What's next for NewLaw 2023?

2022 has been a year of great uncertainty for most, but what will the future hold? Our Ashurst Advance leadership team give us their predictions on what lies ahead for NewLaw and the legal industry in 2023 and beyond.

 In three words: Change, People, Prioritisation. I believe 2023 will be a more challenging year – for businesses, for our people, and for in-house legal functions. Economic pressures are increasing, coupled with a proliferation and acceleration of change programmes and initiatives, for example relating to digitalisation and ESG. This will lead to more intense competition for time and resources, at the same time as tighter controls over costs and investment, making it ever more important to focus on and prioritise the things that will really deliver the most strategic value. It will not be an easy task, but I am confident we will collectively do it! It will involve ruthless prioritisation, retaining and energising our best people, and relentless focus on those strategic priorities. In 2023, do fewer things better and get them done!

Chris Georgiou, Partner, Co-Head of Ashurst Advance, London – Co-Office Managing Partner, Glasgow

Last year at this time I expressed hope for a kinder, gentler 2022. Sadly, for many across the world it has not worked out that way. The world appears ever more fragmented and polarised and the challenges for business are increasingly real and complex. For this reason, I think the prediction I made last year about a more holistic and "solutions" oriented approach is ever more relevant. All businesses, and particularly law firms, need to look beyond their own expertise to the problems their clients are trying to solve for and invest in the tools and capabilities that will help solve them. That means looking beyond pure law to a variety of multi-disciplinary skills that together will add up to far more than the sum of their parts. Consulting, delivery, digital, data and project management have an increasingly essential role to play in the delivery of legal solutions and those who are not leveraging these capabilities for their clients’ benefit will get left behind. Far behind. And again, while not a prediction, I continue to hope for a kinder, gentler world. It starts with each of us.

Hilary Goodier, Partner and Co-Head of Ashurst Advance

A shrinking labour market alongside increasing competition for talent means only leaders who invest in understanding changing employee expectations and delivering a distinctive employee experience will retain their top talent. Key to delivering on this will be increased experimentation with talent acquisition strategies and imbedding attractive career paths that challenge traditional linear approaches. Resilience and wellbeing of leaders and teams will continue to be challenged as many roles are enlarged to compensate for continued attrition of talent but roles that are enriched at the same time will provide opportunities to engage loyal advocates who can deliver clients an extraordinary experience.

Opportunities to increase market share through imbedding inclusive decision making processes and solving client challenges with multi-disciplinary teams with an output focus will be seized by the most progressive teams.

Dennis Sullivan, Senior People & Culture Business Partner

During the course of 2022 we saw a marked increase in demand for legal managed services across multiple practice areas including banking, financial regulation, contract management and real estate. Clients are seeking alternate solutions to challenges presented by recurring or high volume tasks that are expensive to outsource under a traditional legal services delivery model and an unwelcome distraction for in-house lawyers who are looking to focus on more strategic work. We expect demand to continue to grow in 2023 as the core value propositions of legal managed services - efficiency, cost effectiveness and consistency of outcomes – deliver solutions to clients with cost and headcount pressures.

Nathan Bellgrove, Partner, Co-head of Ashurst Advance Delivery

Whilst not new in itself the shift towards SaaS platforms for eDiscovery will continue in 2023. The success of SaaS implementations will increase the profile of eDiscovery platforms and teams. As platforms are shown to be scalable and adaptable we will see a drive to increase the value that can be derived from these platforms. This will take the form of an increasing focus on end to end eDiscovery services and an increasing enthusiasm for using platforms to manage and add value when considering large data volumes outside of traditional eDiscovery use cases. This will offer great opportunities for SaaS adopters. However, the ability of law firms to take advantage of these opportunities will depend not just on having the right software but also on having the right processes and teams in place.

Mark Simmons, Head of eDiscovery EMEA

The last few years have seen dramatic growth in the use of flexible resourcing in the legal market as law firms and in-house teams have become more sophisticated and agile in how they resource their teams. During periods of great uncertainty, like those experienced during the pandemic, many organisations quickly put the brakes on permanent headcount and increasingly turn to flexible resources to meet the demands of work flows. Not only can flexible resources be turned off quickly if required, they also free up an organisation's balance sheet. Given major headwinds point to future economic challenges it is likely that 2023 will once again see organisations tightening headcount budgets and needing to think outside the box so that they can continue to meet the challenge of doing more with less.

Linda Grace, Head of Ashurst Advance Reach

As I reflected on my prediction for 2022 – in short, New Law becoming the norm and the established way of delivering legal services efficiently and effectively for clients - the legal industry has once again not moved forward as quickly as it should, with transformative change proving to be harder and taking longer than many of us had hoped.

A key contributing factor is that change programmes across the legal industry are very often losing focus and prioritisation when competing for time, resources and investment against much shorter term delivery pressures. Unfortunately the macro factors dominating 2023 are likely to result in those short term pressures intensifying. So, rather than make a prediction for 2023, I would like to issue a plea across the legal industry – make space within your key priorities for those change programmes, dedicate time and resource, and allow an appropriate focus on those activities which will deliver lasting change for good and remove many of those recurring and frustrating pain points which eat up so much time, cost and resource.

Sarah Chambers, Head of Digital Experience Strategy & Transformation

If you would like to speak to the Ashurst Advance team about our NewLaw offering and how we can help our clients find innovative and cost-effective solutions to their legal challenges, please don't hesitate to get in touch.