Getting our geek on

Dealing with change is vitally important for a regulator, especially in a world where technology can bring both huge benefits and also serious challenges.

It is important that CILEx Regulation keeps at the forefront of changes in the legal sector and remains flexible in how it regulates its community. We were delighted that Legal Geek founder Jimmy Vestbirk was able to spend time with our Board at its September meeting. As a law-tech entrepreneur, Jimmy is dedicated to changing the legal profession by inspiring, connecting and educating, through helping new start-up firms bring innovation to legal services. Legal Geek also has a not-for-profit social purpose called Law for Good which helps legal charities use tech to improve access to justice.

We also attended the Legal Geek Conference, the first legal-tech conference with no pictures of robots! The message was one of using new technology to empower legal service providers and offer a better consumer experience. It was also about the new roles and opportunities in legal services – not just for the lawyers, but for the new innovators, legal-tech people, legal operations and business-process engineers.

Where once the days of virtual offices, homeworking and working online were seen as innovative, they are going to become the new norm. Clearly innovation is coming to the legal sector and new ideas and technologies are starting to have a major impact in some firms.

How regulators embrace this (and not be a robot) will be important to ensure that consumers’ needs continue to be met.  So if you have an innovative idea for your new firm, then do talk to us.