Letting Lawyers be Lawyers: Principles of Legal Value Optimization

Abstract

Many legal futurologists proclaim the coming of a dystopian world for lawyers. In this world, the rise of automation requires the fall of lawyers. We are more optimistic, and see the new world as a way to increase the value contribution of the legal role. There is more potential than ever to “Let lawyers be lawyers”, to focus on core legal tasks and avoid administrative drudgery. In-house legal departments will be the epicentre of this shift, as the place where the competing forces of business and legal converge. A pressing imperative to change the way legal services are delivered has been created by a ferocious increase in legal demand and the need to meet it in a complex risk environment (the legal forces) while finding ways to reduce cost at the same time (the business forces).