Anything is possible

From the role of AI in law to the profession’s problem with snobbery, delegates at the CILEX Annual Conference in Birmingham enjoyed a stimulating day

 

Around 115 members travelled to Birmingham in November for the first CILEX Annual Conference for many years, a day when many of the big issues facing the legal profession were discussed in plenary sessions – artificial intelligence (AI), wellbeing, and equality and diversity – as well as those more directly affecting CILEX lawyers in breakout sessions, such as practice rights and the Paralegal Register.

The day kicked off with Uwais Iqbal, a data scientist and founder of legal AI company Simplexico, explaining what AI was and how it could be used in the law.

A show of hands indicated that two-thirds of delegates had used AI that week, and when asked to express their feelings about the technology through emojis, most were either curious or apprehensive about it.

“We can think of AI as a technique where we want to replicate or imitate what humans can do through their intelligence around problem solving and decision making,” he explained, saying that before generative AI (GenAI, such as ChatGPT), there was “only a small overlap between the things lawyers do on a day-to-day basis, and the types of things machines could do really well”.

Such AI systems “could only really be used for extracting information and classifying information. And even then you had to invest a lot of time into creating data to train these AI systems”.

But now, with GenAI, there was a “significant overlap”, opening up lots of opportunities for lawyers to use the technology and focus instead on higher-margin work that was “more contextual, more strategic, more working with clients”.

GenAI generates content but you could not just throw information into ChatGPT and pass it off as legal advice. “ChatGPT is a just a system that predicts words,” he said.

Areas of opportunity

Mr Iqbal identified three broad areas of opportunity. First was around the “business of law” – functions like HR, marketing and finance – which were “all areas where AI could now be explored and used in interesting ways”.

He said: “For example, if you're in the marketing department and you want to generate some content or create and publish a blog post, this is something an AI system could help you do by drafting talking points or templates.”

“We can explore how to take existing workflows, existing ways of delivering legal services, and then reimagine them with AI embedded” 

Second was around legal operations, feeding into AI systems data generated by lawyers’ work – such as matter management, billing and resourcing – to create “predictive outcomes”. So, when a new matter comes in, the system can estimate the resourcing required and likely billing.

Third, “and perhaps the most exciting thing that generative AI has opened up for the legal industry”, was how it could be used within the practice of law. “We can explore how to take existing workflows, existing ways of delivering legal services, and then reimagine them with AI embedded, so that we're not just relying on humans where there's a limitation of resources.

He listed a range of actions where AI could currently be used:

• Extracting key pieces of information from a passage of text to go from unstructured data to structured data;
• Comparing two passages of text on a phrase, sentence, paragraph or document level to identify similarities and differences in working and meaning;
• Finding relevant information from a collection of texts (also known as search or retrieval);
• Creating a short-form summary from long-form text;
• Tagging a text on a phrase, sentence or paragraph level with a label (also known as classification);
• Organising a collection of texts so that structure is created by grouping together similar texts (also known as clustering); and
• Generating text through drafting.

Mr Iqbal stressed that this was “just the beginning” of the journey, forecasting “a sub-industry around specialised AI applications that help legal professionals [in different practice areas] deliver better outcomes for their clients”.

What should empower “domain experts” – in this case, lawyers – was that “you are the arbiters of what is successful and not”, he told delegates.

“The power is with you as domain experts to guide the technology’s development in a way that it's productive within the legal industry, and also safe and trusted.” He closed by urging delegates to “get involved in conversations around AI – try and make use of the technology and explore ways it can be used within your firm”.

Sunshine and struggles

The post-lunch session provided a fresh perspective on wellbeing in the workplace from Hannah Beko, a commercial property lawyer, coach, trainer and author of The Authentic Lawyer.

She pointed out how LawCare’s 2019 survey found that one in 15 junior lawyers reported experiencing suicidal thoughts in the previous month, meaning action on burnout was “not just a nice wellbeing initiative anymore – it’s life and death”.

She defined burnout as “a syndrome resulting from chronic workplace stress that has not been successfully managed”.

Ms Beko said most lawyers knew what they should be doing to support their wellbeing but were not doing it enough or at all. Her hypothesis was that “we don’t care enough about ourselves to look after ourselves in the way we ought to” – lawyers were too focused on caring about everyone else.

Some of the problems were personality driven – lawyers were generally ‘yes’ people, people pleasers, hard workers and perfectionists. “We have difficulty switching off.”

She went on to outline the approach delegates should take to achieve balance and maintain mental resilience in high-pressure environments.

Delaina Benjamin, a CILEX Chartered Lawyer who originally qualified at the Bar, was next up to talk about her journey and the need to try and enjoy the hard times.

“Whilst we stress over studies, and ‘what ifs’, struggle to find jobs that match our aspirations, and all the hours of uncertainty, we rarely say ‘well, I’m loving this. But maybe we should. It’s taken me years of practice. And I assure you, I’m no expert at it. Many times, I wanted to give in to doubts.

“But it’s also in the hard moments that I’ve learned to appreciate how far I’ve come, what I stand for, reminded that life is not linear and that rainbows appear after rain. We need it all, sunshine and struggles too.”

Ms Benjamin explained how, when she was finally called to the Bar in 2013, she thought she had made it. “Completing your studies is a bit like arriving at base camp of Everest. You’ve saved up for the ticket, survived the long plane ride, you’re exhausted by all the turbulence, to realise you’re still only at the bottom of the mountain. Now it is time to climb.

“You represent an innovative face of the profession and any type of innovation will always encounter resistance” 

“My climb to practice rights took another 10 years. It has not been easy. But here’s what I meant earlier about enjoying the struggle along the journey.”

Having gone through five “painful” years of applying unsuccessfully for pupillage, she obtained a wide range of experiences, from working in law firms and a local authority, to restorative justice projects and supporting youth offenders’ rehabilitation.

Then, in 2019, she “found” CILEX, joining as a graduate member and qualifying last year as a CILEX Lawyer in civil litigation and advocacy. From there, she decided to apply to join the Professional Board, succeeding earlier this year.

“So, has the climb finished? Goodness no. Has it been hard? Yes, seven million times, yes,” she told delegates. “And do not be fooled, we each tell our edited lives, I assure you it’s been extremely tough. It still is. But I’m doing my best nowadays to remember to find enjoyment in the challenge and to keep going.”

The law’s snobbery problem

The final keynote speaker was Sahar Farooqi, a barrister who started in criminal law before co-founding and leading the advocacy business of an international law firm for seven years and latterly joining DAC Beachcroft as a partner in 2021.

He is now the transformation officer at global offshore law firm, Harneys, and spoke to the conference about equality and diversity. He started by highlighting a “systemic problem in our profession” – snobbery.

“But the thing that really matters… is not the qualification, not where you went to school, not who you learned with or alongside, what matters is the quality of your argument, how you represent the client, and how that determines the outcome of the situation that they are in.”

This snobbery led to “problems around qualification, problems around diversity – by which I mean not just ethnicity or sexuality, but also fundamentally access to the profession. And in fact the social mobility that exists within CILEX is incredibly inspiring and actually surpasses anything that I think I've seen anywhere within the entirety of the profession”.

On a show of hands, most delegates said they had experienced being looked down on by other lawyers, and greeted with laughter Mr Farooqi’s question of whether they thought CILEX lawyers were remunerated the same as solicitors with the same level of post-qualification experience.

Mr Farooqi explained that he decided he needed to do something about these problems, leaving DAC Beachcroft last year to seek a role where he could help drive “positive change in the profession”. But despite many firms telling him they wanted this change and even wanted him – but for his billing prowess – they did not really want to commit to it.

It was not just that change was required on equality, diversity and inclusion, he said – it “is something that needs to be attacked”.

He challenged delegates to play their role and ensure that the next generations of CILEX lawyers did not face the same challenges they did. “You represent an innovative face of the profession and any type of innovation will always encounter resistance,” he went on. “People are frightened of it. They say ‘But we’ve always done this, why are you trying to change it?’”

He talked about how he had supported first solicitors and more recently CILEX lawyers who wanted to transfer to the Bar, but how “the thing that upsets me is that… when I look at their CVs now, they’ve excised any involvement with CILEX.

“That’s a real shame because there’s a lack of pride and almost a feeling that, once you’ve cross-qualified, you have somehow graduated from this. That’s the thing we have to tackle – without that, you don’t get anywhere near ED&I.”

The formal part of the conference ended with a panel discussing ways to build a diverse and inclusive legal community before the drinks reception to end the day heard from Charlie Fogarty MBE.

In March 2012, he suffered a severe brain injury after being hit by an overtaking car whilst crossing the road. He was only able to return home nearly a year later, having learned to eat, walk and talk again. His promising football career – he had spent four years at Birmingham City’s academy – was over.

But Charlie told delegates how he returned to school – he is currently studying for a higher national diploma in sports science – and started playing football again, representing Northern Ireland at the Cerebral Palsy World Cup. His message was that “anything is possible”.

CILEX president Yanthé Richardson described his story as “one of resilience, determination and achievement, attributes which could not possibly be better aligned with those of CILEX members”.

She closed the day by asking delegates to raise their glasses to “the incredibly bright future of our profession”.

Uwais Iqbal 

Hannah Beko

Sahar Farooqi

Charlie Fogarty

Conference