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2015 LegalTech - In-House Counsel Warn "Get On Board with Big Data, or Get Left Behind"

By Deborah Dobson posted 02-05-2015 14:14

  
I very recently volunteered to develop a webinar series on Big Data for ILTA.  I've been reading and learning more about Big Data over the last couple of years and follow a number of Big Data experts on my social channels.  Soon, I will be providing more details about the ILTA Big Data webinar series.  In the meantime, SAS thought leaders are doing a webinar series on Big Data that I've signed up for.  I am planning to do a blog post after each webinar on key takeaways relevant to the legal community.  One of the thought leaders presenting two of the sessions is Tamara Dull, Director of Emerging Technologies for the SAS Best Practices team.  She has been a key resource of information on Big Data from a geek and non-geek standpoint.  I highly recommend following her SAS blog.  Tamara was recognized as the #13 most influential Big Data experts of 2015.

One of my colleagues shared an article in Law 360 that discussed a LegalTech panel discussion at the 2015 conference.  This article was very insightful on how corporations are viewing Big Data.

The panel consisted of legal department heads representing GlaxoSmithKline LLC, American International Group Inc., Wells Fargo Bank NA and Liberty Mutual Insurance Co. and offered an inside look at how corporate teams are responding to Big Data analytics.  The panel focused on how companies can process and leverage Big Data to enhance their decision- making on everything from whether to pursue litigation, which firm to hire and how firm fee structures should be negotiated.

One panelist said, "speaking from a corporate law department standpoint, we crave data so we can make informed decisions, and if a lawyer or law firm doesn't understand or apply data analytics, then I wouldn't want to retain them, we need to have partners in making sure we're all using data in the right way."

The panelists pointed out that the rise of analytics will not necessarily spell the end of law as we know it, of course, but those firms that are slow to adapt to the new technologies are more likely to be on the losing end of the new paradigm.

"It's absolutely changing lawyers and the practice of law, just as big data and analytics and metrics have changed lots of industries," added another panelist. "But I believe it will make it better. I think law firms that partner with their clients to understand their data, to collect their own data and bring that data to their clients in partnership ... the people who do that best are going to win."

Read the full article on Law360.

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