Miller Thomson paves way for social — and structural — innovation in Canada’s legal sector
Miller Thomson lawyers tell us how they encourage innovation both inside and outside the Vancouver firm, including what they hope to see at next week’s hackathon
Within the last year, Miller Thomson has taken major steps to incorporate new technology and increasingly focus on social innovation. As part of the firm’s dedication to fostering innovative solutions, Miller Thomson will host Global Legal Hackathon events in Vancouver and Calgary on February 23, 2018, with local partners Final Frontiers, ReSource YYC, and the University of British Columbia.
When it comes to innovating the law firm structure itself, Miller Thomson is no stranger to making waves. The Vancouver office has garnered attention for its new Legal Knowledge Center as well as altering its office design into an open-concept layout.
We spoke to Miller Thomson’s Vancouver Managing Partner Michael Walker and business lawyer Gal Smolar about what innovations the firm hopes to see at the upcoming hackathon and some of the “technology gaps” that they have been trying to fill to improve efficiency and knowledge sharing among lawyers as well as their clients.
Last year, Miller Thomson launched its Legal Knowledge Center in Vancouver. Can you tell me a little about why the firm launched the center and how it’s changed things so far — such as in the areas of client relations and information sharing?
We are trying to shift how our lawyers think about what we do, and how our clients think about what we can do for them. The space within which our people interact with each other and, at least some of the time, with clients, is an important part of that.
Looked at in one way, we are simply learning from the experience of other industries to provide an environment that fosters interaction and collaboration. From another viewpoint, however, we are emphasizing the role of the lawyer as communicator — internally and externally — over the more traditional view of the lawyer as a source of knowledge. Both elements will continue to exist, but the balance is shifting.
“From another viewpoint, however, we are emphasizing the role of the lawyer as communicator — internally and externally — over the more traditional view of the lawyer as a source of knowledge.”
Around the same time last year, managing partner Mike Walker told Canadian Lawyer Mag that there were some “technology gaps” to be filled at Miller Thomson — and that the firm was close to going paper free. What are some of the tech gaps you’ve been working to fill so far and hope to fill in the future?
We have an IT setup similar to other major law firms, with a unified platform across the firm to support accounting, document assembly and sharing, and internal and external communication. We have moved from paper primary to paper secondary — the official record of our work is now digital.
Use of this platform is driven by individual practitioners, and as you move from desk to desk and group to group you can see the different paper loads people are carrying. However, we believe change must be led, not forced. Part of our strategy with the space is to drive knowledge sharing among our people, which will accelerate adoption of paper-light and paper-free approaches.
Our biggest technology gaps are around secure sharing of documents and ideas, both internally and externally. We need the functionality of instant messaging, online chat, and document collaboration, without compromising the security of our clients’ confidential information, or our ability to keep a comprehensive archive of the work performed on each mandate. And like many enterprises, we need a way out from under the burden of email, again without compromising on security or archiving.
What is Miller Thomson hoping to accomplish as the Global Legal Hackathon host in Vancouver?
The technologies and apps we use today were not created by the legal industry, but by creative thinkers and problem solvers in other spheres. We want to encourage those people to apply themselves to the challenges in our industry, and we think collaboration is the route to innovation.
Vancouver is a prime location for this because we are matrixed with Canadian business and legal communities on an axis connecting us with Calgary, Montreal, Toronto and the eastern seaboard, tech innovators on an axis running down the west coast of the USA, and the drive for innovation which is fueled by our connections around the Pacific Rim.
Are there specific issues in the legal sector you’d like to see tackled with innovative solutions at next week’s hackathon?
Miller Thomson has taken a leadership role in the area of social innovation (learn about Miller Thomson’s role with the first federally-funded social impact bond). A focus in this rapidly evolving area is assisting these self-sustaining organizations to develop social finance solutions to achieve that end goal. To that extent we have clients who are constantly looking for innovative technology solutions to guide organizations that are contemplating bringing to market finance models to fund social projects.
In your view, what does it mean for law firms like Miller Thomson to be involved in a global community?
A significant proportion of Miller Thomson’s practice involves advising foreign investors in Canada, representing businesses owned by non-Canadians and acting for Canadians involved as investors and entrepreneurs of high growth global start-up companies. This speaks to how fluid and increasingly geographically neutral are businesses’ growth strategies and ambitions. While we practice Canadian law, our lawyers are routinely called upon to be global partners in advancing those ambitions whether through cross-border mergers and acquisitions or financings. Our experience in leading our clients’ strategic ambitions and participating in a meaningful and collaborative way with progressing those goals, emphasizes the global view that businesses must be able to easily operate across jurisdictional borders.
What else is on Miller Thomson’s radar when it comes to legal tech?
Our industry will be undergoing radical change in the next few years. As the “mechanics” of legal work becomes more standardized with the adoption of new technologies, lawyers will be able to place more focus on further establishing their roles as trusted advisors to clients.
As an example of such adoption, we now see technological solutions that can help predict the outcome of a major piece of litigation with a high degree of accuracy. This is an area where we see the use of artificial intelligence in introducing predictability into legal scenarios where none could have been expected or ever thought to exist. In this particular case, one quickly appreciates the implications of that kind of technological advancement for businesses in situations where the stakes are high, the risks great, and the emotional investment even greater.
Register for the Global Legal Hackathon in Vancouver or Calgary. To learn more about how Miller Thomson is innovating in the legal industry, visit http://www.millerthomson.com/.
