Ben Allgrove is a Partner and Chief Innovation Officer at Baker Mckenzie’s IP, Data and Technology team based in London.
De Rebus had a one on one with Ben Allgrove, who is a Partner in Baker Mckenzie’s IP, Data and Technology team based in London. His role at the firm is also that of Chief Innovation Officer, responsible for advising management on strategy when it comes to not only technology, but also on how the legal industry is going to change, and how and what clients’ wants and needs outside law firms are going to change, and what the strategy should be for that change. His role also includes market-facing and client-facing responsibilities, engaging with clients and competitors about how the market is going to innovate. The interview focused on innovation, using technology the right way and becoming an innovation officer.
Mr Allgrove pointed out that with regard to innovations at law firms, it is much easier for innovation to happen in smaller law firms than in bigger law firms, as small law firms do not have challenges such as legacy systems. They can make decisions much quicker, and most of the opportunities for technology and workflow are cloud-based systems. He added that if smaller law firms transition to cloud-based workflow management systems and transition to using productivity tools, such as, HEAVY.AI or Copilot, innovation can happen quicker. He, however, said that even though technology exists and it is capable of doing most things, the success of being able to use it, is about having the right systems, the right processes, as well as the right people using it to do the work.
Mr Allgrove added that technology is always going to be part of the increasing cost line for any law firm, big or small. However, he said that the smaller law firms do not have to buy much of it to make a real difference. They can train their teams to use new technology quicker to get the return on their investment. Mr Allgrove said that he always advises legal practitioners that when doing research just because the citation was given by a machine, it is still their responsibility to check and verify that it is indeed correct. He said technology will always improve; however, one should have the skill to be sceptical of the output of their work.
With regard to using technology correctly, most established providers understand the issues and risks of using technology correctly. They might realise that if you are creating content, there might be an intellectual property risk. Practitioners must understand that using people’s images and names while they are producing content, might be a privacy risk. ‘Most sophisticated businesses understand that,’ he said. He pointed out that when using generative AI, one needs to always check and verify the output.
Although technology is evolving, Mr Allgrove said that the biggest mistake people make is thinking that technology is different. He pointed out that from a legal perspective he does not think it is. He added that there is not much need for new laws to deal with issues such as involving privacy law, the existing laws can deal with such issues, however, people using it do have an obligation to check.
For young legal practitioners who have an interest in becoming an innovative officer, Mr Allgrove said for one to be a good and credible legal practitioner, one needs a diverse set of skills to deploy in various areas of legal work. Skills such as curiosity and having a risk tolerance for failure because innovation requires experimentation. He added that it does not need an individual who loses hope every time they fail at something. ‘You need to have empathy, because most innovation requires a human-centric approach to problem solving rather than substance approach. And you need to have resilience,’ Mr Allgrove said.
Kgomotso Ramotsho Cert Journ (Boston) Cert Photography (Vega) is the news reporter at De Rebus.
