Apparently Lexis Nexis Are Our Saviour Change Agents

Legal Cheek drink the Kool Aid…sounds to us  like a quick lesson in LN propaganda to bring the next generation into the fold … big sigh etc etc

The start of the new decade has made it clear that the 2020s will bring great change to the legal profession. Legal Cheek Careers spoke to LexisNexis’s Director Transformation, Kate Gaskell, to get her view on COVID-19, legal technology and what skills trainees of the 2020s need.

“It’s not enough for lawyers to just be good at law and understand business — now they must be more,” says Gaskell. COVID-19 has forced the legal profession to embrace technology. Suddenly technophobe lawyers are fluent in Zoom, Hopin and other video-conferencing apps. “It’s interesting to see how a profession that considers itself unreceptive to change has adapted, and how quickly everyone just got on with it,” Gaskell observes.

In LexisNexis’ initial COVID-19 contingency plan for working off-site, Gaskell reveals the overriding message was clear: “make sure we can continue to deliver our products to the population we serve because people need access to accurate information”. And it seems to have paid off with Gaskell reporting that the usage of core products, including legal research platform LexisLibrary, have risen.

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She is well-placed to advise aspiring lawyers. Gaskell studied law at Oxford University, completed her training contract at magic circle firm Allen & Overy and spent four years in Australia with Freehills (now Herbert Smith Freehills). She also worked through the 2008 financial crisis at Norton Rose Fulbright (NRF) before joining LexisNexis.

Gaskell has risen in the ranks since joining the company in 2011. Her initial role was as a practice support lawyer (PSL) in its banking and finance team. She went on to lead this team, and then the whole PSL department, including its 150 lawyers and 30 paralegals. Earlier this year she took on the position of Director of Transformation, where she now leads a team responsible for projects that aim to improve customer experience at LexisNexis.

We’ve spoken a lot about LexisNexis but who and what exactly is it? LexisNexis, put simply, is three organisations — publishing, lawyers and technology — all under one roof. It is a publishing company by history and so there is a team of editorial and content producers who produce the print resources. There are the lawyers — 180 lawyers and paralegals — who look at the black letter law and PSL-support, and then the third limb is the technology team i.e. the search and data specialists.

Read the rest of it here, if you must… https://www.legalcheek.com/lc-careers-posts/why-lawyers-of-the-2020s-need-to-force-themselves-out-their-comfort-zone/