Legal tech supports lawyers’ evolution to the Delta Model

Legal industry experts predict that personal effectiveness skills will become the most critical component of lawyer competency, overtaking business operations end even the law.

Lawyers are being asked to do more than ever, as the Delta Model illustrates. The model looks at responsibilities across a legal career to help legal educators and lawyers attend to the full range of competencies needed for success. 

It’s not that legal skills have become less important or easier to acquire. Legal professionals still need to apply the law with precision. That must be accomplished while also building their emotional intelligence and business skills.

So how do they fit it in?

Coaching and mentorship are certainly part of the solution for all elements of the Delta model. But what do legal professionals use to find day-to-day efficiency and relief from manual work and reinventing the wheel?

That’s where legal technology and tools like Practical Law can help immensely. Lawyers can turn to legal-specific tools and technology to manage their legal work and improve their process and business skills.

Legal tech and the law

For generations, lawyers have learned new skills by asking more senior colleagues for guidance and tips. Recently, they’ve also turned to search engines. Colleagues aren’t always available, and their perspective may be good but not thorough. Search engines give ‘answers’ but leave it to the lawyer to figure out which sources to trust.

Some legal tech providers anticipated these challenges. They have developed tools that work as easily as asking a question of a colleague or search engine but deliver much more powerful answers.

Having the right tools benefits the entire firm. Trainees and newly qualified lawyers can use Practical Law to find curated wisdom from seasoned legal practitioners to show them where to start. This frees them and their mentors to spend time on more strategic matters. More seasoned lawyers can confidently take on new types of matters. And everyone can deliver exceptional client service.

Support your business and operations skillsets with legal technology

Some firms systematise matters so that everyone follows essentially the same process. International firm Seyfarth Shaw, for instance, has adapted Lean Six Sigma to its legal practice. Legal professionals there use hundreds of legal and operational process maps as well as automation tools and collaboration platforms that reduce manual effort.

Matter maps and clear guidance on best practices help new associates get off on the right foot and start delivering billable work more quickly. Such tools are also helpful for seasoned lawyers switching practice areas. Using maps and processes frees lawyers up to meet with clients and learn about the business of their law firm.

Legal technology supports personal effectiveness

There are no shortcuts to personal effectiveness. Relationship management, emotional intelligence, and an entrepreneurial mindset are developed over a lifetime. Lawyers learn from mentors and experience.

As lawyers learn to communicate more effectively, they may look to technology to support their message. For instance, clients often learn and are moved by stories and images. New data visualisation tools make it easy to show how their anecdotes and earned wisdom look in the grand scheme of things. Clients and lawyers benefit from clearer, more visual communication.

Effective legal practice will always be a human endeavor, but there are clear areas where technology can support the humans delivering excellent legal service—across all development areas.

New advances in legal technology can support lawyers as they develop skills across the Delta model. Download our white paper, How Technology Drives Law Firm Modernisation, to see how advanced technology can benefit your firm