At BARBRI, we’re proud to collaborate with thought leaders shaping the future of legal practice. In this series of Expert Interviews, we take a deeper dive into conversations with some of these visionaries to find out where the legal industry is now, where they think it is going, and how law firms of the future can be prepared to build success for themselves, their people, and their clients.
In this interview, we share thoughts from Tara Waters, a former technologist, law firm partner, and Chief Digital Officer who has a strong reputation and track record in legal innovation and digital transformation, enhanced by her background working in both the technology and legal industries. She currently runs her own digital transformation consultancy, helping businesses with strategy, governance, and execution. Over the past few years, much of her work has been centered around AI, and she has led multiple AI tool selection and pilot processes, including one of the first global rollouts of a legal AI platform.
Here are a few takeaways from our conversation with Tara.
Have Human Conversations about AI
In order to move beyond superficial conversations about AI, Tara believes that leaders in the legal industry need to actually talk about and experience AI, both formally and informally. “It's very, very easy to skim the headlines and assume you know the direction of travel, but not actually get hands-on with the technology itself,” she said. “The amount that you benefit and gain from actually using tools, testing your prompt, or how you might do certain things totally shifts the way you think about AI and how you could benefit from it.”
That allows users to share their experiences about what works and what doesn’t. Taking courses and sharing with colleagues also helps to keep users accountable and inspired. “I think you can learn a lot through these types of exchanges,” she said.
Prioritize Strategy Over Tools and Don’t Make It Personal
Tara is an advocate for strategy first. But it’s also possible to get overwhelmed by the process of executing a strategic initiative, which can turn into an exercise in documentation. That’s why it’s important to always keep the end goals in mind. “When you start with strategy, what you should be doing is very quickly clarifying and aligning parts of the firm around what it is you're trying to achieve,” she said. Consensus agreements are ideal but not always possible, since there are often trade-offs required to find the ideal solutions. In those situations, the focus should be on a shared view and understanding of what the firm is trying to achieve in general and what particular goals are being set, whether those are hard metrics like captured time saved or captured value, or slightly softer metrics around usage and adoption.
“If you've got that settled upfront, then the question isn't about tools. Because all you have to do is present the data, and the tools start to become secondary,” she said. And hopefully, with this approach, the people in charge of selecting and implementing tools will feel less pressure about making the “wrong” decision. “What you get sold isn't always necessarily what you experience. And the fact of the matter is, you're never going to know that until you go through the experience of it, unfortunately,” said Tara. “But if you have in mind the strategy of what you're aiming for, that actually helps you make those decisions without personalizing it too much.”
Think Big Picture to Scale Impact
Tara also discussed the types of mindset shifts that law firm leaders will need to make over the next few years regarding AI, if they want to remain competitive. That includes thinking holistically and viewing AI as more than just one tool in the tech stack.
“A lot of firms have taken a practice-led approach to AI. I’m hearing less about how they’re using it throughout the entire business,” she said. “How are you using it for BD? How are you using it for market intelligence? There are a lot of other angles that law firms and any business should be thinking about that are much more systemic,” she said. This need for a systemic approach is what makes a mindset shift important. Ensuring everyone in the firm has the same basic understanding of AI is one way to set the stage for this.
Tara also advises law firms to think about how to leverage this technology, as well as others that have been underutilized, in order to shift the trajectory of what a firm or team is capable of achieving. “My phrase du jour is ‘scaling of impact,’ because we've realized over the past decade you can only scale so far with people. If you start to think in terms of, how do I scale the impact of what we're trying to do by leveraging AI in some of these newer technologies, that's a mindset shift that could really start to push that shift of the business model a bit more.”
The Importance of L&D and Culture
Firms are also thinking about learning and development and culture through the lens of AI right now, Tara said. In order to capitalize on new tools, L&D can’t be a one-and-done approach. “People need to feel supported. They don't want to just have a tool shoved into their hands. They really need to understand how to use it well,” she said. “And that's going to require a program of work around learning and development, and education. Learning and development, unfortunately, in my experience, tends to often be the afterthought and not built into the actual implementation program on that ongoing basis as is needed.”
Firms are also beginning to understand that in order to fully leverage AI, they may need to rethink culture and not just view this as another project implementation. Said Tara, “People are starting to finally connect the dots to realize these are not individual technology implementation projects. Actually, this is about wholesale firm change and what it means to have an environment that is receptive to these types of big projects, these new tools, these new learning programs, and how we create the environment where we allow our people to have the time and space to actually engage effectively.”
What Sets SkillBurst by BARBRI Training Apart
As a contributor to SkillBurst’s Professional Essentials series, Tara pointed to several factors that make it particularly impactful. One is SkillBurst’s collaboration with industry experts who have both a legal and technical background. “That balance is really important,” she said.
She also praised the way that SkillBurst courses progress and allow users to build on each session. “I always say that confidence and capability with AI are really critical. And when you're designing learning programs, you have to keep building those layers and give people that confidence each time, because they're building upon whatever they did last. And it’s always anchored in law,” said Tara. “That’s a key thing. You can talk a lot in the abstract to people about AI and how great it is and all the great things it can do. But you have to really ground it back into the lawyer's experience and perspective.”
This is the first in our series of Expert Interviews! Stay tuned for others to come.
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