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In addition to their legal acumen, in-house lawyers are increasingly expected to possess a sufficient level of technological skills in order to take advantage of the latest legal tech to help serve their organisation.

Max Garth, Senior Counsel, Director Legal EMEA at Databricks, says that “from a legal perspective, there are various clever technology platforms and products that have been designed to supplement, support, enhance and improve” the work of in-house legal teams.

The legal tech harnessed by the legal team at Databricks means that lawyers can divert their time away from routine work to focus on more strategic issues.

Vast array of technology products

Max welcomes the wide choice of law tech products which are now on the market, explaining that they provide him with the ability to enhance his working processes.

“The wide array of products … help me to better manage my workload, to better manage the output of what I’m trying to do, to reduce the scope of less important tasks which historically take up a lot of time and to enable me to work on more strategic matters which the organisation really wants me to focus on.”

A recent report from ��˾����ҹ���� about the importance of in-house teams embracing technology notes that in-house legal teams are often hampered from taking a more strategic approach because they are distracted by routine work, with 53% saying they spend too much time on repetitive low-value tasks.

What is a tech-enabled lawyer?

Max says that lawyers with a grounding in technology are able to take advantage of the relevant tools in order to improve their overall service:

“You are going to walk into an organisation, if it is mature enough, where the tech stack is going to be massive. You are suddenly going to have to learn a variety of different skills using certain platforms … to best provide … services to the organisation.”

The ��˾����ҹ���� report has identified five key traits of tech-enabled in-house lawyers:

• Agility - willing to adapt to new situations
• Collaboration - working closely with all departments of the organisation
• Innovation - keen to learn new skills and devise groundbreaking solutions
• Resilience - ability to try new methods but quickly scrap them if they don’t work
• Growth mindset - go beyond their specific legal role to help the organisation more broadly

Why do lawyers need to be tech-savvy?

According to Max, it’s becoming increasingly important for in-house lawyers to have a grounding in using legal technology tools and products. He says at Databricks there is a “fantastic tech stack of products which supplement and enhance what I do and make my life a lot easier” - but he argues that “without a good aptitude of using technology in general” he would struggle to take advantage of the products.

The views put forward by Max are supported by the findings in the ��˾����ҹ���� report. Whilst 82% of in-house legal teams responding to the survey intend to increase their adoption of law tech over the next 5 years, more than half felt that a lack of understanding was holding them back.

To find out more about the growing importance of legal tech for in-house lawyers, read our Tech-Enabled Lawyer report.

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