A few weeks ago, I went to the very-well attended launch of LegalX, a new law-focused innovation hub at the MaRS Discovery District in Toronto. The event, held in the airy and inviting atmosphere of MaRS, attracted many of the familiar faces of the New Law movement in Canada. LegalX was the brainchild of Aron Solomon and Jason Moyse, both “reformed” lawyers-turned-entrepreneurs.
The event included the launch of Law Scout, LegalX’s first legal tech startup, as well as a panel of legal innovators, entrepreneurs, and tech journalists from Canada and United States, who had a spirited discussion about “the future.” The room was filled not just with some of the usual lawyers who frequent these types of events but a variety of others including professional law firm managers — COOs, CFOs, CIOs, and the like — as well as students of the law variety and beyond, legal service providers, coders, developers, and I’m sure others.
As was said many times over the evening, the legal segment is feeling pressure in many areas — particularly technology. So what are we going to do about it? A trenchant question, especially in Canada, which lags other common law countries like the United Kingdom, Australia, and the United States in new and novel legal services.
I think one of the questions everyone asks is: how do I innovate? Or even more often: what is innovation?
To start with, it was stressed by the panel not to erase lawyers from the equation. According to Cian O’Sullivan, the top dog of Beagle, a contract review software, the starting point is to find processes, or parts of processes, that can be automated. It’s “breaking down problems into simple, small questions that can quickly and easily be answered.” When addressed, streamlining those problems will make lawyers work better, easier, more efficient, etc. Innovating is not necessarily doing something completely new but doing it better and differently from your competitors. Often filling a gap they aren’t.
But the key is not to focus on the lawyers and definitely not just on the issues or problems of lawyers in big law firms. “The law applies to everybody,” said O’Sullivan. Don’t look at it from a lawyer or law firm perspective but how law touches everything. As Moyse often notes, there’s an $800-billion opportunity going begging in providing legal services to those who, for the most part, aren’t accessing legal help.
So c’mon Canada, let’s get innovating. Even, as I wrote about a couple of months ago, if you start with “minivations.” If you’re aiming bigger, LegalX can probably help if you’re ready to take a chance. Opportunities await.
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I’m pleased and proud once again to share the accolades we’ve recently been given. Last month at the annual Kenneth R. Wilson Awards, the celebration of Canada’s business press, Canadian Lawyer and Canadian Lawyer InHouse were nominated for seven awards for our editorial and artistic work last year. These included “Cryptocurrency,” the June 2014 article about the law and regulation, or lack thereof, surrounding virtual currencies. A big congratulations to writer Luis Millán, who took home a gold award in the best feature article-professional category for “Cryptocurrency.” Our talented art director William Hunter and visionary photographer Liam Sharp were honoured with a silver award in the art direction of an opening spread category for their collaboration on our “Bad Law” feature in the May 2014 issue. We had five honourable mentions as well in a variety of writing and visual categories. Congratulations to all of our staff and contributors who work so hard to provide readers with high quality, Canadian-focused legal journalism.
