a way which is going to be the thing that makes the company run more efficiently and you know you're going to need to be more than a lawyer more than an IT person more than a business analyst and that's where I think it's going to be really important to build teams that bring in all the different levels of experience and then work together and the biggest thing I think that people need to do and this is where legal Tech has failed I've spoken to many gc's I actually had one come up to me at the um legal 500 conference last week after he listened to my panel on you know Ai and how it's changing things is you know people have implemented Tech that's not worked and it's just not quite fit the bill you know they thought it was going to be great and I think my biggest piece of advice to any lawyer is you need to you need to look at what you need first you know the tech is great but if it doesn't you know we're almost going at it from the wrong angle we need to come at it from we need to look at people processes Implement you know what do we actually what are our requirements like we need to we need to map what we need now the problem is we don't know what we need this is this is very important because a lot of the smaller Boutique firms for them this is a huge expense when I take a consultant to rerun all my operations and I don't know if this consultant also understand Boutique firms because Boutique firms don't work when with the same way as the big firms where they have 50 uh lawyers or 50 Partners in it or even work like DC so as new as it is small boutique firms like me for example we don't understand what are you going to change in our operations I understand very well because I'm working on it for a while right now but many people in the market they don't feel like they need it they have their own processes a lot of it is manual a lot of it is used in hybrid model between manual and and Tech um is there enough consultants in the market who can advise on smaller companies because bigger companies I understand that all the big Consultants are able to help them yeah and and this is the thing right no not everyone wants to go you know there are obviously the big names the big four that are brilliant but not everyone has the budget right for the big four sorry yeah but I I think there are yes and and also I think sometimes the legal Tech consult kind of Partners themselves are evolving and actually you can you know they have kind of people within their teams that can help and this is I think the other thing we all think of technology these big Enterprise you know I mean CLM back in the day was kind of your sap and your arber and your dment you know millions of dollars you know technology I think Tech is evolved now with the AI that you don't need that necessarily and if you're a boutique farm that you know is smaller than a you know International magic circle you can probably benefit just as much as a Clifford chance or wh case and and there are Technologies out there now that can can you know can help there I mean I I worked with a with a company out here called Nexa and Leroy their managing partner you know came to us and and I had a conversation and they were like you know we know that we need to kind of look at what we can do but we just don't know where to start and I had this conversation and and you know he said it was like a kind of a hor moment of oh we can actually you know we can actually like Leverage this and I worked with them actually and they leveraged some technology um actually henchman which was then which was now owned by Lexus Nexus Ai and because when I spoke to them you know I really understood their needs I was like okay well they're you they're project Finance lawyers they're working on lots of big construction projects no surprises there being in Dubai and they were like we just don't you know we we need to leverage some level of kind of contract review but we don't need you know we don't we're not at the same level of we have a couple of lawyers you know and this is I think the other thing that there are technologies that you can use there are tools that you can look at that are available for a couple of you know a license you know where you can just have a couple of users so for a small uh you know I don't like the word small because you're still often dealing with big clients and big projects that for a boutique Law Firm you know there are companies out there like Cleo for example um you know they're they're actually coming out here in a couple of weeks and I'm on a panel for with them and they're trying to transform the way that the boutique law firms and the midmarket work because they're like you can use case management tools so again as a smaller Law Firm you know automate the intake of what's Happening automate you know the way that your you know your billing Works automate automate the stuff that's just headache and admin in so that you can actually work and focus on you know the important stuff and again you know you can do that because it can be it can be embedded and also the other thing I think I haven't touched upon is make sure that you use technologies that interact with the Technologies you're using Microsoft are you a Microsoft user are you using Salesforce are you using Google are you using teams like you need technologies that interact with this because we're all on our phones we're all on email and the last thing you want is something that doesn't you know kind of talk you know I want if I'm a lawyer and I'm using technology I want to be able to go my email to sync you know and again if we look at review tools I'm used to getting a email and a Word document and I then want to use the tool in word I don't want to have to log into five different things and that's where AI is really enhanced now because we can look at Technologies both for law firms and in-house teams where we can leverage things that work in the apps that that we're used to you know and that can you know you can actually you know you don't have to change the way you're working you know for an in-house team your sales team can continue to use Salesforce but you know the technology is embedded in it so that the sales team are happy because they don't want to change but the GC and the legal team are happy because they've got their kind of oversight and you know the workflow that they need from a legal perspective of governance and you know running those contracts and the the argument has always been well who who takes precedent the legal te team you know ultimately is is really important but also is a sales team because they're the one that are signing the deals that bring the money in and this is where legal te legal Tech I actually think the biggest value for for teams is that it's going to bridge the gap between the business so the law the legal team are not going to be seen as a blocker you know or what do you do all day or what you know you I've chased you five million times of that contract and you still haven't got back to me because they don't really understand what you do so it's G to it's going to help you know that relationship legal Tech now it it allows a lawyer to talk the language of a business because you get you get analysis that you can actually give to a CFO in you know because he says to a lawyer or or the GC you know why do why are we going to give you budget for this this is the biggest problem with legal Tech as well right yeah why am I going to give you budget for this and the lawyer can't go back and say well because it's going to make us more efficient because then he's going to say okay so does that mean I can cut your head count so really what we need to do is we need to get the CFO or or the board to understand how it's going to help them it's going to potentially reduce risk that's that's in their interest it's going to reduce the contract signing time so that when we looking at these big you know Billion Dollar Deals we're not then stuck in this negotiation phase for months because that's what they care about so again we have to talk the language of the business you know if you look at the law firms again it's the partnership of a of a law firm and a corporate is changing I mean you yourself delved into this the other week and again I think we have to look at it look at how it's helping in in a positive way and when we look at technology again if we all it always goes back to the people it goes back to relationship it goes back to community and Network and and that's you know that's what it's going to free us up for yeah I think one of the significant changes that the technology has been has has been very instrumental as well was the education and the continuous training and how easy it it become and how U accessible uh we we these training courses are are and I think just because of technology I can get my training and my continuous learning or my updated uh courses on the legal uh not just legal and everything but the use of Technology have made it very very easy to take a course run by anybody anywhere in the world about a topic that I'm interested in and uh and and get qualified even get certified for a specific area of practice uh through technology and this helps a lot and I I know very well that through knowledge Nexus you have been um active on that so talk to me a little bit about knowledge and Nexus yeah so knowledge and Nexus has been exciting actually it's been kind of a thought Pro a long thought process and and I guess the most interesting part of it is yes the backbone of it is training you know we have a it's an LM I mean you know education is the backbone but actually I like to think of it as kind of education Community you know people because as lawyers we need access to this right and like you said it's not just the law you know lawyers all went to law school they all know the law and but actually being a good lawyer these days is not just about the law it's about being able to do business it's about having a it's being able to run you know a team it's about being able to win clients it's about being able to talk to the CEO you know have having difficult conversations being able to to sell something to get you know your board to agree to it and so I think that's something that we lack sometimes because you know yes we've got all of the you know the the learning side and actually if you look at online learning it's really important but also is is in person but I think when you look at the online learning like the CPD program one of the things I worked with the dlad did a b legal Affairs department on was they did a survey actually to lawyers and one of the biggest things that came back was you know we we need more we want a we want a better way of consuming training we want a better way of you know managing the regulation you know every lawyer that wants that has a practicing license has to get you know eight points from Dad and eight points you know from the non-mandatory and every lawyer I speak to says like every year I'm like how how many have I done what have I done have I got to get more quick sign me up to these events and these you know training and that's not really what we want because then technically they you know they're not doing training for what its purposes right it would be much better to kind of have a evolution of each year where they kind of process and they get training on what what they want and what they need well one of one of my big pains when I was taking these courses was to drive all the way down to alhuda building which was like in the middle of okay there you know and it was timed and it was hard to find a parking and it was um honestly I was not making choices based on what I want to hear I was making choices based on let's get this done with and that's all honestly and when can I fit it in my calendar right yeah whereas really imagine having courses where you know you still have a mod you know a course right but like you have it in digestable engageable let's also think about do we really want to be satad looking through these long power points what we want is what we're used to on our phone like we're used to we're used to kind of be we engage in a different way so we engage better when we're not just seeing a flat screen of text right we engage when we can scroll when things change visually we visual people so if we can if we can kind of you know if we can take in training in that way it's actually more kind of well it's more enjoyable I mean I'm not I'm you know as enjoyable as training can be I mean we we all changed the way we consume knowledge now have changed a lot since many years and I think education system itself and patterns have changed and and education I think is outdated right which is a whole another topic I agree and but but if we can give lawyers training in a way that's useful for them that's digestible it's something that becomes less of a burden of I've got to do you know I've got three more four more points to get whatever and and that means having a a system where you know again our minds kept you know there's science behind this right there's science behind where we zone out and we just click click click but if we have something where you know where we're active and we can look at videos you know our our kind of you know system has the ability to change the way that we build training you know so we can look at it as you know yes we've got text and we've got pictures and we can scroll and you know keep keep the Mind ticking over because that's how the human brain works but then have a video you know that person that would have been leading the in you know the inperson training have them kind of you know facilitating because again that's going to kind of keep us more engaged but then at the end of it like you said you want it you know you need to have that kind of mandatory compliance you know angle covered so that's where we built the program to kind of match the CPD program so that lawyers can access training no hustle and and but also it tracks the CPD so at the end of the year you haven't got a you can constantly look at your file and be like okay I'm I'm done I've actually done I've I'm done that's what we want right we want lawyers to to want to to learn to want to take in knowledge about the things that they're passionate about maybe they want to know more about ESG because they want to learn about you know how they can bring that into their practice you know they want to learn more about soft skills like you and I have had this discussion a few times it's something that I'm super passionate about because it's not just about the law it's about soft skills and if we as lawyers are looking at the Next Generation which is the other side of this right you've got you know thousands of law students that are studying right now here in Dubai and they are the future you know the future legal leaders if you like they're going to be the ones that are going to come and work in your firm like you're going to be hiring these people and you want good talent you want the best of the best so as a profession we need to give back to these lawyers because the education system to be frank is not doing them you know Justice to some extent because yes they're brilliantly trained they understand the law I work with interns you know I I Mentor some law students in Middle sex and they're brilliant you know they look at things and you know they pick out things even quicker than I am and they've not even started practicing it yeah but what they want is they want to know how to navigate life they want to know how how do I deal with the stress of leaving the classroom and coming into the the world how am I going to get through an interview how do I have a difficult conversation how do I how do I how do I kind of project confidence without being kind of you know offensive or things like this and you know to be a good lawyer is that to some extent is Way Beyond Where what you learned for art school yes and this is where I think the education sector can go right and and lawyers want this as well I think you know we all I think there's an element of we never stop learning right like I learn you know I'm learning every day as we all are but I think if we can build something that that kind of gives this back and one thing that I'm doing as as as knowledge and NEX is I really want to be seen is kind of the backbone of the legal Community whereby people think of us as they're helping us with training kind of you know and and connecting us with what we need you know I ran an event last week at the DFC Academy and and you know around 50 lawyers turned up you know ESG is a subject that you know some I think don't you know is is a scary to some extent you know and but actually what lawyers wanted was practical advice they wanted to learn about what does this actually mean for me in the day-to-day work like what does this mean when I'm reviewing contracts hiring you know yes okay we know that there's climate change and that there's you know a social element to this but what does it mean so I think we need to we need to switch from just a textbook shoving information at people and actually have a discussion have have kind of Engagement and what that session proved to me was that people do want to learn about this you know people do want to know what it means and as knowledge Nexus I want to be I want want to kind of give people this and and with that it means working with everyone it means working with the general councils with the in-house legal teams with the law firms because you all work together you know you know as a law firm you're working with the corporates as the corporates they need you you know there's the Consultants they're also needed for the you know for the kind of Niche experts spaces and things like that and so again I think what better place to bring all of that together whereby you can come in and get online learning if you need it and seal PD points because it's just part of part of the day job but also come in and you know and and you know find events find round taes find panels like I run GC events constantly I did one with FTI a couple of weeks ago and had about 11 gc's in the room and Kate braer the head of risk came over from the UK and she was brilliant she talked about uh a kind of Crisis scenario you know as a lawyer you get pulled in the room because you know video gets leaked of the CEO you know and it's not quite what it should be and everyone's panicking you know marketing a like comms are kind of like what do we do and how do you manage that you know you've got the CEO who's a very you know he's he's a stakeholder and and that's what lawyers want right they want to learn how to kind of navigate these because yes they know the law and they're they're looking at okay what do we have to do what what what's what's our kind of you know regulatory standpoint but also how do we enable the business to handle this and so people want to be in groups to engage and learn you know and and we were in a group and you the GC of kafu brought up an example of you know something that had happened where you know they were seeing kind of Photoshopped evidence of something that you know they had to deal with and you know other people were talking about whistleblowing and you know information being leaked to the Press about uh particular deals this all gives legal a headache I totally agree with you and having a community of lawyers around you and being in this uh any kind of legal Society in general is is very important and it's uh something that empowers you and helps you a lot gives you a lot of ideas and um you get a lot of advice I remember yesterday uh I I had a phone call with one very young lawyer a smart one um because he did something wrong and he did some uh mistake and he was so afraid so stressed uh how how how is going to handle the situation with the client how he's going to handle the situation with the managing partner but because he's within our society as Emir legal Network he came to me and said hey I know you are a CSP in adgm I know you're a lawyer I know you're um doing this and that and and you're working with emeran network I need your opinion and this access to me I I I gave him uh advice on what to do uh to own up to the mistake how to fix it uh showing up to the client showing up to the managing partner and this kind of advice um help him and the he came to me last night and and gave me a feedback he's like thank you very much our C- worked everything is settled everything is is is is nice now and gave me an assurance is that I sometimes make this call to others as well you know so I really help that guy we're all human right yes and I I I had other similar problems is that I made this call as well and I think being part of the society is very very important um I want to ask you one last question that is should be uh um what should be your advice or a tip for anybody who want to embrace uh technology and take part of the legal Tech Evolution or the technology Revolution that is happening with AI right now where do they start so I think the first thing is to to not be scared of it you know I think we have to it's not going anywhere it's clear that it's there right and we have to understand that it's there to help us so I think of it as like you know getting in your car and it's taking you from A to B that the biggest misconception of legal Tech is that it's a magic red button the amount of lawyers I speak to they're like oh you know I was ah this was meant to do this and it doesn't work and I'm like okay well why doesn't it work like tell me you I'm listening and I'm like okay so let's let's take it a step back if you were talking to your paralal associate what information would you give them and they're like okay this and I'm like so why is the machine G to be any different why are you expecting the AI to read your mind you need to give it information like it it's like anything in life right you get out what you put in and technology is no different so again I think the really important thing is that we still remember to to learn and actually quickly to touch upon the the newer generation and the students like we have to give back right we have to Empower them to to do better I mean the example you said like how great that that person felt like he could you know Reach Out rather than sit there and just stew and panic you know that that's a credit to you you know that he felt like he could reach out and that that to me as Community that's what we should all be and like that you know out of everything you've done in your career that's probably something that actually gives you that kind of feeling of purpose right like and and for students I think it's we need to remember that legal Tech doesn't mean that we have to stop thinking so we need to learn with it and we still need to be switched on like think about chat gbt right we can get it to answer anything but it doesn't mean we have to stop questioning it why can you give me references can you can you look at why it you know why like what's the background of that because then as a lawyer we can be like okay I understand why it gave me that answer I didn't spend 20 hours writing that memo but I kind of understand how it was put together so for junior lawyers they they have to kind of remember that they still still need to think and and not use it and and and for us kind of seasoned professions we we also need to but again I think my biggest piece of advice would be yeah embrace it look back at what you want to achieve so don't try and fix everything try and look at okay well would my daily life be better if I fixed this one portion if I didn't have to spend hours updating an Excel spreadsheet um you know I was talking to a client recently and they were managing their IP portfolio on a spreadsheet there are Technologies out there you know I've just been working with two in-house teams with a firm called right hub and they transform the way that a legal team or a law firm because they have two different you products that can manage that so again that lawyer now doesn't have to update a spreadsheet of their thousands of trademarks and run the risk of not re-registering or renewing a trademark because that means that someone else could come in and you know take it there's really ramifications or they miss an infringement because they realized that some firm in Italy was ripping off their logo I was talking to the GC of almarai once and he was like they have a real problem of their logo being used in petrol stations companies trying to sell their products that as a legal team is an issue and they're not knowing that so we need to figure out again like look at something that you want to fix that you're spending too much time on daily and then speak to someone about that you know and and find technology so don't just go out there being like I want technology I want legal Tech be like I want to fix this thing I want to spend less time data entry I want to spend less time updating that spreadsheet I want to spend less time looking at a document I want to spend less time creating an m&a due diligence report for my client then we can start to look at okay well now I can look at something that's specific for that for you I can find you something that yes maybe it does a lot of other things as well but we can fit it to that a it's going to help you better B when you go to your stakeholders to get budget for it it's going to be well I hate the word easy because it's not you know and and I think if we look at this we start to kind of break it down and then we can evolve with it and we can look at kind of kind of what I call you know bolting on different things well thank you so much for all the knowledge and all the information that you're giving us and all the very valuable advises it was really knowledgeable education from you to us thank you so much Sophie thank you well my last take about this my friends legal Tech don't just jump into it AI legal AI Solutions don't just jump there first of all understand it educate yourself invest in the knowledge but invest first in yourself so that you understand what do you need it for and how can you use it because with these two um elements you're going to be able able to um enhance your career enhance your productivity enhance your work and you be able to understand what is legal Tech and use it in the best way don't just jump into any solution out there ask yourself what is the problem how can I fix it what are the tools in the market that help me fix it do I know how to use it invest in yourself educate yourself understand it and then legal Tech will work for you and will be um the best use case for legal tech for legal AI for technology for Knowledge Management for legal Ops for all these lovely amazing expressions or new terminologies coming up in the market thank you very much for being with us and this is your dose for Monday legal see you next week