Legalweek is one of the most important and relevant conferences for legal professionals all over the world and throughout every aspect of the industry. Packed with panel sessions and key speakers, this conference allows anyone working in the legal realm to come together with peers in order to discuss recent developments relevant to legal professions, exchange strategies, learn more about the tools at their disposal, and maybe even gain a few new friends along the way. Although we can’t possibly cover everything that went down at Legalweek this year, let’s explore some of the highlights that attendees experienced throughout the conference.
Networking
Legalweek attendees had the opportunity to meet face to face with clients, vendors, peers, and partners that they may not have seen in quite awhile. With the pandemic pushing for remote workspaces, in-person gatherings where legal professionals can share their ideas and have important discussions are few and far between. Attending panels, listening to speakers, and generally mingling about gave people an excellent chance to connect with one another. Speaking with a variety of customers all at once also provided legal-tech professionals with much needed data about specific problems various customers are facing and what types of solutions they may be looking to utilize.
Moreover, it can sometimes be difficult to gauge the movement of the industry from an entirely virtual space. Gathering some of the biggest names in legal-tech together in one place allows customers and vendors alike to see who’s doing what within the industry, where the market is today, and what direction it’s heading. It also provided customers with the chance to view all the new technology solutions that have become available over the past few years and see firsthand how much legal-tech has evolved.
Pandemic Solutions
And, speaking of the pandemic, it has certainly affected much more than just the ability to connect with customers and peers. The transition to remote workspaces has been a difficult one for all industries, but extremely necessary. After all, being forced to work from separate locations finally cemented a concept that many advocates of both legal-tech and sustainability have been talking about for awhile: legal matters can be handled virtually. Though in-person contact remains important, the pandemic has certainly shown that the future of the legal profession depends on taking advantage of the technology available in order to adapt to the changing needs of the industry and practice law in the most efficient way possible.
Legalweek provided the perfect environment to foster discussions like this about how the workplace has changed as a result of the pandemic, how that change has affected the way business is being done across various organizations, and how companies can continue to adapt and develop new solutions to the new problems that can arise from this transition. One such problem discussed was the way that data and privacy are being affected by the use of online communication or collaborative applications. Companies may be overwhelmed with the data being collected by these applications and unaware of how to take advantage of it. Attendees at Legalweek were able to confront problems like these and begin thinking about solutions that will improve the experience of organizations still making their transition into online spaces.
The Future Is Now
As we mentioned, the demand for more virtual workspaces did not appear only as a result of the pandemic. Rather, legal-tech professionals have been calling for these changes for some time, but the need for online communication to replace the resources that employees were used to having when working in the office generated the necessary push towards automation. As a result, software companies and law firms alike are seeing benefits from the implementation of these changes. Less time spent traveling to meet up for in-person communication has allowed more time to be spent focusing on customers or other improvements. In fact, being able to stay connected across long distances has changed the way teams communicate, often increasing the amount of back and forth so that issues can be resolved much faster or avoided entirely.
The core technological changes occurring in the legal realm right now have proved that the law can be practiced online. Now, the time has come to take advantage of these changes and build upon them in order to help legal departments function at the highest capacity possible.
