When GC surveyed and interviewed a host of general counsel at some of the biggest corporate players in Latin America, what emerged was a variety of approaches to the question of how best to incorporate technology into the daily life of the in-house legal department. But whether the response was a wholehearted embrace, a cautious side glance, or something in between, what many agreed on was the fact that technology has made a significant advance into legal teams over the last five years – and that advance is set to continue.

‘In my three years at Bayer, I’ve seen the introduction of many systems. For example, a new tool was just introduced this year for contracts and Prime for data privacy was introduced last year. Comcat (a compliance tool) was in diapers three years ago, but it has gained significant importance around how we report on compliance cases. In my three-year period, it has moved very much towards a technology-based or technology-oriented profession,’ says Catalina Morales, data privacy manager for Central America and Caribbean at Bayer in Costa Rica, currently in an assignment based in St. Louis, US.

Bayer has taken a global approach, with the Central America region assimilating accordingly. But general counsel at Archer Daniels Midland Brazil, Patricia Ulian, has added personal momentum to the tech wave.

‘I myself am a person that really thinks that technology is important, because you really can replace operational work that I think is not a priority for senior lawyers – I try to prioritise the strategic issues and benchmarking, in order to check the other companies and really understand what we have in the market. I try to improve and, if this is the case, we invest externally,’ she says.

‘Five years ago, information control was totally dependent on human action. In-house lawyers were much more operational and less strategic, as they had to dedicate their time to fill in Excel sheets and other reports. The margin of error was high, the time of responses was longer – and those aspects directly influenced the quality of the decision-making process of the company.’

A race to technology?

In this spirit of striving to minimise administrative tasks, the GCs we interviewed for this report have much in common with their counterparts around the world, who have bid farewell to the paper-based days of yore. But some feel that parts of Latin America have further to go to catch up with peers in certain jurisdictions. Selim Erdil Guvener, general counsel at the International Potato Center in Peru, is one such person, having moved to Latin America six years ago after a career that has taken him to London, Istanbul, Nairobi and Benin.

‘I think the legal profession in Peru is behind the US and Western Europe in terms of adopting new technology. Here, I can still only see technology use at the word processing and some systems levels. But lawyers will need to adapt quickly, as digital transformation is picking up speed, especially in the government,’ he says.

Of course, in a region the size of Latin America – including 20 countries for the purposes of our research – and with the unique character of each country, it is impossible to draw conclusions that are too general.

‘Latin America consists of many nations,’ says Ulian. ‘For example, you’ve got both Mexico and Bolivia – these are two totally different countries with different levels of development. When you think of Mexico, there are many differences in culture, and you must also consider the dependency on the US. You also have Brazil, which speaks Portuguese, whilst all other Latin American nations speak Spanish. You have many differences, but Brazil is a pioneer in this area compared to other Latin American countries.’

Vastly differing economical, commercial, societal, and geographical landscapes across the numerous countries making up the Latin American region have resulted in similarly different priorities for the governments governing those countries. Regulatory differences therefore exist across the region and, in some cases, technology regulation might not be the most pressing or significant issue for the relevant country regulators and the legislature.

Despite the inherent differences between the various countries that comprise the Latin America region the counsel who participated in the quantitative aspect of our research were near unanimous in their agreement that technology had become an essential component of any in-house lawyer’s role. Indeed, 96% of respondents reported using specialised legal tech within their departments, with only 11% saying that the use of technology within their legal department hadn’t changed in the last five years.

Says Ulian: ‘I believe legal technology is already helping us to work smarter and can make in-house teams more efficient, improve knowledge retention, accelerate professional development and reduce potential burnout.’

Making connections

Some general counsel stressed the importance of technology in bringing closeness among parties, be they internal, external, or even customers.

‘I think the future is about AI and connection, because as much as we can be connected now, we cannot connect things and people – AI helps with this. When you can make out as many links as you can between people and information – for example, you can now make a complete profile on and of anyone… This is powerful because I can have a conversation with them and convince them of something, because essentially, I know them now,’ Ulian explains.

‘We can see this when purchasing items on Amazon: when you buy a product, Amazon offers you other related products. This is embryonic and I think the future will be more like that. The more connected we are with information, the more connected we are with people.’

But on a more prosaic level, the existence of technology can foster a greater understanding between legal department and business partner.

‘We are now a lot closer to our clients, thanks to technology. Not only from a telecommunications and technology point of view, but also because we’re able to follow their work and provide support almost instantly. Now that we have significant information technology support, we can understand what the client’s business actually is,’ says Guvener.

‘Let me give you an example: we have a monitoring and evaluation platform where we gather all the information – this is not necessarily legal information. But, we do have the key performance indicators in there. We can look at it and identify the key challenges colleagues are facing. We can see if there is anything related to legal challenges. Therefore, we can pre-empt project implementation challenges before they become real bottlenecks for projects. The ability to work on legal documents in real time is a real big change.’

The human touch

Much discussion on the topic of technology centres on the issue of how much professionals have to fear from technological advancement. But many of the general counsel we spoke to were relaxed about any potential ‘threat’ posed by machines.

‘Technology is not here to replace a lawyer’s work, but rather to enhance it. There is a human factor that lawyers provide – interpretations, judgement, decisions, solutions and knowledge of legal systems and a particular business situation – that need to be part of the entire law system, that is why technology and human knowledge are complementary. On the other hand, if a lawyer keeps up with the different technological changes and embraces new technologies, the exercise of the legal profession will be improved. In fact, I believe you will become a better professional,’ says Juan Pablo Ovalle Arana, country counsel at IBM Colombia.

Rather than replacing lawyers, those we surveyed for this report were strongly in agreement that technology was a tool to be used to enhance the outcomes provided by lawyers, not replace them. 66% said that technology could enhance outcomes for in-house departments to a great extent, with a further 31% agreeing but to a moderate degree. Only 3% of respondents had a divergent opinion.

There was a sense among general counsel in the region that the increasing use of technology tools was unlikely to remove lawyers from a role as ultimate architect of legal solutions, primarily because of the importance of the human element in contributing to productive outcomes.

That humanity was defined as communicating through body language, reading through the lines, and responding to the emotional component of client representation, identifying the exceptions that prove the rule, and the quirks of life and law that build the richest understanding of any situation.

Applying emotional intelligence – be it with opposite parties negotiation or litigation, or in internal client interactions – is far from an exact science, yet the lawyer’s role relies heavily on these essential interpersonal skills alongside technical expertise. As in the healthcare profession, while a machine might contribute pinpoint accurate analysis and speed to a diagnosis or treatment, there is currently no automated substitute for bedside manner. For this reason, some of the general counsel we spoke to pointed out the limitations on true disruption to the legal profession, and the potential for hyperbole when applying buzzwords and jargon terms perhaps more suited to analysis of tech trends to the nuances of practising law. Rather than a discussion of disruption, those general counsel felt, a more accurate description of technology’s impact would be in terms of incremental time-savings rather than replacement of core duties.

‘There is an element of “frustration” that is recurrent for the legal professionals, and it is a client saying “My lawyer doesn’t understand me”. I have been in situations where I have to go through a call center bot and they give me a number of options, but I am not always sure that my question will fit any option. So, the interaction with the machine is not always perfect, and “the human touch” is still needed,’ says Ovalle Arana.

‘I think we, as lawyers, would need to learn to interact with new technologies such as Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning and others. The work between man and technology has never been so important and efficient and it is up to us to take advantage of it to make our profession evolve.’

But, for some, even outside of AI and any mythology about the robotisation of the profession, the cold touch of technology can already be felt – ironically aided by the very tools developed to improve communication.

‘Today, you can negotiate and close a big deal without meeting the other party in person. That’s a dramatic change, because it allows you to work remotely, even in complex fields. The challenge is that by losing the personal touch, it will hurt the lawyers in their capacity to develop negotiation tactics and so forth,’ says Alberto Vergara, head of litigation for Scotiabank Chile.

‘You save cost in matters like travel and meetings but, on the other hand, you will lose some useful tools that only the experience of personal relationships provides to lawyers. Right now, you have general lawyers that don’t have external meetings – they work exclusively by their computers, so they don’t have any real relationship with their counterparties. I would say that is problematic.’

For a non-millennial, old-fashioned lawyer, as I am, technology is challenging and represents a large area to explore. At IBM, we are expected to be acquainted and familiar with technology. From an operational perspective, there is a need for lawyers to be tech savvy and understand the technology.

And, it is our responsibility, as professionals, to improve the use of technology and encourage the use of it.

The way lawyers use technology has evolved in the past years and, in my view, we have made progress, but there is still a journey ahead of us. When I joined IBM – eight years ago – you could provide a quality service to your internal clients by knowing the business and products. Now everything moves at a faster pace: regulations have changed, so the only way to catch up with new regulations is by using technology – especially when you work in the fintech environment. As in every industry, there is always room for improvement, and the only way to do it is creating a culture of continuous learning, including hard and soft skills on your learning journey.

Emergent technologies are real, and we have to live with them. Technology is not here to replace a lawyer’s work, but rather to enhance it. There is a human factor that lawyers provide – interpretations, judgement, decisions, solutions and knowledge of legal systems and a particular business situation – that needs to be part of the entire law system – that is why technology and human knowledge are complementary. On the other hand, if a lawyer keeps up with the different technological changes and embraces new technologies, the exercise of the legal profession will be improved. In fact, I believe you will become a better professional.

As with many other countries in the region and globally, Colombia is starting its journey in the use of technology in different professions. Incorporating, for example, AI within in-house legal departments is helping law firms focus in what is really important – their clients – while technology ensures documents are processed in a faster and accurate way, what translates in better services for the clients and time saving for the lawyers.

Where technology is headed is a tricky question – I certainly don’t have an answer to that. New technologies emerge all the time and they develop quickly, so it is very unpredictable. It is hard to predict what’s going to happen, and, what is actually going to come up next and what you think is going to come up next, are not the same thing.

Most in-house counsel interviewed agreed that technology was a partner in the process – an increasingly unavoidable one – but not a rival. Yet support for technology in corporations, particularly legal departments, nevertheless butts up against frequent barriers.

Leadership

Unsurprisingly, support from corporate leadership is a prerequisite when it comes to weaving technology into the fabric of internal teams. Those at companies already well versed in technology often gravitate more quickly towards technological solutions.

There was a sense among some interviewees that timescales for innovation in more tech-based industry sectors could be truncated compared to more traditional sectors, or those with less of a technological provenance. Tech companies, for example, often enjoy a head start in the mindset of management, and a supportive attitude among the general workforce to tech or innovation-based change. These elements can help teams enjoy quicker productivity and efficiency gains than more traditional companies, who might be less open to technology culturally.

And, of course, expressions of support from leadership much be accompanied by practical encouragement – namely, financial support. Of those who participated in our report, 60% said their department had received an increase in budget for technology over the past five years. Those who had received an increase in budget were much more likely to cite technology as a strength of their legal team, at 71% (compared with 30% of those who hadn’t received an increase in budget), and to think that their company was well positioned with their use of technology, at 76% (versus 40%). Of course, the leadership of the legal team must be live to the necessity of obtaining budget specifically for technology – and, according to some, it’s a matter of outlook.

‘If the person that is leading the legal area doesn’t take the fact that they will need money for innovation or applying systems or technology into account when they are developing that budget, well, that’s a failure. It’s just because they haven’t thought about it,’ says Pablo Enrique Urrego Hernández, head of legal at Diageo Colombia.

‘What normally happens is, in the middle of the project, you ask the CEO to give you money for something you haven’t taken into account. Probably you can ask for some more money, but you must have already had the idea of developing that technology. You have to be smart. That’s why I say everything is part of the culture. If you have that in mind and it’s part of your DNA as a lawyer, you will be able to get the resources.’

For this, Urrego Hernández believes it is important for the GCs themselves to lead any example and model a progressive attitude towards embracing technology.

‘We need to develop leaders on these issues, and my challenge is to become a leader. I probably won’t be the one that will develop the systems, but I could be the one who can push everyone to understand that adopting these kind of systems is a good thing.’

Practical makes perfect

In a region as diverse as Latin America, practical constraints can be a common source of frustration among leaders eager to implement technology in multinational corporations.

‘We do have countries and projects where internet connectivity is an issue. In those cases, having world-class technological tools available to us can actually be time consuming and frustrating,’ explains Selim Guvener, general counsel for the International Potato Center.

‘We’ve been looking at how much can we do by teleconferencing rather than travelling, allowing us to have as much face-to-face interaction as possible – without having to travel across the world and contribute to global warming. On one hand, technology is developing significantly, but on the other, there are still parts of the continent that are lagging behind.’

Even when accessibility is not an issue, there might be competing systems in play. In rolling out a global contract life cycle management system, Bayer found it had to abandon systems in certain jurisdictions, for example.

‘In the past, each region had developed their own IT tool for contracts. Now that we are migrating to the new tool – which is the single tool which will be used by everyone – it creates an additional challenge for areas or regions that need to leave the tools that were already developed, and migrate to this too,’ says Alejandra Costa, head of law, patents and compliance for Central America, Caribbean and Andean region.

‘If you’re a big, global company, you also need to prove that this technology is in accordance with the entire IT project globally. Not just in terms of local security – because what you are doing on a local level can interfere in security – but you need to understand that everybody has to approve,’ adds Patricia Ulian, general counsel for Archer Daniels Midland Brazil.

Interface issues might also become apparent when engaging with external parties.

‘When you are outsourcing your services to a large number of outside counsels, it is natural that each and every law firm uses their own system and has their own routine. It is difficult to make sure that the external company is using your system or actually providing the information that your company requires,’ says Rafael Dantas, general counsel/director for legal and compliance Latin America at General Mills.

[Data] Private: Keep Out

Thinking globally has not only practical implications, but also regulatory ones, meaning that companies must stay compliant across the board – preparing themselves to be fit for purpose in the most rigorous regulatory regimes, even if this means appearing heavy-handed in jurisdictions with a less prescribed approach. Nowhere is this more evident than in the context of data protection, as Catalina Morales, data privacy manager for Central America and Caribbean at Bayer, discovered when implementing a global system to ensure compliance with the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation.

‘Obviously there were, at the beginning, rejections: why do I have to apply GDPR, locally it’s not applicable, I don’t process EU data. But, even though you don’t process EU data, you may be doing a clinical trial locally, and in that clinical trial the data is being sent to our headquarters in Germany – so there you should be complying with GDPR,’ she explains.

‘We had to explain every simple situation where GDPR could be involved to make them see that actually it was important for us to apply it, even though locally you don’t have an obligation.’

In Bayer’s case, the system in question acts as a repository for data processing activities, enabling swift and detailed mapping of what data is accessed and when. But, in other contexts, technology could muddy the data security waters in terms of risk and accountability.

‘The more digital we become in our work, the more difficult it is to establish network safety and security. So, at the same time, we need to educate the people who are using and accessing our network in order to protect it. This will require training and capacity building for our workforce,’ says Guvener.

A clear understanding of accountability in data processes must also be ensured, to avoid ‘the machine’ being blamed for data leaks, when the issue might be one of process or authority.

Winning hearts and mindsets

Across the board, a major challenge for those implementing changes in systems and processes is gaining the buy-in and support of team members. Those on the frontline of using new technology might raise myriad concerns, ranging from reluctance to adjust to a new way of working, doubts in the quality of the system itself, through to a more existential fear of being rendered redundant.

Those who participated in our research thought that, as a whole, the profession was not adequately prepared to adapt to technological changes. Only 22% of participants believed that today’s lawyers were properly prepared and equipped to embrace technology, despite 97% saying that their team members were receptive to its use.

‘I believe the first step is constructing a culture of digitalisation, automation and using technology so that people understand that these are tools that can make life easier and better. They are not competition, they will not replace a lawyer – in my team, every person is important. What I want to be able to do is to free capabilities – give my lawyers freedom to work on other issues,’ says Urrego Hernández.

‘If you have a lawyer spending time doing contracts, that’s not right! You need to liberate, create time for them to do all those things and be able to develop other skills. What technology can do is become a partner in that development – it’s their best ally for that. If people start to understand that technology is a partner and not an enemy, or a possible substitute for their job, that will change the progress of what we have been doing.’

For Urrego Hernández, such a culture change means not only approaching new technological systems and processes with an open mind, but with a willingness to share company information with external legal tech developers, in order to develop bespoke solutions.

‘You might not be able to find what you want because it’s not yet developed, but you can find someone able to develop it. But in order to find that ally, you have to be really open minded,’ he says.

‘They need information that might be confidential, or to understand problems that normally you would not talk about outside the company. But once you understand they are an ally and give them trust, everything goes more easily.’

It’s an oft-repeated thought that lawyers are conservative and slow to adapt to change when compared to those in other professional sectors. But some believe that it’s sometimes unfair to stigmatise lawyers in this way. Rather than comparing apples and oranges, it’s important to compare apples and apples, this thinking says: areas that involve much human interaction can’t simply replace entire thinking or decision-making processes, and perhaps those areas of the profession not seeing drastic technology-induced changes are those that require a large amount of additional insight on top of what technology can provide.

Not everyone agrees on the uniqueness – and, hence, immunity – of the law when it comes to technological innovation, however.

‘I think that lawyers believe they are not comparable. This is why we have sometimes not implemented technology. But I do think that our services are totally comparable to other areas that have already implemented these tools, like in accounting and finance teams. We are able and we can implement those tools – and there is no need to be afraid of that,’ says Costa.

‘I remember when we implemented digital signatures for several legal procedures, there was a lot of resistance from lawyers in the region, but now we use it on a regular basis and digital signatures are part of what we implement in contracts and data procedures. I think there are a lot of things that we can do and I think that legal departments are more than prepared to undertake this.’

The chicken and the egg

Across the board, across continents even, there is a sense, even among many in the legal profession, that use of technology lags behind in the law. If there is a reluctance for legal professionals to adopt technology when compared to other professions, there was some discussion about why.

Some of those who provided input for this report speculated that, perhaps due to its difficulty as a subject, many were avoiding law, choosing instead to train in other business areas such as marketing, business administration, and other areas that are useful in a globalised business world, and currently popular career choices. Perhaps law struggles with its (perhaps unfair) reputation as a stopper, rather than an enabler, and this is a disadvantage it in the innovation stakes.

If it is true that law is at times seen as a less attractive choice for potential candidates, is it the very lack of technology and innovation in the law that is deterring minds from a traditional legal career, and attracting them to a newer breed of company? Bruno Feigelson, lawyer, entrepreneur and president of the Brazilian Association of Lawtechs and Legaltechs, thinks this might be the case:

‘They asked associates in big law firms in Brazil if they dream to be partner one day. They don’t want to be partners, they are not happy with the way things happen, so these new structures, these new law firms, these new ways, are attracting the best talent,’ he says.

‘The big challenge for the big law firms in Brazil is how to attract the better brains to the law firms. They want people that understand how to use software, how to use design, how to understand the legal system in another way, they start to search for new opportunities. We have a lot of special persons doing law tech, trying with new law firms, so we have a new evolution with these new young people and also the youngest people from the legal departments, they are searching for another way.’

Regardless, it seems obvious that the various arms of the evolving ecosystem for legal solutions – in Latin America and globally – could benefit (and are doing so, in many cases) from cross-pollination. Especially in the world of tech, recognition is growing about the importance of having people from different areas share ideas and explore how synergies can be created. Engineers, lawyers, people from different disciplines, can share experiences, generating improvements and new ideas in the process, which can then be applied to solutions.

Winning the innovation battle

But, as those in-house will be quick to attest, the legal profession is very much a profession of two halves – and it is often in-house teams, in close partnership with other business functions, who lead the game when it comes to tech adoption.

Interestingly, when it comes to using technology, looking to external law firms for guidance remained a rarity. Only 35% of our respondents said that they were satisfied with the use of technology by their external firms, despite 86% saying it was somewhat or very important to them that their law firms keep abreast of new technologies. Only 26% said that they looked to their external firms for guidance when it comes to new technology, with even fewer – 18% – saying that their firms had offered to share or help with the implementation of tech systems.

‘In Latin America, and in Colombia specifically…there are just the typical law firms that have a hierarchical structure of partner, associate, staff and so on,’ says Urrego Hernández.

‘They have the old-fashioned way of working and trying to change that is like trying to break a bargain. They do not care much about innovation and, I have to say, it’s frustrating, because in-house legal teams are far ahead of the legal firms in terms of using technology and using these kinds of tools.’

It’s not true to say that law firms are trying to hold back the tides across the board, however, and some noted some flexibility and adaptability among external providers.

Feigelson is seeing the shoots of technological growth starting to show in the legal system in Brazil – evidenced by some law schools beginning to teach coding, and an increase in management approaches such as agile, conceived in the software development sector and often assisted by technology tools.

‘It’s very common in Brazil for the boards of the big companies to invite the CEO to go to Silicon Valley to understand how disruption is happening, in order to change the way of the future. So, the CEO goes there and they get completely brainwashed. They come back to Brazil, they hire a chief of innovation and they start to do things in another way,’ he says.

‘The legal department starts to be completely alone in the company, because the legal department knows how to work in the last century; they have some trouble connecting with and understanding these new ways within the big companies. So what we are living now in this moment is that the legal department is trying to be new. It’s very common for legal counsel to be trying to understand innovation, going to legal class about innovation, reading books about innovation.’

‘But I think the legal department is more advanced than the law firms – they are inside the companies, they are living this change, and they need to reconnect with this new world. So the reconnection of the legal world with this new reality of the fourth industrial revolution – it’s easier for legal departments than the law firms,’ he says.

The future

Recent years have seen an expansion of the role of the in-house lawyer in a number of different directions. Legal qualifications now sit at the centre of a wheel with an ever-increasing number of spokes, of which technology is one – in Latin America and across the globe – and to be equipped for future success (and relevance) legal professionals must keep their toolkit well maintained.

As Urrego Hernández aptly puts it: ‘You don’t have to spend your whole time being a lawyer, you have to spend your whole time being a lawyer that can fix problems, not just by using law, but by using other tools, other skills and other people to help you.’

Nubank is a Brazilian fintech founded with the objective of fighting complexity in the financial market by offering intuitive products and services. It has grown a lot since I joined, more than four years ago, to start and build the legal team.

Today, Nubank has more than 20 million clients (it is considered the largest digital bank outside Asia) and has recently expanded beyond Brazil to explore other Latam countries. And we are still at the beginning of our journey. One of the secrets to such hyper growth is the focus on the customer. We structure ourselves in four pillars: user experience, design, technology and data science. Technology has allowed us to get where we are today, but the human factor makes the company stand out.

The legal team, like other teams in the company, uses technology to manage information and data to assist in decision making. We have created internal tools to manage certain matters we deal with and which enable us to interact with other teams more efficiently. A current focus for us is smart contract management through a combination of technology and AI.

As a company, even as we increasingly use AI in our daily work, it is worth emphasising that we don’t delegate responsibility for decisions to machines. AI enables richer insights from data and improves the quality and speed of decision making. However, at the end of the day, humans remain accountable for making decisions. We are always called upon to use our judgement in the way we use the information we obtain from AI.

That is why in-house lawyers must be what I would call architects or designers of solutions. In many negotiations and decision-making processes, the human component is essential. Understanding body language and anticipating movements based on a repertoire inaccessible to machines is not an exact science. Science can help and will, more and more, but I believe there will always be a human in the loop, at least for the foreseeable future.

Technology will indeed replace repetitive and administrative tasks. It already allows better management of documents, streamlined due diligence processes and court decisions monitoring. However, lawyers – assisted by an increasingly powerful array of technology and AI tools – will continue as key players in designing solutions.

The legal market as a whole needs to be more prepared for a technological future. Law professionals must learn to harness the power of data and AI as a natural evolution of the profession. It is auspicious the emerging trend of law schools teaching courses on data and technology, and law firms introducing tech to their daily work.

Inside a tech company it’s very enriching to have people from different areas sharing their ideas and seeing how synergies are created between lawyers, engineers, business analysts, designers or data analysts. These interactions contribute a lot to deeply understanding how technology can be a further ally in developing better products, services and solutions, including in the legal area.

All in all, technology is definitely something that is already helping in-house teams and the legal market. And it will help even further, there is no way to avoid it. The key point is understanding how technology can add value while being aware of the importance of legal ethics, data protection and accountability in such discussions.

Here at World Services Group, it is our pleasure to introduce you to the second in our series of GC special reports examining the present state of technology use by in-house legal departments around the globe.

Based on the stories and experiences shared as part of this report, there appears to be no denying that the use of technology in the legal sector is flourishing across Latin America. From blockchain-backed smart contracts to law firm relationship management software and everything in between, evolution is evident in all aspects of legal life – much of which is being driven by in-house legal departments. With positivity emanating and uptake rapidly increasing, the point of maturation for legal technology is not just on the horizon, but rapidly approaching.

As private practice lawyers, this means that we must also be at the vanguard of technological development. With the range of novel applications being implemented by forward-thinking counsel and their businesses, it is crucial that we understand the disruptive potential of technology in order to ensure that we remain relevant as trusted advisers in an ever-changing corporate environment. General counsel have made technology a business priority, which means that we must make it a business imperative.

Getting buy-in and leadership from all corners of the profession will be an essential component for long-term success. New solutions will require new thinking and, as the report reveals, implementing technology into legal functions is not always a straightforward matter. Considerations around the ethics of different innovations and the impact they can have on businesses and their legal departments is just one prominent example shared of the new challenges being faced by counsel of all walks. Oftentimes, these will have no clear and obvious precedent to follow, which speaks to the importance of engaging with members across the legal fraternity.

At World Services Group, we do not want to be passengers as our profession changes around us; we strive to be agents of change that help to facilitate progress. Partnering on projects like this provides us an opportunity to directly engage with thought leaders from across the legal world and glean insights into what the future of the legal profession may look like, as we collectively chart a renewed path for the practice of law and enable our member firms to add value for their clients.

Finally, I would like to extend my thanks on behalf of everyone at World Services Group to all of those who took the time to contribute their views and opinions as part of this project. The insights you’ve shared will undoubtedly ignite discussions and establish a dialogue about the impact technology stands to have on the legal sector – both in Latin America and further afield – but more importantly, help us all to consider how we can harness its potential for the betterment of everyone in our profession.

J. Michael Bernard

Chairman,
World Services Group

Equity Member,
Dykema