How AI Has Affected the Responsibilities of a Law Firm IT Leader

I spoke with Tony McKenna, the Chief Information Officer at Lawfront, a group of regional law firms focused on providing legal services in the UK. We discussed how Lawfront differs from a traditional law firm, the advantages of law firms aligned with Lawfront that other independent firms may not have, and how AI is affecting the law firm business model.

Episode Transcript

(00:01):
Welcome to Reinventing Professionals,a podcast hosted by industry analyst
Ari Kaplan, which shares ideas,guidance, and perspectives from market
leaders shaping the next generationof legal and professional services
This is Ari Kaplan, and I'm speakingtoday with Tony McKenna, the Chief

(00:24):
Information Officer at Law Front, agroup of regional law firms focused
on providing legal services in the uk.
Hi, Tony.
How are you?
I'm really well, outy great to see you.
It's my privilege.
I'm looking forward to this conversation.
Tell us about your backgroundand your new role at Law Front.
In the last 15, 20 years I've been inlaw joined up from utilities low margin

(00:48):
business, really tight operating businessand utilities, and come into law and felt,
wow, this is a different place altogether.
Where, the quality of delivery wasmuch higher in terms of it has to be
a hundred percent every time from achange in technology point of view.
Suddenly enjoyed my careerin large international firms.

(01:08):
And I decided to, join a startup law firm.
So it's been pretty cool.
How does Law Front differfrom a traditional law firm?
Law Front differs significantly becausethe ownership model is different.
. For regional powerhouses we can workwith the local team to buy out the
partnership and, free them up to reallyfocus on providing really great service

(01:34):
to the region, the local area, and andinvest in their brands and give them
the opportunity with their investmentcapabilities to expand and grow and give
them the opportunity to have probablytechnology that is out of their reach
systems and processes that would be.
Not on their radar , to provide themwith , a better experience from the

(01:55):
back office, but also a much betterexperience from a client point of view,
What advantages do law firms thatalign with Law Front have that
other independent firms may not?
The opportunity is that we canprovide best of breed technology.
So when you look at what Law Frontis doing at the moment, a major part

(02:17):
of my team's task at the moment is toget us all onto a standard platform.
But that standard platform is moving theselocal independents onto the powerhouses
of the legal technology landscape.
It's very difficult for independent localfirms to have the buying power or indeed
actually have the people in their teams.

(02:39):
That are aware of the marketplace andwhat's available in the marketplace.
So that's a significant advantage.
Also, we bring the private equitycapabilities to allow them to expand and
grow their brand into areas and townsand cities in their region that they may
have wanted to, but not really had theability to, in terms of expertise and the

(03:04):
ability from our, investment capability.
How does your experience as theformer president of ILTA and an IT
leader that is extremely familiarwith the legal tech landscape, help
your role as the new CIO of law front?
It's actually really brilliant becauseI spent the last five years , in a

(03:26):
really integral position with an elta.
I've got the opportunity to meet withpeople all around the world and be
really focused and what really greattechnology as I, I work really closely
with the partners you know of ELTA interms of technology, but also the G
100, the G 200, those CIOs that are.
Working at huge levels.

(03:47):
And so being able to bring that intolaw front is brilliant because I can
sit with my team, which is across thewhole of the UK in six regional firms
and talk to them about things that theyjust would never have the opportunity to.
But I've also brought Elta into thisorganization because one of the strengths
of lta, particularly in North America, is.

(04:08):
That small to medium sized business,'cause ELTA has hundreds of small business
members and they get that opportunity tolook at what the rest of the market is is
using and therefore bringing that into.
Law front, we are then pushing thatinto six regional firms and they're
getting to see what's available globally.

(04:30):
So from my perspective, every day Iseem to add a little bit of value and my
experience over the last, 15, 20 yearsis being topped into on a regular basis.
How does law front.
Differ from other groups ofregional law firms in the uk.
Our significant differences is thatwe invest in the regional brand.

(04:51):
Law front is not about us being frontof house, it's about the regional brand
being front of house and the localeconomies that are very aware of their.
Preferred law firm in that region.
They see that is strengthened.
Our USP is we will work with youto build your brand your local

(05:11):
connections and we'll bring greattechnology and process to support you.
So that's a significantdifference in the marketplace.
Other players are more about taking it tomake it a common brand across and that's
not where Law Front is playing at all.
What.
Types of law firms does lawfront focus on working with.

(05:32):
We're looking for ambitious regionalleaders people who feel that they've
reached a point where they can't goany further, but they've built their
business really successfully and they'relooking for a partner to inject that
capability, whether that's technologyor investment capability and expertise.
Ones that are really wellestablished in the region.

(05:55):
They have a really greatreputation with clients.
And so that's significantlyimportant to us.
Are there specific practice areas thatare best suited to working with law Front?
We like to think ourself as a fullservice firm for regional high net worth.
And indeed, people who come to usfor point services you want to buy

(06:17):
a house you, somebody's passed away.
You've got a will to deal with.
So that, that's the kinda sweet spot.
But we are full service so for thosehigh net worths and small businesses
in the region who want to have.
Really professional high quality legaladvice we support in that area as well.
How is AI affecting thelaw firm business model?

(06:39):
First and foremost, it's not affecting.
The law business or the business oflaw and the way that people probably
protected maybe two or three yearsago, when it was all chat GPT and it's
gonna eat everybody's lunch and it'sthe kind of death of the lawyer and
death of the administrator, accountants.
It's not affecting usdirectly in that way.

(07:00):
Yet what it is doing is it'sreally come to fruition.
That actually is about augmenting, it'ssupporting, I think, copilot fantastic.
Use of language there.
'cause it is like having somebodyalongside you, working with you to deliver
the best value you can to your client.
We are still reallyunderstanding the use cases.

(07:22):
And the same as, the big playersare in the AI legal market.
They're still understanding whattheir value proposition really is
to law firms and developing them.
So we like to partner with, aIproviders who are saying, this is
our platform, this is the tool set.
How can you use it todeliver better value?

(07:42):
We use the Jello platform we use productslike Avail and we can then, from a law
front point of view, start to push theminto those regional businesses and allow
those regional businesses to understand.
A regional use case, so it mightbe different in the Southwest, to
the southeast or to the Midlands.
Because there are regionaldifferences across the uk

(08:02):
you spent 15 or so years in IT leadershipat various traditional large law firms.
What attracted you to law firm?
I think the businessmodel really attracted me.
I spent 20 years in utility businesseswhere, the executive leadership of the
organization really took accountabilityfor the delivery of those services.

(08:23):
So as a director of technology servicesand a utility business, you're the guy.
You have to make it happen.
At the point I am in my career, when Isat down with Axel and Neil and Rachel and
the team here, they were very clear aboutour accountability and that accountability
to support the individual law firmsgrow and be as is as good as they can

(08:44):
be and best in their local market.
That was really appealing to me.
Some of the challenges of working withinBig Law is that partnership model.
It's quite short term.
It's really hard to invest.
And therefore when you're tryingto put some real structural
long-term change in play, it'sreally difficult for the leadership

(09:07):
to to work around that, whereas.
Here I'm working with a bunch ofexecs and managing partners who
are all really focused on thefuture, and it's really different.
It's a very collegiate relationshipbuilt on common outcomes, common
goals, and therefore it feels a lotmore as a collegiate relationship
as opposed to where you might feelin big law or in general loyal

(09:32):
practices where the partnershipmodel is a full equity partnership.
Then, you're working for the owner.
In this model, we're all workingtogether as co shareholders
of a fantastic opportunity.
That was really exciting because my.
40 years of knowledge tomake something incredible.

(09:55):
And four months in, I'm not disappointed.
I've had lots of great opportunities tomake decisions and be fully accountable
for those changes that I've made sinceI've joined, which is really refreshing.
How
has the responsibility of theIT leader in a law firm changed
with the proliferation of ai?

(10:16):
AI is just a good thing to hang off of.
How things have changed for the CIOand IT leaders over the last sort
of 3, 4, 5 years, I think being muchmore attuned and in tune with the
business and the business of law istable stakes now for, IT leaders.
We saw quite a bit of bringing inoutside of law IT leaders through the

(10:41):
late sort of teens and into the earlytwenties because a lot of guys and
girls inside the law business weren'treally in tune with, how to understand
and work as a business executive.
Really super good technologists, but maybenot a really good business executive.
That's table stakes now for anybody.

(11:01):
My view is you need to takethat level of accountability
as part of the executive team.
You're not just the technologistwho's going to deliver the ai.
You're the person who's gonnawork with the executive team to
understand the impact on people,the impact on process, the impact on
profitability, how you actually can.

(11:21):
Convert this into somethingthat's billable and sellable.
And I think that's the significantdifference probably in the
last three or four years.
And AI really just shines a touch on that.
You really need to understand how can youturn that into something that the firm
can market and sell and make profit on.
Where do you see thepractice of law headed?

(11:46):
We have a lot ofchallenges in front of us.
There is no doubt about it.
The uses of AI is really prolific.
And that's.
Only gonna become more commonplace.
So the practice of law needs to evolve.
We need to add the value to our clientsin a way that is demonstrable as to
our expertise and knowledge and weneed to be very clear around some of

(12:11):
those more handle turning exercises.
We need to be really efficientin them and make sure that the
client understands all of theseprocesses that maybe used to take.
A day, two days, a week, a month, yourknow, due diligence, that type of thing.
We've automated that.
We've put a set of guard, runsour intellectual property combined
with AI or any technology isgiving a better quality outcome.

(12:36):
But we are.
Working alongside that to ensure thatquality level is at the same level as
you would've expected if it was justa bunch of humans doing that work.
We really do have to adopt that.
And the pace of change will increase, butit'll be more natural than hockey stick.

(12:57):
I don't see.
Everything collapse next year or intwo years time or even five years time.
Clients take time to absorb the changeas well as us taking time to deliver
that change, but that change is cominglet's say by 2030 . In four years time,
it'll look radically different, and thebillable hour might not be a thing in the
past, but what you'll be billing on isin real expertise and real intelligence.

(13:21):
You'll be very clear around thosecommoditized tools and those commoditized
services and how you've used toolsto really make them as valuable or as
cost effective as you possibly can.
This is Ari Kaplan speaking with TonyMcKenna, the new Chief Information

(13:41):
Officer at Law Front, a groupof regional law firms focused on
providing legal services in the uk.
Tony, thank you so very much andwishing you the very best of luck.
Thank you very much, Ari.
It's been great to chat to you.
Thank you for listening to theReinventing Professionals podcast.
Visit reinventingprofessionals.com orarikaplanadvisors.com to learn more