Is the legal industry evolving fast enough to create demand for #LegalTech- and innovation-trained law students? Yes, is the short answer. In fact, current demand exceeds the supply of law graduates trained in legal innovation and technology. I base this conclusion on both my experiences at LegalRnD at Michigan State Law and the information in Roy Strom’s July 20, 2016 article in the The American Lawyer: “Law Schools’ Tech-Training Conundrum: If We Teach Them, Will They Get Jobs?” (subscription required).

Gary Gonzaelz talks to MSU Law LegalRnD students about his internship at Elevate Services.
Gary Gonzaelz talks to MSU Law LegalRnD students about his internship at Elevate Services.

Employers across the legal industry have had a difficult time finding law students and lawyers trained in legal innovation and technology. Joe Otterstetter, managing counsel and associate general counsel for the nearly 500-employee 3M legal department, says in the article that these skills are so rare right now that they’re incredibly demanded. He says that as more firms and legal departments get a sense for the value law grads trained in innovation and technology can deliver, demand for them will increase. In the future, he said that he expects to hire law grads trained in process management or legal analytics.

Law firms have also found a short supply of law grads with legal innovation and technology skills. AmLaw 100 law firm Baker Donelson has hired law grads with these skills, partner William Painter says in the article. Many of the 25 people that Baker Donelson employs in areas like knowledge management and process management are lawyers. Painter sharply criticizes law schools, saying they have been “for the most part . . . woefully inadequate” and “asleep at the switch” while the skills law students need to succeed in the legal industry have been changing.

Samir Patel talks about how learning blockchain technology and engaging on social media helped him land a summer position with Eris Industries.
Samir Patel talks about how learning blockchain technology and engaging on social media helped him land a summer position with Eris Industries.

Legal startups, legal aid organizations, and other legal-service providers are also looking for innovative and tech-savvy law graduates. Nina Kilbride, Head of Legal Engineering at Eris Industries, which develops blockchain and smart-contract solutions, says in the article that Eris struggles to find talented, tech-focused lawyers. She says there are not enough law schools teaching students skills to solve legal problems using technology.

Consistent with all of this, our LegalRnD students have found no shortage of legal innovation and technology opportunities. This last summer, LegalRnD students who had completed a substantial portion of the LegalRnD curriculum worked in internships at Elevate Services (Gary Gonzalez, Sarah McCormick, and Samir Patel), the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School (Irene Mo), Eris Industries (Samir Patel), and Kain Lawyers (Sarah McCormick), among other places. LegalRnD graduates recently began full-time positions at Elevate Services (Daniel Elliott, Legal Business Analyst), Ford Motor Company (Jay Lonick, Attorney), Seyfarth Shaw (Andy Ninh, Associate Legal Solutions Architect), LexPredict (Tyler Soellinger, Consultant), and Juristat (Katrina Brundage, Data Scientist & Legal Analyst), among other places.

Alumni of the MSU Law ReInvent Law and LegalRnD programs are making great progress in their careers. Amani Smathers started as a legal solutions architect at Seyfarth Shaw and now serves in a similar role at Davis Wright Tremaine LLP De Novo. Patrick Ellis started as a Legal Project Manager at Honigman before moving to General Motors’ legal department where he is Counsel to the office of the general counsel and reports to GM’s General Counsel. Brian Pike is a Knowledge Automation Architect at Riverview Law. Eric Pender is a Senior Consultant at FTI Consulting. Chase Hertel, Director of Legal Operations at Lawfty, recently announced that he has accepted a position with Road to Status, an immigration legal technology startup. Canek Acosta started as an Associate at Blakely Sokoloff Taylor & Zafman, was seconded at Apple, and is now a Litigation Associate at O’Melveny & Myers LLP. Joe Kelly started at Novus Law, where he developed and implemented technology solutions for legal services, and is now a Software Engineer at Seyfarth Shaw.

LegalRnD classes and participation in legal hackathons helped Irene Mo land an internship at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & society at Harvard.
LegalRnD classes and participation in legal hackathons helped Irene Mo land an internship at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & society at Harvard.

This is not a complete list of all ReInvent Law and LegalRnD students and alumni–and I apologize in advance for my omissions. Nevertheless, these examples illustrate the opportunities available to law students trained in legal innovation and technology.

LegalRnD students learn about process improvement, project management, data analytics, technology, legal-service delivery, and other disciplines in the following classes:

  • Delivering Legal Services: New Legal Landscape
  • Litigation: {Data, Theory, Practice, & Process}
  • eDiscovery
  • Quantitative Analysis for Lawyers
  • Legal Analytics
  • Entrepreneurial Lawyering

Course descriptions are available at www.LegalRnD.org/#curriculum.

Law students taking LegalRnD courses have fared well landing traditional as well as nontraditional positions. For example, training in project management, process improvement, data analytics, or eDiscovery helps law students differentiate themselves. And once they are on the job, training in legal innovation and technology helps law students excel, during internships and in their future legal careers.

Frankly, there have been more legal innovation and technology employment opportunities available than we have had LegalRnD students to fill them. This is consistent with what Gabe Teninbaum, director of the Law Practice Technology program at Suffolk University Law School says in the article. At Suffolk he says, five students completed the program last year and all five are employed full-time in nontraditional legal jobs. Teninbaum said that he could have placed another ten students and anticipates there will be more of these jobs in the future.

David Curle, Director, Market Intelligence at Thomson Reuters Legal, in a tweet appropriately reframed the question posed in the American Lawyer headline:

“Isn’t it the other way around? We need these people – are we training enough of them?”