What more could you want at 10am on a Friday than a DIY Mojito? As it was my first Janders Dean event I had been told to expect some surprises, but a morning cocktail will definitely be the benchmark for events moving forwards.
There were a lot of takeaways from the 21st June #JDHorizons event, which focused on innovation in law. I was able to see some great people, both from within the legal sector and beyond, take the podium to speak including Twitter’s ‘legal catalist’ the Artificial Moggy who provided the #lawcat view on the state of legal technology.
Event takeaways
Here are my highlights from the event:- One of the main things I took from all speakers is that we need to make sure that we are not forgetting about the people at the heart of innovation. It is easy to be distracted by the ‘Technology Magic Bullet’ as it was put by Caroline Brown, Head of Legal Operations at Aviva, but without people understanding and driving that change, we are setting ourselves up for failure.
- The role of an innovation manager is broad and often vague but must include change management and the ability to create a culture of innovation that will allow people to explore ideas. To focus on how to ‘make the impossible, possible’, in the words of Jana Blount, Change Maker at DLA, we need to let people go out there and find the answer rather than assume it won’t work.
- There is A LOT of technology out there, and while it is making us faster and better, it is not replacing us. It was interesting to hear from various tech businesses on the importance of the user and how you need the input from ‘a real person’ to get the most out of their products.
- Not all of this innovation and tech is for the big private law firms; businesses such as Paladin and JusticeConnect are reducing the justice gap through technology that can make a real difference in helping the most vulnerable get access to legal aid.
