Technology is revolutionising the way businesses work across many industries, including traditional sectors, such as finance and health. Now it is disrupting the legal sector, but not quickly enough, according to Mark Edwards, senior vice-president and general manager, Rocket Lawyer UK.
“Some firms are using technology to improve efficiencies, but it hasn’t been adopted anywhere near enough,” he says. “I certainly don’t think the end customer has seen enough benefit from that change yet.”
Founded nine years ago in the US by Charlie Moore and now established in the UK, France, Spain and the Netherlands, Rocket Lawyer provides online legal help to families and small businesses on a range of issues, from contracts and incorporations, to trademarks and divorce.
Five years ago Edwards came on board to set up the UK business, bringing with him a wealth of technology and business expertise. The computer science graduate had specialised in user experience (UX) design and artificial intelligence (AI), and worked as a UX consultant developing software products before joining the legal sector.
Edwards says: “My role had been to develop and take new products to market for lawyers, so I spent a lot of time with lawyers in law firms, learning how they work and how the industry worked. Law certainly wasn’t where I was heading when I first started working – I thought it was a bit dry – however, the fact that the legal sector is adopting technology quite late makes it a really exciting place to be.”
His skillset of computing and design, business and legal was the perfect combination for his role at Rocket Lawyer. But he admits that the move also highlighted some weaknesses.
“Online marketing was one, because selling online was a whole new world,” he says. “But because we were just a small team of four or five people back then, it was something I had to learn to do.”
Another was leadership. “I wasn’t a natural leader, but part of my role was to build and develop the UK team,” he says. “I did an MBA at Henley Business School and that equips you to understand the different functions in a business. You don’t necessarily learn how to do all those functions yourself, but you have sufficient knowledge of what is required to hire the right people.”
Now, having been involved in the legal sector for 15 years, Edwards is somewhat frustrated by the pace at which it is adopting technology. This lag is due in part to cultural barriers, with many law firms determined to stick to traditional ways and being a privileged profession, with high fees and profitability levels, seeing change as unnecessary. In addition, law is not the easiest service to apply technology to.
“It’s much easier to sell a product online than to deliver a service, especially given the magnitude of complexity of legal services,” says Edwards. “But change is happening, and technology is being used to interact with customers online. People want a better service, easy access and lower costs, and the legal sector must learn how to deliver that.”
Leading the way is Rocket Lawyer where the focus of that transformation is on opening up the legal sector to consumers. Edwards says: “We are following the design aesthetics of online consumer products, such as Facebook, Twitter and Netflix, that are simple, social, human, and a pleasure to use. We are applying the same principles to building simple consumer interfaces to the law.
“It is actually very easy to transition to. On the website you have one box, 600 characters, you tell us what legal help you need and we find you the right lawyer. People are familiar and comfortable with that simple, quick online interaction because they are using it all the time on social media. It is also less daunting and time consuming than ringing a law firm to make an appointment to see them in their offices.”
However the future of this technological transformation lies with those still in the early stages of training for a career in law, training that Edwards insists should include new ways of providing legal advice.
“We see a lot of law graduates coming into Rocket Lawyer and while they are great at using social media, they haven’t really thought about how technology is transforming the profession,” he says. “My advice to law students is to be better prepared, not least because some of them will become the lawtech entrepreneurs who will define the new ways of working.”
The question is: could law be the next sector to be revolutionised by technology startups in the same way that financial services and more recently healthcare services have been? Edwards says that while that is possible, there is a conundrum.
“The UK has the largest financial sector in the world, and the second biggest legal sector globally, both based here in the City [of London], alongside the world’s biggest fintech startup community, yet our lawtech startup scene is still tiny.”
Nevertheless, a fledgling lawtech community is emerging, and if the UK is poised to become a world leader in lawtech the timing could not be better.
“We know that about 80% of people and small businesses don’t go to lawyers to get legal advice, even though they need it,” says Edwards. “My belief is that by using technology to reduce costs and make the service simpler and more accessible by delivering it online, people will use it. We will end up bringing in that 80%, in turn creating a demand for more lawyers to provide legal services.”
This raises the prospect of new technologies, such as AI and robotics, pushing the digital boundaries to meet growing demand. But Edwards is adamant: “You don’t need AI to achieve that. Simple technology allows people to find, connect and work with a lawyer, with automation applied where it makes sense, by being more efficient and cost-effective.
“As for robot lawyers, they don’t exist today and won’t exist in my lifetime, but I do believe that in my lifetime technology will transform the legal industry by making it accessible to all.”
