Group Chief General Counsel & International Advisor – Action Group Holdings (AGH), Kuwait
1. How has the Covid-19 crisis affected the way you work as a lawyer? What are the key positives and negatives that have emerged out of lockdown?
The Covid-19 impact is unprecedented, not only in our daily lives but also in the world economy, this includes the legal profession. The crisis has meant that lawyers have to be more efficient than before and to focus more on the short-term goals. A major negative is working on time management with an increased workload, which often leads to distractions.
2. Will you and your firm continue to use flexible and agile working in future? Will you reduce the size of your physical office space?
We are a team of in-house counsel lawyers, we will continue to use flexible and agile working at least until end of 2021 or until a proven vaccine is discovered. At this stage, we do not have any plans on reducing the size of physical office space.
3. How have you employed legal tech during the crisis? What has been successful and what has been lacking?
Prior to Covid-19, for us as in-house counsel team, legal tech was important but not a priority – however this is changed. We are in contact with a number of legal tech service providers, but no decision have been taken yet. It’s expected to be a lengthy process, as initial observation has shown that a majority of the legal tech suppliers are copy/past or at least replica of each other, assuming that all businesses and their activities are identical, which is not the case, as each business has its own internal processes at different layers of the organization.
4. How do you see the advancement of legal tech affecting the legal industry in the next 10 years?
I see that legal tech will play a much greater role in the legal industry, mostly in trying to enhance the automation of processes and operations alongside working on the digitization of laws, statutes, and cases. Artificial Intelligence is just an example for employing research to assist the paralegals, however it still has long way to go in the next 10 years for AI, big data, and digitization.
5. Has your firm changed its remuneration structure during the crisis?
Our company has made changes as a temporary measure to be assessed periodically, which indicate our owners’ and management’s strong commitment to overcome this crisis and focus on the business plans and growth.
6. Name one key thing that will be different in the legal profession in 10 years time.
Interesting question, yet a very difficult one, I would say the legal profession in the next 10 years would see a more aggressive push toward the adoption of technology. Every lawyer’s dream is to be working in a paperless practice or in-house team, which I see as a small contribution toward protection of environment.