Anyone working in a UK law firm will be aware that in the modern office it is no longer enough to be a good lawyer, paralegal or secretary/P.A., you need to understand the technology on your desktop and be able to use it competently. The time spent undertaking a task is critical and nowhere is this more important than in a law firm. No-one can afford to take excessive amounts of time locating documents or emails; navigating around them; making amendments and storing them in a secure, stable environment where they can be viewed by everyone involved with a client’s matter and so on.
Technology is central to everyone’s working world and many clients are now asking for confirmation that their legal advisers are working efficiently. Added to this are the risks associated with lack of knowledge – particularly with regard to information security. Law firms know that they have a responsibility to ensure that their clients’ confidential data is stored in a secure environment. The biggest risk is their staff who must understand the importance of protecting that data at all times – in and out of the office – so they should be going through training on best practices in handling firm information and formal security awareness training to avoid data breaches and damaging publicity for the firm.
The SRA is ending its traditional insistence on a minimum number of hours of CPD (Continuous Professional Development) and the focus now is on demonstrating competence in both legal and technology skills. Lawyers will be required to prove that they are able to apply their knowledge effectively.
Trainees who join a firm without understanding the sort of systems they are likely to encounter will be at a disadvantage. Unfortunately many believe themselves to be tech-savvy without knowing anything about document and email management systems; e-discovery; time and billing systems; security, etc. Being adept at Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat yet never having used Outlook properly or formatted a legal document in Word using styles means that trainees may need help with fairly basic tasks before they can be useful members of a team. Some forward-thinking law schools have recognized this are including technology modules in the curriculum.
Many firms and law schools who are conscious of the requirements to be more technologically skilled (and who wish to be able to prove this to their clients and to the SRA) have joined LTC4 – the Legal Technology Core Competency Certification Coalition (www.ltc4.org) – which clearly identifies skills that lawyers and future lawyers should have in order to be able to support their clients and it awards an industry standard certification.
The LTC4 certification process has spawned various evaluation and certification methods – all of which make sure that lawyers really are proficient in IT. These range from personal check-lists, multiple choice questions and e-learning simulations to tools which work in the live application and allow for multiple ways of accomplishing a task (Capensys’ Learning in Action (LiA) is a good example) and these provide a clear picture of how well a lawyer or student knows their applications.
Law firms and law schools who recognize how important it is for lawyers to be technologically proficient are gaining competitive advantage over those who do not!