In this interview, we sat down with Helen Lowe, a seasoned professional in Legal Operations, to discuss her extensive experience working with various law firms. Helen shares her insights on the challenges and opportunities within the legal industry, emphasizing the need for change and innovation to better align with client needs.
She also touches on the evolving role of the O-shaped lawyer and the importance of a more client-centric approach. Join us as we delve into Helen’s thoughts on the legal landscape and her vision for the future of legal operations.
Bradley Collins: Hi Helen, great to chat. To kick things off, I’d love to know how your overall experience has been working with various law firms over the years.
Helen Lowe: I really enjoy working with law firms – they’re so straightforward and no messing! Legal Ops would be a real challenge if you weren’t able to embrace firms and all their idiosyncrasies. I think the role of Legal Ops is all about bridging the gap between the law firm and their clients – taking away some of the things that can dominate the conversation (unpaid bills, value accounts, etc) and allowing the focus to be on work, delivery and building the relationship.
That’s not to say that things can’t or shouldn’t change – the billable hour, the lack of focus on individual wellbeing, the long advice notes when a couple of bullets will suffice.
But there is change, and those who are changing and facing these challenges are, in my view, the ones who will most closely align with their clients and ultimately emerge successful.
Bradley Collins: What changes do you want to see from the law firms you work with, and how would this impact who you decide to work with in the future?
Helen Lowe: I think there are two key things I’d like to see, and neither will be a surprise to anyone who knows me!
A focus on the principles of the O-shaped lawyer and how firms can embrace that. I know Dan Kayne is working closely with a number of firms and I’m keen to see how this impacts the wider market.
I’d like to see more awareness of who we are as a client – taking the knowledge we share and bringing it to bear on the matters they work with us on. Firms have a hard task tailoring the advice they give to every single one of their clients, but that’s also an opportunity to think “What would easyJet do” rather than “This is our way of doing things”.
Bradley Collins: Finally, I’d love to hear about the innovation roadmap at easyJet – what has been working well for you in the past 12 months and what does the year ahead look like?
Helen Lowe: As you can imagine, the last few years have been a rollercoaster at easyJet, but what has worked well for us is finding innovative ways to do things – not necessarily focussed on technology, but sometimes enabled by the tools we already have at our disposal.
We have quite an agile way of working and aren’t afraid to give things a try – whether it’s a Microsoft form, power automation or the new ‘updates’ on Teams. It’s all about giving something a whirl and seeing what works well and in what format! So we’ll definitely continue with that approach.
I think AI will dominate the conversation over the coming 12 months, and I think the conversation will move from ‘Does it have AI’ to ‘How does having AI deliver value’ – there are great opportunities to be leveraged, but as with all technology, only if it’s deployed thoughtfully.
Helen Lowe will be speaking in London at LegalTechTalk on 12-14th June 2024.
