We support our clients in ensuring that digital transformation initiatives align with other strategic imperatives and on changing behaviour to optimise its impact. We help them make the right decisions and to extract the most value from their investments. We do not advise law firms on the specific technologies they should adopt but collaborate with business partners who specialise in this.
We support our clients in ensuring that digital transformation initiatives align with other strategic imperatives and on changing behaviour to optimise its impact. We help them make the right decisions and to extract the most value from their investments. We do not advise law firms on the specific technologies they should adopt but collaborate with business partners who specialise in this.
We support our clients in ensuring that digital transformation initiatives align with other strategic imperatives and on changing behaviour to optimise its impact. We help them make the right decisions and to extract the most value from their investments. We do not advise law firms on the specific technologies they should adopt but collaborate with business partners who specialise in this.
Digitally-driven change will continue as new technologies emerge, disrupting markets and business models of both law firms and their clients. ‘Digital transformation’ implies something with a start and a finish. We therefore prefer to refer to ‘digital maturity’ which instead implies an intelligent, sophisticated approach to creating strategic value with these emerging digital technologies.
We support our clients in:
- understanding how the ‘law firm of the future’ will likely be different to today and what firms need to do in order to prepare for that future
- focusing on how clients are being disrupted by emerging digital technologies and understanding how that will lead to new legal needs, requiring new skills and knowledge to adequately advise clients
- using principles and methodologies drawn from the ‘Agile Movement’ pioneered by technology companies, to evolve the firm’s business model in order to capture value offered by emerging technologies, which defusing challenges
- identifying specific ‘pain points’ where technology would provide clear, immediate solutions
- assessing systems, processes and activities, to discover inefficiencies and how technology, either on its own or (more frequently) in combination with humans can enhance efficiency and create other value
- assessing the firm’s readiness for digital transformation, in terms of the mindsets of the firm’s people and its culture
- business capability mapping, to identify capabilities in place and gaps to fill in order to make digital transformation possible
- selecting the best technology and successful* implementation of that technology
- working with vendors and across standalone systems to facilitate process change and drive efficiency.
* +/- 90% of digital pilot projects fail, because the projects do not focus first on identifying clear and important needs that would be best met with technology, and only then the choice of the technology itself. (Legal Geek, London, 2018)
Read more:
Thriving at the Edge of Chaos
Case Study:
Workshop using a case study in which a law firm’s use of innovative new technology, amongst other things, needed to be balanced against client needs
A case study was constructed for a leading European law firm for use at their partner conference, in which half the participants assumed client roles from an in-house legal team and the client’s executive and the other half from a law firm advising that client. The case study explored how perceptions of value frequently differ between practicing lawyers and their clients, including about initiatives involving LegalTech.
Case Study:
The African Law Firm of the Future
A one-day workshop was conducted in Zanzibar in 2018 for the East African Law Society, supported by the IBA, with the participants being senior law firm leaders from leading East African law firms and in-house legal counsel from leading East African corporates. The topic was how African law firms might be different in five years, to today. Topics explored included the use of machine learning products, cybersecurity and document assembly. A similar event is being planned for late 2019, probably to be held in Uganda.
Case Study:
Law Without Walls (‘LWOW’) 2019
LWOW is a part-virtual experiential learning program designed to change the mindsets, skillsets, and behaviours of practicing and aspiring lawyers. Over the course of 16 weeks, each team co-creates a Project of Worth: a business case and practicable solution to a real problem sponsored by a corporate legal department, law company, or law firm. In 2019, we mentored or otherwise supported two of the teams, one on the conventional programme and the other on the LWOW-X programme, where the teams collaborated entirely online. We were especially delighted when the LWOW-X team that we mentored was placed first overall for the virtual contest and won best presentation for the main event in Miami, in April!
2019 LWOW Kick-off event (Segovia, Spain)
Case Study:
London Host: Global Legal Hackathon, 2018 and 2019
In 2018 and 2019, Cambridge Strategy Group co-hosted the London node of the Global Legal Hackathon. The first rounds, run over a weekend in February, attracted >5,000 participants from >40 cities in 20 countries across 6 continents. Winners of the first round went into a semi-final elimination round then a final in New York City. This event is important to us. The range of ideas that emerge is immense and give an indication of ideas (mostly but not all technology-based) that are emerging at the fringes of legal services. It also shows how much can be achieved with intense focus over a short period of time, by an enthusiastic and engaged team of experts.
First Round of the 2019 Global Legal Hackathon, London…
