Law firms of the future will have to have a combination of skills straddling both technology and the law. There is little doubt that increased adoption of lawtech is going to drive recruitment for different skills both within law firms and within the wider lawtech ecosystem. 

The adoption of cloud computing within certain parts of the legal sector is already feeding through to different skill sets within legal IT departments. This is also reflected by the evolution of the role of trainees, which is being adapted to embrace technology. 

The growth of disruptive technologies including artificial intelligence and predictive coding has translated into less-bespoke work, such as drafting simple contracts and reviewing documents, and more tasks like secondary review of relevant documents flagged by the primary reviewers. An understanding of technology – and of its legal applications – will become indispensable skills for future trainees. 

Another issue is that whilst in most law firms there is some form of  technology in place, its potential is often squandered when the technology is too complicated, or documentation and training are lacking. 

Thus, new and costly technology is underused, because the barrier to use it seems too high. Vendors have extensive knowledge about their products, but sometimes the documentation does not translate their knowledge effectively. 

Therefore, firms should not only be supportive in enabling staff training, with the ultimate goal in mind of increasing productivity, but also, there should be additional training after the software has been implemented and used throughout the law firm.