Key Insights from this year's Summit on Law and Innovation
FRA Senior Director, Russell Miller, represented FRA at the Vanderbilt Law School's inaugural Summit on Law and Innovation (SoLI) this month which delivered on its promise to "break down silos and build connections."
A wide range of legal professionals came together in Nashville to support innovative thinking and collaboration across the areas of legal education, practicing law, and legal technology. The event was anchored by a design thinking boot camp where participants worked to provide viable solutions to real-world challenges facing the legal industry.
Some key insights included:
A keynote address by Vanderbilt Law School's Dean Guthrie outlining five key barriers to innovation in legal education, as well as potential solutions for breaking through those barriers.
- Discussion of training the 21st century lawyer as a "T-shaped professional" with a deep legal knowledge base supporting cross-functional competencies in complimentary areas such as: process improvement, data analytics, project management, legal technology, and heightened emotional intelligence.
- Examples of how sophisticated law firms are using data visualization tools and techniques to tell complex stories to allow quick decisions based on relevant information.
- A talk by the Director of Vanderbilt's Program on Law and Innovation, Professor J.B. Ruhl, addressing how our focus on the applicability of artificial intelligence to law needs to shift to consider how law should guide artificial intelligence.
- Thought provoking comments on the rapid acceleration of digital technology and the shrinking of the "S curve" for modern technology development and adoption.
- Insights on how leading lawyers as an unlicensed legal professional can provide valuable perspective and improve service delivery for law firms.
- A presentation by IBM's Shawnna Hoffman that examined the promise of artificial intelligence in the legal market and the impact of quantum computing over the next decade.
SoLI is actively looking for legal professionals to help champion this call for meaningful innovation in the legal arena. If you are passionate about the topics above and would like to join that effort, please contact me.
Find out more about the Summit on Law and Innovation
