Spotlight on legal technologists – Q&A with Emilie Vittini
Within Ashurst Advance Digital, we have a team of legal technologists who possess a unique blend of legal knowledge and technology expertise, enabling them to identify the best technology to deliver matters more efficiently and cost effectively.
Emilie, you've been with Ashurst Advance for one year - can you give us a bit of background on how you came to find yourself in this role and the most interesting task you've worked on to date?
Before I joined Ashurst in 2019, I was a Customer Success Manager for a rising Legal Tech Start-up in Hong Kong. After four years of service, I started looking for an opportunity that would diversify my exposure to legal tech products. As I started looking, I stumbled upon the Digital Services Manager role on LinkedIn and did not think twice before applying.
As for an interesting task, I recently designed mock-ups for a workflow tool with the objective to deliver legal services without relying on emails. This project was of particular interest to me because it gave me the opportunity to apply my knowledge in customer support to legal service delivery.
Legal technologists are still regarded as non-traditional fee earning roles within the legal industry. Can you tell us a bit more about the legal technologist role within Ashurst and how you interact with the wider firm?
Legal technologists have two functions within the firm: supporting the practice groups in delivering their services more efficiently and creating new digital products. These are both incredibly rewarding as they allow you to address long standing challenges for our internal and external clients alike. Providing innovative solutions requires curiosity, an analytical and problem-solving mindset; and often some resilience!
The role is extremely dynamic and we are fortunate to have the opportunity to work with various stakeholders, including clients from a broad range of industries, our wide ranging internal legal departments as well as other internal functions such as IT and finance.
The current covid-19 global pandemic has resulted in huge changes to our previous ways of working. Do you envisage the pandemic having a permanent effect on our working lives and if so, how do you think the market might respond and adapt as a result?
Within Ashurst Advance, we have been witnessing for some time a trend to digitalise workstreams in order to create efficiencies and support flexible work arrangements. For example, we have been providing solutions such as e-signing, creating collaborative platforms to support task management, resource allocation and reporting to clients for a number of years.
In the COVID-19 environment we have seen a huge increase in demand for these kinds of services. Our clients' innovation journeys have been accelerated and now that they are reaping the benefits of these solutions, I expect that many of them will be onboarded as permanent tools.
As a legal technologist, you have played in an integral role in delivering many innovative technology-led solutions for some of the firm's biggest clients. Can you talk us through one of the most powerful solutions you have delivered that has had a real impact?
A recent demerger for one of our priority clients required the review, amendment and management of thousands of leases. Ashurst Advance Digital supported the demerger by providing a single platform that could:
- store the information surfaced during the due diligence phase and subsequent communications sent to landlords for ease of searching and reporting
- automate thousands of amendments made to leases and emails or letters sent to landlords
- provide real time status reporting for each of each lease using task management methods, viewable on a centralised dashboard
We have been identified as a critical asset to the project by the client due to the efficiencies generated on this project.
Working in a technology-led environment must be very interesting! Can you tell us about an interesting fact about your role that our audience would find surprising?
The most powerful tool in a legal technologist's toolkit is their ears! Of course they need to have technical expertise but more importantly, a good technologist needs to be able to listen to enable them to thoroughly understand the needs of the end user.
The most powerful tool in a legal technologist's toolkit is their ears! A good technologist needs to be able to listen to enable them to thoroughly understand the needs of the end user.
