In the earlier parts to this 6 part career guide series we’ve covered routes into legaltech, legal ops and innovation roles, the activities commonly undertaken in such roles and now we cover in more detail the types of roles, what they are paid, who they work with and what they might progress into.  

Strap in and get ready to learn about popular roles in legaltech, legal operations and legal innovation!


Scope

There are potentially tens of roles to cover.  Many roles in legaltech, legal ops and innovation are’t unique to these fields, but borrowed from elsewhere.  

With that in mind, the focus of the following is to unpack a curated and diverse set of roles that we’ve handpicked based on the following criteria:

  • they the roles most commonly advertised roles for “legaltech”, “legal innovation” and “legal operations”; and / or
  • they are the roles that lawyers or other legal professionals coming to this space may have little depth of understanding about, e.g. disciplines and roles not traditionally seen within legal (professionals from such disciplines or roles are not the target audience of this article!). 

If you think we’ve missed a role that fits into the above selection criteria or if we’ve omitted some detail for a role, please do get in contact!


Innovation / Legaltech Manager Roles

Innovation Lead Infographic

Is who?

This is a potentially very broad and varied role… hence the variously named job titles but often overlapping remits. 

It is most common within large law firms, and to a much lesser extent, present in larger in-house teams.

The breadth of these roles is partly because these roles – as a distinct role vs side activity to a main role – are new, and often situated within a small team, hence a need to often wear many different hats.  

These roles are typically fulfilled at law firms or within legal teams by parachuting a former lawyer into a role that is in reality half a dozen roles, each with differing requirements. 

Parachuting lawyers into these roles is often fine, so long as the individual has the right mindset and is willing to learn, respect the expertise of other non-legal professionals and unlearn some of their lawyer habits (e.g. perfectionism, legal exceptionalism, pedantry etc). Where this is the case, the individual and the team can succeed.

Where these roles fail is when they are filled by individuals bored of the law and not particularly interested in legaltech, ops or innovation, not minded to adapt their own mindsets, and who are instead attracted to the role because it pays well, maintains their status as a lawyer and is low stress in the sense of better work / life balance.  Unsurprisingly this particular setup is usually unsuccessful for all involved.  

Over time, we are seeing this role (rightly) split into specialist roles fulfilled by functional experts, e.g. into product managers, project managers, business analysts etc, drawn from those domains, often from outside legal where these disciplines are more established and respected.  

This is happening most in Magic Circle law firm innovation teams, which tend to be larger (10s of people) and more established (10+ years).  

For smaller (2 – 5 people) / newer teams (2 – 5 years), e.g. at US firms, anyone in this role may have one job title but about 15+ roles!

Often a Jack or Jane of all trades, a person in this role will tend to work in a small team of 2 – 10 people supporting global operations of a large legal team, whether in-house or private practice.  

In larger innovation / legal engineering / technology teams, individuals may specialise (and have been trained) in one or more functions, e.g. design, business analysis, product management, project management, training etc.

Does what?

This person usually undertakes these activities (see our previous article for greater depth on these types of activities):

Research 

  • Researches the legaltech and general technology market, including competitive intelligence on peers.
  • Analyses and communicates this information to management and sometimes legal practice teams to ensure the organisation is staying on top of the latest developments and able to talk sensibly about these items when pressed by clients or the media.
  • Researches legaltech, ops and innovation problems to solve within their organisation.

Scoping

  • Conducts proper qualification, quantification and prioritization of problems to ensure the right problems are solved for the right reasons in the right order.

Service Design

  • Applies service design principles to improve the provision of legal products and services within the organisation, and / or provides this as a service to the legal organisation’s clients as a means to help solve a client’s own service design problems.

Process Mapping & Measurement

  • Maps and measures legal processes and their touchpoints with the wider business, whether internal or external clients of legal service providers.  
  • Often uses this activity to improve the understanding of the current state process as a means to defining a desired state and mapping the gap between the two and the steps to close that gap.

Buy, Build or Both

Outcomes from scoping, service design, process mapping & measurement activities might manifest as a decision to buy or build technology, or do both.

  • If buying, defines the selection criteria, conducts research and manages controlled experiments to test whether a proposed solution solves the pre-defined problem.  These experiments are known as proof of concepts (aka POCs and sometimes known as proof of values or POVs). If these POCs / POVs are successful, they will manage a more extensive trial / pilot of the technology to gain wider feedback on the success or failure of the technology at solving the defined need, and if that is also successful, consider committing to the solution long term.
  • If building, see [LINK]product management below.  Depending on the role, the individual or the organisation, the individual may also code some or all of the solution, although this is much rarer, and more commonly delegated to specialist developers, whether in-house or subcontractors.
  • In either case, uses benchmarking data from process mapping & measurement exercises to evaluate whether or not the technology improves the process and, if so, by how much.  May also benchmark technology tools against one another (in addition to any existing process or technology) to determine the best option.
  • Whether buying, building or some combination of the two, practices stakeholder management, working closely with the organisation’s procurement, IT and Information Security teams to ensure legal technology solutions are developed and / or procured in compliance with the organisation’s requirements regarding cybersecurity, procurement and other policies (e.g. use of cloud technologies).

Project & Programme Management

  • Creates and maintains projects and / or programmes of projects that respectively seek to deliver specific goals or a collection of goals aligned to an overarching strategic objective.  
  • Projects and programmes may be focused on creating or improving processes, products and services or trialling new software relevant to an identified but unmet business need.  

Product Management

  • Where a new product is being built, product manages the design and development of the new solution using product management best practices and tools.

Engagement & Adoption

  • Supports or leads the operationalization and implementation of legal technology, both new and existing by designing and running internal marketing and outreach campaigns which may consist of email marketing, direct marketing via 1 to 1 interactions, lunch and learn sessions or open house sessions to educate and evangelise use of the new product or service.
  • Creates and maintains channels for sourcing ideas and feedback on ways to create or improve products and services, whether or not with technology.
  • Develeps case studies, showcasing successful projects and technologies, ideally making the users (whether lawyers, the client or others the hero in the story). These may be internal (to boost adoption and proof value) and / or external (to demonstrate client value, e.g. reduced time to done per legal task and its impact on fees or quality of service etc).

Training & education

  • Creates, recommends and communicates best practices for the management of the organisation’s legal technology and related data.
  • Runs and / or coordinates internal technology training for targeted legal technology.

Selling

  • Selling the ROI of legaltech and other solutions, both internally and to clients (e.g. in pitches, RFP / RFI responses and presentations).
  • Selling the value of undertaking proper service design steps such as those intertwined with project, programme and product management as well as design thinking.
  • ROI metrics may play a part, e.g. to demonstrate with evidence why someone should adopt X over Y, and be derived from the measurement and benchmarking activities described above.

Change Management

  • Anticipating and preparing the team and or the wider organisation for change to their existing ways of working.

Public Speaking

  • Representing the organisation with regard to legaltech, ops and innovation at client events, conferences and so on.

Has what qualifications?

May have a degree in Law, Computer Science (or other Engineering discipline), or come from a STEM or Arts background generally and have worked in technology or business roles outside of law.  

As highlighted in our previous article, there is an emerging category of courses focused on legaltech, legal ops and legal innovation.  These are far from being recognised as required qualifications, but may nevertheless evidence commitment to the subject matter when applying for roles.

Works with whom?

  • Works with the organisation’s lawyers (all levels), the firm’s C-Level (especially the CIO and COO or equivalent), the procurement and information security teams, and business development (for pitches, RFIs and RFPs that feature a legaltech, innovation or operations component).
  • May also work directly with clients, e.g. to provide consultancy or similar services to help clients transform their legal operations and / or select and trial legal technology for their own internal needs or on matter specific projects.

Uses what tools?

This person is an expert user of many legaltech or legal relevant general technology solutions, including:

May have skills in, but usually is not required, to use and understand:

  • A front-end language like HTML and CSS.
  • Back-end database languages like SQL.
  • Common mark-up languages such as XML and JSON.
  • Integrated Development Environments (IDEs), e.g. Xcode, Atom (our favourite!) or Sublime etc.

Role is good for who?

Former lawyers, or current technologists and business analysts interested in solving legal business problems.

Can be a stepping stone into what?

  • Project, programme or product management roles.
  • Operations roles.
  • Vendor side roles, e.g. in presales / solution engineering, sales or operations and perhaps product or project management.

Works where?

This role is most common within private practice, but can feature in larger in-house teams (e.g. banks and large corporates).  

In either case, these roles have a naturally greater focus on engagement and change management when fulfilling any of the other activities cited above (see our previous article, which covers change management and some recommended resources).  

The role’s title in such organisations can be various, e.g. 

  • Lead Innovation Lawyer
  • Legaltech Advisor
  • Innovation & Technology Solutions Lawyer
  • Legaltech Engagement Manager
  • Legal Innovation Engagement Manager

However, the role also exists vendor side or within legaltech / ops / innovation consultancies.  

In those organisations, the role tends to be termed “Legal Engineer” or “Legal Technologist”.  The focus for those vendor side roles tends to be more technical and product driven, less oriented toward change management (usually left to the client). Nevertheless having a good grounding in change management as a means to pre-empt and ensure the consultancy or vendor services sold align to any change management hurdles the client faces will be beneficial.

Is paid how much?

As noted throughout, this role is very diverse and in reality often enfolds several roles that would, outside of law, usually be half a dozen or more separate and full time roles.  

Unsurprisingly, salaries are similarly diverse.

Salaries can range from £30,000 at the lower end (junior roles / smaller firms), £75,000 at the mid-range (junior roles at Big Law firms) and up to £180,000+ at the high end (senior roles at Big Law firms).  

Work / life balance?

  • Hours. 0900 – 1800
  • Weekend work. Rarely
  • Evening work. 1800 – 00:00 work is rare, perhaps when assisting across timezones or on a pitch.
  • Remote working. Yes, although ideally more of a face to face role (so either lots of face to face physical meetings or face to face Zooms).
  • Flexible working. Yes, within reason.

Document automation specialist

Document Automation Specialist Infographic

Is who?

Is someone who is often a former practising lawyer; they may also be a current knowledge management lawyer.

Does what?

Scopes, designs, builds, tests and maintains document automations, i.e. software processes that automate the creation and sometimes updating of one or more documents.

Document automation software typically has two stages:

  1. The Design Stage. This requires marking-up a template or precedent document to signify to the software which parts of the document change between use cases.  These changeable parts of a document may be variables (e.g. party names or £ amounts etc) or conditionals (e.g. if clause X is inserted into the document then Y clause is not inserted into the document).  
  1. The Automation Stage.  The output from stage 1 is usually a questionnaire interface that a user completes, specifying the variables and conditionals to be inserted into a new document, or suite of documents.  Once the questionnaire is complete the software immediately generates the draft document(s) incorporating the user specified requirements.  The user can then further tailor these, or share them with other parties, whether colleagues or counterparties.  

Some document automation platforms include other features more closely resembling contract lifecycle management systems, e.g. including contract databases, analytics regarding the number and types of contracts passing through the system and sometimes also data on the parties, dates, values and presence or absence of key terms within each document.  Likewise, most CLM platforms include their own document automation engine.

As an expert in these systems, and the process of automating documents generally, the document automation specialist helps lawyers and other business professionals understand and identify suitable document automation use cases.

Suitable use cases will usually be documents that form a repeatable deliverable that is already, or is capable of being, standardised.  

Documents that have to be reproduced in bulk, or with a high frequency from legal matter to matter are good candidates. 

Examples include board resolutions, shareholder resolutions, director’s certificates, court forms, corporate filings, employment contracts, notices, legal opinions, NDAs, release letters, reliance letters, loan agreements, security documents etc.  

Once one or more suitable documents have been identified for automation, the document automation specialist will work with the lawyers to identify the elements of the document (and sometimes any attendant processes) to be automated, e.g. identification of:

  1. Variables, e.g. party names, party addresses, party numbers, financial amounts, percentages, dates etc.
  1. Conditionality, e.g. if clause X is required then clause Y is not required, or if clause X is required then the user must also decide which of clause Y or Z to include, or if the contract is English law governed, include A, B, C clauses etc.

The identification usually requires some form of mark-up to the underlying document(s) in order to tell the software what the constituent parts of the document are, and how they are supposed to be operated by the automations depending on the responses a user supplies to an automated questionnaire about what requirements the document needs to fulfil.  

Traditionally that mark-up was hand typed, using a special mark-up language, typically something like this:

Document Automation

Newer systems, such as Ironclad, Avvoka, ContractMill and similar use no code interfaces – users simply highlight text with their cursor and select from a simple dropdown and / or sidebar the relevant indication to the software, e.g. that the text is a party name, a conditional clause and in either case whether or not linked to some other logic. 

In most cases, these newer no code platforms offer as much complexity in terms of automation as older systems.  The benefit is a lower learning curve and thereby lower cost of experimentation and adoption.

A document automation specialist may also produce training documentation, and deliver training to other users of document automation software, including lawyers and other business professionals. 

This person must be someone that enjoys formatting and converting documents between applications and generally have excellent attention to detail (including proofreading skills) and a systems based mindset, i.e. thinking about how to design and scale processes and not worry disproportionately about edge cases.

They must also be open and curious about new software packages and able to learn and apply these quickly and effectively.

Despite being a longstanding tech category (decades old), document automation is increasingly in demand and experiencing a bit of a renaissance as newer tools have made it simpler, easier and cheaper to build, update and extend document automations.  

For example, the Loan Market Association’s (LMA) project LMA.Automate – a joint venture between the LMA, law firm Allen & Overy and document automation provider Avvoka – aims to provide a subscription based end-to-end platform for the entire drafting lifecycle as it pertains to credit agreements in the European loan market!

For an excellent guide to document automation, we recommend Avvoka’s ultimate guide to document automation!

Has what qualifications?

This person usually has a law degree or other business related degree discipline.  

Works with whom?

This person often works with, or within, knowledge management teams.  This is because document automation is about automating knowledge, i.e. the accumulated templates and precedents within a legal organisation that experience the most repeatable use.

Uses what tools?

Expert in Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, Excel, Visio (for process mapping automation logic) and one or more document automation technologies, e.g.

  • Ironclad (a CLM with document automation built in)

Role is good for who?

Good for individuals, usually lawyers (and often knowledge management lawyers), who like thinking about how to systematise documents, their production and their updating.

Can be a stepping stone into what?

Legal innovation and operations roles, or vendor side roles as product experts at document automation software companies.

Works where?

This is almost always either a private practice role, or a vendor side role.  In-house teams are unlikely large enough to support this role as a full-time employee in terms of budget and resources more generally.  Instead, in-house teams may pay for a contractor to provide ad hoc document automation services, e.g. Bam Legal or Syke (or even a law firm’s doc auto team), whether that contractor is a freelancer, part of a consultancy or attached to a document automation vendor.  

Is paid how much?

Salaries can vary widely, from £30,000 to £70,000+.  A mid-range salary at a Big Law firm is usually around the £40,000 mark.  Higher salaries tend to occur where the individual is a document automation specialist within a traditional knowledge management team and, who is either a current or former knowledge management lawyer – those individuals might command a salary in the range of £100,000+.  

Work / life balance?

  • Hours. 0900 – 1700
  • Weekend work. Never.
  • Evening work. Never.
  • Remote work. Yes, very easy and reasonably common (including pre-covid).
  • Flexible work. Yes, quite easy to work flexibly.

eDiscovery analyst / consultant 

eDiscovery Expert Infographic

Is who?

An E-Discovery Analyst is responsible for gathering, managing and processing vast quantities of electronic data as part of the litigation discovery process. 

What is the litigation discovery process? 

To begin preparing for trial, both sides to a trial engage in discovery.  

This is the formal process of exchanging information between the parties about the witnesses and evidence they’ll present at trial. 

The discovery process is usually governed by jurisdiction specific rules managed and enforced by that jurisdiction’s judicial system. 

Discovery enables the parties to know before the trial begins what evidence may or may not be presented (e.g. legally privileged communications between a client and their lawyer).

Does what?

This individual liaises with clients, lawyers and project managers regarding requests to gather, organise and transfer large quantities of electronically stored information (ESI).  

eDiscovery roles can sub-divide by tasks:

  • Document Coders. Inputting data, importing and organising databases. This is usually an entry-level task.
  • E-discovery analysts/specialists. Analysing ESI to determine what’s relevant and coordinate with stakeholders, e.g. the lawyers running the litigation. This may involve technical troubleshooting and administrative tasks related to their firm’s e-discovery software.
  • E-discovery managers. Managers oversee e-discovery teams.  They communicate with outside firms and vendors. They may set deadlines and manage the day-to-day work of their teams. They may also handle staffing on their team.
  • E-discovery directors. Directors are executives who oversee all the e-discovery teams within a firm. They typically oversee a department budget and staffing levels on e-discovery teams. They are also responsible for e-discovery business development and strategic planning.

The eDiscovery specialists, whatever their role within an eDiscovery team, will often follow the Electronic Discovery Reference Model (EDRM). The EDRM involves:

  • Identifying potentially relevant ESI. ESI encompasses organization specific electronic files: emails, Microsoft Word documents, PDFs, social media posts, instant and private messaging, smartphone app messages and data generally. The eDiscovery specialist will help identify where and how that information is stored and how it may be accessed.
  • Preserving potentially relevant ESI. An organization must take steps to preserve ESI and avoid the destruction or alteration of evidence, for instance, to avoid any deliberate or accidental alteration to timestamps on emails that might present an inaccurate and potentially misleading history of events.
  • Collecting ESI. All of the relevant information must be gathered and stored in a centralized location, usually a large database.
  • Processing the collected ESI. The ESI must be processed into a format lawyers or other legal professionals can review. This process is done via specialized software.
  • Reviewing ESI. Document reviewers or coders (see above) must determine if the ESI is relevant to the dispute, protected by attorney-client privilege, and should be coded for a specific issue, e.g. offer and acceptance, negligence, fraud etc. Reviewers are often attorneys or trained legal professionals who utilize specialized software.  Review is streamlined through eDiscovery software.  This software has an interface that allows reviewers to quickly tag data to the appropriate legal or factual issues, or signify that the data is protected by attorney-client privilege and excluded from discovery.  These tools make it easy for reviewers to divide and conquer huge datasets, and collaborate, e.g. to second review tags or queries regarding one or more pieces of data, and to monitor the progress of the discovery process.
  • Analyzing ESI. Throughout the process, the organization handling the eDiscovery process will analyze the ESI to discover its content, context, relevant parties, and patterns.  This may lead to further lines of enquiry or requests for further information.
  • Producing relevant ESI. The purpose of eDiscovery is to identify ESI that is relevant to a dispute and must be shared with the other parties, or that is protected by attorney-client privilege or some other mechanism and not shareable. Relevant and unprotected ESI must be produced for the other parties.  The aim of eDiscovery is to filter down to that level of data.
  • Presenting ESI. An organization, usually a law firm, prepares for how ESI can and will be presented at depositions, court hearings, administrative hearings, and / or trials.  Notwithstanding the eDRM process, the remaining dataset of relevant and non-privileged data may remain huge, and so software is increasingly used to present this information, sometimes on smart devices such as iPads or other tablet computers. For a great listen on how lawyers can use learnings from Steve Jobs about visual presentation, neuroscience and stage magic to enhance their presentation of discovery data, we recommend this podcast with litigator Justin Kahn via the Advocacy Podcast.

The key thing to understand is that the volume of data decreases as the relevance to the dispute increases:

Has what qualifications?

Most eDiscovery professionals have backgrounds in law, information technology, or both. Those entering into eDiscovery from the legal side, tend to be paralegals, although rising salaries are attracting more lawyers.

eDiscovery practitioners will have, or be expected to develop, an understanding of the current protocols and best practices in the areas ESI, technology assisted review (TAR) and production, including the EDRM described above.

Works with whom?

eDiscovery professionals work closely with lawyers, law firm clients and eDiscovery vendors.  They may also interact with court officials in some cases.

Uses what tools?

Uses industry standard Discovery related tools, e.g. tools such as:

And many more! The eDiscovery software space is a busy one.

An eDiscovery professional may also have knowledge of, and use, general purpose database tools such as SQL.

Role is good for who?

It’s a good role for those who enjoy understanding and organising large volumes of data, or who are litigators by training.

Can be a stepping stone into what?

Legal innovation and operations roles, or vendor side roles as product experts at eDiscovery software companies.

Works where?

This is invariably either a private practice role or vendor role.  In-house teams do not usually have eDiscovery specialists, instead they will buy these services ad hoc (when litigating or conducting forensic analysis of a business problem) from their legal services provider or specialist eDiscovery consultancy. 

Is paid how much?

eDiscovery professionals can be paid anywhere between £20,000 – £30,000 for analyst roles, and up to £75,000+ for eDiscovery manager roles.  Mid-range roles can command around £45,000.

Work / life balance?

  • Hours. 0900 – 1800
  • Weekend work. Sometimes, it depends on the volume of litigation and deadlines.
  • Evening work. 1800 – 00:00 work is not uncommon, perhaps when assisting across timezones or on a crunch deadline for a litigation discovery process.  It is however not the expectation.
  • Remote working. Yes, although it remains highly collaborative.
  • Flexible working. Yes, within reason.

Legal Operations

Legal Operations Infographic

Is who?

A legal operations professional is usually someone who is, or was, a lawyer, or has worked in an operations role elsewhere (including as a management consultant).  

This role is all about understanding and organising the business processes, activities, and the professionals who enable legal departments to serve their clients more effectively by applying business and technical practices to the delivery of legal services. 

The individual needs to understand law, and what lawyers do (which in no way necessarily requires them to be a lawyer!), but more importantly how legal fits into the wider business.  

This individual needs to be excited by efficiency and systems based thinking as a means to achieving more efficient legal processes.

Does what?

CLOC’s 12 competencies, as described below, form the mainstay of what this role entails:

CLOC 12 Competencies
  • Business Intelligence. Determining the right data to collect and monitor about the legal function’s operations.  Designing and rolling out metrics and dashboards to track suitable metrics and use these to inform decision-making about how to improve the legal function.
  • Financial Management. Developing and maintaining a budget as a means to monitor costs and identify opportunities for savings and efficiency, including with regard to any outside legal spend.
  • Firm & Vendor Management. Developing and maintaining valuable relationships with third party legal services vendors, including law firms.  Designing effective RFPs and negotiating positive pricing models with third party providers.
  • Information Governance. Designing and implementing clear and comprehensive policies and systems for information governance, in particular determining which physical and digital documents should be preserved or destroyed in compliance with any regulatory or other internal requirements.
  • Knowledge Management. Creating systems and best practices that save the team time and improve outcomes by making it easier to find answers, best practices, precedents, templates and other knowledge.
  • Organization & Health. Building teams and progression structures that attract and retain a diverse range of talent, not just lawyers. 
  • Practice Operations. Implementing systems and processes that free up legal resources for higher value work via elimination of lower value, work.  Using specialist resources for specialist tasks, such as for eDiscovery or document automation.  Use augmentation or automation of processes wherever possible, enabled by greater standardisation. 
  • Project/Program Management. Running department-wide and sometimes company-wide initiatives tackling complex special projects, e.g. tackling a macro repapering challenge such as the discontinuation of IBOR in a financial services business.
  • Service Delivery Models. Designing service delivery models that ensure the right resource is applied to the appropriate task complexity.  Creating a complementary system of vendors or alternative service providers, such as ALSPs, and thereby reducing spend on traditional outside counsel where appropriate.
  • Strategic Planning. Defining the strategic vision and planning its execution, both in terms of short and long term opportunities and priorities for the legal function. Aligning these to company-wide objectives and KPIs where necessary.
  • Technology. Using technology to streamline processes and time spent per task by automating the most time-consuming and overly manual tasks undertaken by the legal function. As part of this, determining selection criteria and applying these to select, test and implement appropriate vendors into your legal function, and to measure their on-going contribution to efficiency.  Understanding emerging technologies and staying up-to-date on the latest developments and how these can be applied to the legal function’s processes. 
  • Training & Development. Designing and implementing targeted training, covering hard and soft skills as well as any required compliance training.

Unsurprisingly, this role has a huge amount of stakeholder management and change management baked in.  Most / all of the above will require changing people’s behaviour through influence and persuasion.  

To bring this to life, we recommend you check out this fantastic podcast with Mary O’Carroll, Director of Operations, Technology and Strategy for the legal department at Google and President of CLOC.  It provides great insight into the legal ops function, and Mary is one of the pioneers of this role and has built a world renowned legal ops function at Google.  

The entire podcast series, focused on legal ops, is also well worth subscribing to for those interested in legal ops and roles in that space.  It’s run by Alex Rosenrauch, a Manager in PwC’s New Law business, and Eliot Leibu, head of legal operations at Australian bank, ANZ

Has what qualifications?

Usually a degree. Although a legal background is not required, experience within the legal sector is an advantage.  

Some legal ops roles, particularly those at tech companies, such as fintechs, require or prefer a STEM or Economics background. Those roles may also slant more toward the data analysis elements of this role, and therefore require deeper expertise with Excel and database technologies such as SQL, perhaps allied to experience with Tableau or PowerBi. These are less common skills among lawyers, although lawyers can learn them with a bit of effort!

Works with whom?

Lawyers, outside counsel, C-Level / director level and other business professionals.

Uses what tools?

Microsoft Office (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook).  As noted above, legal ops roles tied to technology or financial services businesses may require a much higher degree of literacy in terms of data analysis and associated tools, including Excel, Python, SQL, Tableau, PowerBi and so on.

Role is good for who?

Good for anyone who is looking to combine legal experience with a greater focus on systems based thinking and how this applies to operationalizing a legal function.  Alternatively, great for anyone with a STEM background seeking to jumpstart legal into the 21st century!

Can be a stepping stone into what?

Legal ops roles could step into broader ops roles, and potentially step up to a COO level role or similar.  

This role is increasingly in demand given the influence of CLOC and its efforts to instill an operations mindset in legal. 

Likewise, businesses are more generally realising that legal is just like any other function in the business and should be treated as such and operationalised, not left to run as a cottage industry siloed from the wider business and how it is measured.

Works where?

This is usually an in-house role.  That said, the “innovation” and “legaltech” roles described above as they relate to private practice involve a heavy amount of legal ops. 

In fact, much of what law firms describe as “innovation” is really modernisation and specifically, operationalisation of their typically overly manual and woefully time-consuming processes and means of production.  What is often viewed as “innovation” in law, is usually a long established – and quite frankly boring – norm outside of law.  This shouldn’t put you off.  Quite the opposite, there is a greenfield of operations related opportunities in law! 

Is paid how much?

Legal ops is a growing category.  Salaries can range from £45,000 to £85,000+ within larger in-house teams.  More senior roles, approaching a director level or beyond, can command salaries higher still, especially within very large organisations, e.g. £100,000+.

Work / life balance?

  • Hours. 0900 – 1900
  • Weekend work. Sometimes, e.g. if closing a project deadline or preparing a pitch.
  • Evening work. 1900 – 00:00 work is rare, perhaps when assisting across timezones.
  • Remote working. Yes, although ideally more of a face to face role (so either lots of face to face physical meetings or face to face Zooms).
  • Flexible working. Yes, within reason.

Presales (sometimes known as a Solutions Engineer)

Presales Infographic

Is who?

Someone who blends sales, technical skills, operations and sometimes product management expertise. This person works on the vendor side, e.g. for a legaltech company.

However, this role is a predominately sales focussed role. If you aren’t interested in, or open to, sales then this role is not for you.  

Do not let the sales nexus put you off – we know of several lawyers who went into this role type and have enjoyed it, learnt a lot, are making careers in this field and in some cases have graduated into other related roles.

Does what?

Presales professionals have a broad remit.  Their principal function is to support the sales cycle at a software vendor. They do so by performing these activities:

  • Solution Preparation. Designing, creating and maintaining a stable of product demos that cover the most frequent customer use cases.  That said, sometimes custom demos need creation to influence a key prospect into a buying decision.  In either case, this may entail creating or acquiring dummy datasets to display inside the product and to create a representative and realistic illustration of how the vendor’s product solves a client’s need.  Understanding of a domain, or a willingness to learn it, go a long way to creating effective demos that resonate with a prospect or customer.
  • Product Demonstration. Presales professionals will be required to demo the product during in person or virtual sales meetings.  Sometimes a single demo is sufficient, but in most cases, you may have to demo multiple times, whether to the same set of individuals at a client or prospect and / or an increasingly widening set of decision makers at that organisation.  As part of this process you will normally have refined a “demo script” – a set of features and use cases to highlight the product’s main selling points or competitive edge. Ideally this will be done using storytelling to create a memorable and persuasive presentation of the problem-solution fit.  Naturally, you will be required to answer ad hoc questions from prospects and clients, either in the session or in follow-up communications.  These demos will also be required when representing the product at conferences and other public facing events; sometimes these demos may be 1 to 1 or in front of a large audience, ranging from tens to hundreds.
  • Proof of Concept / Value Creation. After meeting with the prospect, works with the prospect and salesperson to craft a suitable test case to trial the software, and ideally stack the odds of a successful trial in favour of the vendor by showing the product in its best light.  This will entail agreeing the scope of the test, e.g. the number of users, duration of the test, the success criteria and the data (if any) for use when testing the product. The proof of concept will be written up by the presales professional, usually with help from the vendor’s legal team, into a statement of work describing the intended deliverables, timeline and price (if paid; depending on the vendor, some POCs are done for free).  The presales professional may also project manage the proof of concept from start to finish, including any follow-ups to determine the success or fail of the proof of concept, and if successful, next steps such as locking in a production licence for the software.  The salesperson will be updated throughout.
  • RFPs / RFIs / Security Questionnaires. This is the least exciting and most repetitive part of the role! Presales will be required to complete these documents, summarising the product, use cases, features, costs, and technical architecture and security compliance.  This can be highly time-consuming, repetitive and uninspiring – however, good processes can ameliorate the grind these tasks sometimes create.
  • Stakeholder Management. Presales professionals need good communication, persuasion and influence skills to communicate and collaborate effectively with a variety of personas, including CIOs, CTOs, Programme Managers, Lawyers, Salespeople and Product Managers.
  • Channel Enablement. Most software vendors above a certain size utilize partners, i.e. third party consultancies, to resell and implement their software.  This is how the software company can continue to scale its market penetration without having to commensurately increase its full time headcount.  The third party consultants are incentivised via disclosed profit sharing on a commission basis or similar.  Presales professionals are often required to train, update and upskill partners in the product and produce collateral to help them effectively resell the product (e.g. pre-canned demos, videos, documentation, pitch decks and so on). 
  • Product Management. Although not a product manager role, absent of one in a small software vendor, presales can sometimes take on some of the duties and responsibilities usually accorded to a product manager.  In larger organisations, presales is an important ally to the product manager, providing lots of insight into client and prospect feedback and perception of the product, i.e. from demoing and consulting with clients regarding the product.
  • Marketing. As with product management, presales feeds into marketing for many of the same reasons, i.e. having a high frequency of close client and prospect contact tied to deep product knowledge provides presales with many important insights into current and forecasted buying requirements.  Marketing can use these insights to develop future marketing.
  • Selling. Presales is a sales role. You need to sell. You are not a passive participant in the sales conversation. You will support the salesperson and sell the client on the product’s credentials and fit to their use case.  As with sales, this requires good listening and questioning skills to ensure that your pitch neatly aligns to the prospect’s disclosed needs.
  • Solution Architecture. In smaller organisations, presales can overlap into solutions architecture. Note a Solutions Engineer is not the same as a Solutions Architect – a Solutions Engineer is a presales role. By comparison, a solution architect – like an architect in the construction industry who creates a general blueprint of a future building – must have broad knowledge of the available technologies to suggest the best solution according to a project’s requirements and the existing environment in which that project will need to take place.

Has what qualifications?

Presales professionals usually have a computer science, engineering or other STEM degree. That said, for legaltech companies, there is some flexibility to accommodate lawyers into these roles where they can demonstrate technical skills, perhaps some experience coding and knowledge of software development, which can be usually combined with their legal domain knowledge to support persuasive client demos and other sales processes. 

Works with whom?

Works closely with the sales team. Depending on the size of an organisation, a presales professional may be attached – officially or unofficially – to one or more salespeople.  If you are an excellent presales professional (i.e. good at helping sales close sales), you will be sought after by the best sales people. You will also very likely work with the product management and marketing teams, and the more senior you become, possibly feed into C-Level discussions to the extent they affect sales, marketing or product.

Uses what tools?

Presales is often a technical role.  As such, a presales professional will usually have some level of software skills.  At a minimum, these are usually expressed as requiring knowledge of the following types of technologies:

  • A database technology, e.g. SQL.

As noted above, this role requires great presentation and communication skills.  You need to sell and be comfortable doing so. 

It will also require great project management skills to juggle a busy and competing pipeline of sales meetings, POCs and other internal management activities.

Role is good for who?

Individuals who enjoy meeting people, public speaking, presenting, thinking on their feet and understanding the jobs to be done by software users and how to strategically target these with impactful and persuasive demos.  Great for individuals interested in both the commercial and technical aspects of software development.

Can be a stepping stone into what?

Presales can bleed into adjacent teams, such as marketing, product and sales. Depending on the organisation and the individual, it’s not impossible to migrate from development (or another role) into presales and then from presales into sales or to product.  

Presales – especially at a smaller vendor – is a good mix of sales, ops, product management, project management, marketing and stakeholder management generally. This gives you a lot of flex to focus more or less in one or more areas.  As such it can be a good role for lawyers looking for something “more commercial” without having to niche down to a particular skillset too soon.  

It’s also a lot of fun if you enjoy meeting and getting to know people! And believe it or not, although sales people get a bad rep, the good ones can be great to learn from!

Works where?

This is a vendor role.  You won’t find it at a law firm or in-house.  This is about supporting vendor software sales! 

That said, some larger law firms are building client facing solutions and using individuals to pitch those and build convincing demos… in a lot of ways, the activities being undertaken by such individuals are functionally similar to a vendor side presales role.  If that person is you, it’s worth bearing this equivalence in mind should you apply to a vendor side presales role – you may already have more transferable skills than you realise!

Is paid how much?

Presales remuneration varies massively. This depends in part on the organisation and your performance.  

Presales roles usually have a base salary, a commission element and sometimes also a bonus and equity or share options element. 

Base salaries can start around £40,000 and rise significantly to £100,000+ at larger tech companies, which mostly sit outside of legaltech. 

Commission is hard to generalise, but is a percentage of the total sales made by the organisation, or by a sales sub-unit, e.g. a group of sales and presales team mates responsible for a region or customer category.  The commission element will not be as significant as it is for salespeople. 

Bonuses and equity or share options also vary incredibly. Big tech companies can award very generous shares or share options packages, e.g. Google and similar.  

Overall, this can be a well paying role, even for new entrants. If you get good at it, and work at an organisation with a lot of growth, your total take home remuneration can be very generous in good years.

Those in sales and presales roles at larger organisations, often also get to enjoy other benefits, such as “sales kick-off” events and other “retreats” to organise or reward team performance.  In many cases, this will involve an all expenses paid trip abroad (e.g. to Las Vegas or Ski trips)! 

Work / life balance?

  • Hours. 0900 – 1900
  • Weekend work. Sometimes, although not common.
  • Evening work. 1900 – 00:00 work is not common but can happen, especially when assisting across timezones or on a pitch or to support overseas sales cycles.
  • Remote working. Yes, although ideally more of a face to face role (so either lots of face to face physical meetings or face to face Zooms).
  • Flexible working. Yes, within reason.

Salesperson, including Customer Account Managers

Salesperson Infographic

Is who?

Sales is unsurprisingly about… selling. Salespeople sell products and services.  This role is all about getting to know people, understanding what makes them tick, their decision criteria and convincing that person (ideally by helping them) to buy the product or service being sold… and ideally getting them to renew or buy more of the product or service over time.

Does what?

Sales is a very broad role. Roles within sales principally encompass the activities that lead to the selling of goods or services. 

Depending on the size of an organisation, these activities are typically broken into different teams, or assigned among individuals as followed:

  1. By the region they’re selling to (e.g. UK, EMEA, USA, etc).
  2. The product line or service line they’re selling.
  3. The target customer category (e.g. investment banks) or organisation (Goldman Sachs).

So what are these activities?

  • Planning. Sales teams need to plan who to target, how to target them, where to find them, when to approach them and why.  They need to manage their resources – sales can be a very time intensive process, especially if it is driven by face to face interactions and product demos. However, direct to consumer or direct to business sales may be much less time-consuming to the extent they can be automated, e.g. the popular process of offering free software trials that involve a self-service sign-up and require a credit card, charging that card with a on-going subscription licence if not terminated before the trial’s end.  Planning may also involve training and education within the sales team, e.g. to share tactics and strategies that have worked well and to minimize any activities that have worked less well.
  • Prospecting. Sales teams spend a lot of time building lists. These lists will include individuals, organisations, teams or events.  In each case, the aim is to find potential customers to contact, or places where these potential customers exist and can be met. So how is this done?
    • Inside Sales. This is a type of sales team that engages prospects and customers remotely, often via the telephone, VC or email.  Traditionally, they were office based, hence the term “inside”, i.e. selling from within the company. These inside sales processes are today heavily automated via lead generation and collection processes, e.g. creating a pdf guide or other freebie on a website that requires the prospect enter their contact details, which is then used to broker the initial contact, sometimes via automated emailing.
    • Outside Sales. This is a type of sales team that brokers face-to-face meetings. This is what most people understand when they think of sales, i.e. the door-to-door salesperson.  Unlike Inside Sales, these salespeople largely develop their own processes and strategies rather than stick to a rigid process.  Outside sales teams will often attend industry conferences, or host their own, to meet customers and prospects face to face.
  • eCommerce. Online selling, which is often mostly or entirely automated. Legaltech examples might include vendors that offer free trials, which either at the start or upon completion require a credit card that will be charged if the trial is left to run beyond the initial period.  
  • Pipeline. Creating and managing a set of stages that a prospect moves through as they progress from a new lead (i.e. someone that might become a customer) to a customer, and ideally once a customer, a renewing customer (whether in the sense of subscriptions or replacements).  Salespeople need to guide prospects through these pipeline stages.  A typical pipeline has at least 4 stages:
  • Qualification. The sales rep asks questions to determine if the prospect has the need, budget, authority and timing to buy the product or service in the near future. If they do, they progress this prospect to the next stage; if not, they move on to a different prospect.
  • Meeting. The sales rep and the prospect discuss the solution that best fits the prospect’s need. This may entail a demo, pitch deck and / or a general discussion about the challenges and opportunities of the prospect.  The aim is again to hone information on both sides to determine if there is a fit. 
  • Proposal. The sales rep sends the prospect a detailed quote laying out what will be provided, what is excluded, the cost and any timing constraints. This often will form the starting point for a negotiation.
  • Closing. This is where the champagne comes out. Final negotiations are made, contracts signed, payments made and the prospect is finally a paying customer. Note that the salesperson usually does not receive commission at this point, but at a later stage, usually the end of a financial quarter.

Not only does the salesperson have to shepherd a prospect through these stages, they also need to report on them, usually in a customer relationship management system (CRM), such as HubSpot or Salesforce. These systems collect data about prospects and clients, including key contact details but most importantly track every interaction by the organization with that prospect or customer.  

At every stage in the pipeline the salesperson will have to update the system to indicate a percentage likelihood that the prospect will ultimately convert to a paying customer.  If a customer is chasing for updates and keen to get started, that indicates a strong buying signal… but if they suddenly ghost you, that’s a strong anti-buying signal.  This provides data for the sales team to analyse and help prioritise their efforts, e.g. to throw attention at the most promising or most valuable leads, which may or may not be the same thing. CRMs and weekly and monthly catch-ups among the sales team keep everyone on track and hold everyone accountable.

  • Funnel building. Similar, but not quite the same as pipeline, is funnel.  Unlike pipeline which focuses on the stages / actions taken by sellers, the funnel represents the quantity and conversion rates of prospects through your pipeline stages.  It’s called a funnel because of its shape: wide at the top, narrow at the bottom.  It starts wide, and progressively narrows as prospects are disqualified or simply decide not to buy as they progress through the pipeline. Salespeople will track the number of prospects at each pipeline stage and the percentage of those that convert to the next stage, and finally the percentage that convert from the top of the funnel (i.e. initial contact) to the very bottom (i.e. a closed sale or retained customer).  This can provide leading indicators of how well (or not) the sales process is functioning, and provide cues as to why, e.g. that a marketing campaign or cold calling initiative is having a better or worse impact in attracting customers, or that an individual or sales sub-team is struggling or outperforming.  
  • Forecasting. Together with pipeline, funnels help sales managers forecast sales based on current lead volume and conversion rates, which naturally informs other strategic requirements such as forecasting business growth, salaries, commissions and so forth.
  • Account / Success Management. Some sales roles focus on retention rather than new sales. These roles tend to be titled “Customer Account Manager” or “Customer Success Manager”.  The aim of these roles is to track customer’s happiness with the product or service, deal with any issues by escalating them to teams that can solve those issues, and generally doing everything you can to ensure the customer keeps buying / renewing the product or service, and ideally also promoting your product or service.  These roles will usually be assigned to high value customers or segments, or sometimes a single customer if they are significant and needy.
Sales Funnel vs Sales Pipeline
Source: here.

So what happens when a sales person meets a prospect? They use tactics to win over the prospect, and ideally convert them to a customer. Tactics can take many forms. 

Some popular methods include the below (non-exhaustive) list:

  • Solution Selling. This is when the salesperson leads with the benefits a custom solution will give the prospect. The method acknowledges prospects are informed and have done their research on the product or service before the sales rep reached out. Solution selling is often used where the product or service is customised on a customer by customer basis.  The level of customization will depend, but often there will be a core of repeatable product or service around which supplemental customization is made.
  • Inbound Selling. Salespeople act as a consultant, meet the prospects where they are, and solve for prospects’ pain points. 
  • SPIN Selling. The acronym, SPIN, is used to describe the four types of questions salespeople should ask their clients: 
    • Situation. The salesperson asks questions to understand the customer’s current state, e.g. What do current processes look like? What tools do they use or not and why? How often do they use those tools and why? 
    • Problem. These are questions which ask about the prospect’s problems and how significant they might be, e.g. What problems do they face? How significant are these problems? Who specifically experiences them? 
    • Implication. These questions highlight to the prospect the consequences of the problems absent of solution, e.g. How has the problem impacted you and your organisation? What costs are there associated with the problem? How much time is wasted on this problem? What is the cost of doing nothing? What would success look like? 
    • Need-Payoff. When done correctly, the questions at this stage bring together all the previous questions to demonstrate a problem-product fit between the prospect’s challenges and the solution your product or service offers, e.g. Would a tool that provides X, Y, Z be valuable to your team? (where X, Y, Z are direct solutions to the problems and implications previously identified).
  • N.E.A.T. Selling. This is a framework that’s used to qualify leads. N.E.A.T. stands for: core needs, economic impact, access to authority, and compelling event.  Similar to SPIN, this is firstly about getting to the root cause of a prospect’s pains, helping them quantify the economic impact and getting the decision-makers into the process as soon as possible, along with a deadline for a decision in order to create a shared sense of urgency.
  • The Challenger Sale. The Challenger Sale follows a teach-tailor-take control process. Salespeople teach the prospect (usually deploying insights from other customers and sales), tailor their communications to demonstrate how these insights add value or remove pain from the prospect’s situation, and thereby take control of the sale.

Has what qualifications?

Sales is a varied field. Salespeople selling highly technical or domain driven products often have a background in that area. This is why a lot of lawyers go into sales, or presales, roles at legaltech companies.  They understand the domain well, and often have an existing network they can leverage to find and build profitable prospecting interactions.  These days, most sales roles at small to large technology companies typically require a degree, but not always.

Works with whom?

Salespeople often report into a regional or global sales director, who will work closely with the C-Level, particularly the CEO and CFO.  Salespeople lower down the food chain will work closely with presales and sometimes with product management – doing so ensures everyone is aligned, e.g. to understand the product roadmap and when certain features can or cannot be promised to customers etc.

Uses what tools?

Salespeople use the Microsoft Office or equivalent stack for day to day communications (e.g. Outlook / Gmail) and presentations (e.g. Powerpoint / Google Slides). They will also be heavy users of a CRM system, e.g. Salesforce, Hubspot, Insightly etc.

Role is good for who?

Goal-driven individuals with a thick skin, eye for detail, and a lot of grit suit sales roles. 

Sales is a tough job and very fickle. Salespeople live or die by how successful they are.  

Sales organisations can be ruthless when it comes to applying an “up or out” policy whereby the bottom performers are reguarly culled.  

Top performers can become incredibly successful and make significant amounts of money.

The very best performers can often negotiate, or are awarded, other incentives such as shares or share options to keep them incentivised longer term. 

If you want to work in sales, you need to be good with people, presenting and exuding confidence and gravitas. Sales is not for shrinking violets.

Can be a stepping stone into what?

Sales can be a stepping stone into other commercial roles, including the role of CEO. 

Works where?

Salespeople work at vendors. Law firms do employ business development executives who help lawyers sell the virtues of their legal business, and may in some cases do the selling themselves on behalf of those lawyers. That said, business development roles in law firms tend to be more marketing focused than sales focused, i.e. creating pitch decks and presentations for others – usually lawyers – to control.

Is paid how much?

Sales professionals can earn base salaries from £30,000 up to high six figures.  The very best performers at the most successful companies can take home total packages into 7 figures when commission, bonus and other incentives such shares and equity are taken into account.  Naturally, the bigger the organisation the better the remuneration.  Don’t expect big salaries in a 2 person legaltechstart-up!

Work / life balance?

  • Hours. 0900 – 1900
  • Weekend work. Sometimes, although not common.
  • Evening work. 1900 – 00:00 work is not common but can happen, especially when assisting across timezones or on a pitch or to support overseas sales cycles.
  • Remote working. Yes, although ideally more of a face to face role (so either lots of face to face physical meetings or face to face Zooms).
  • Flexible working. Yes, within reason.

Product Mgmt.

Product Manager Infographic

Is who?

A product manager is the person who identifies customer needs and the larger business objectives that a product or feature will fulfill.  The product manager will articulate what success looks like for a product, and drives a team to turn that vision into a reality.  

This is predominantly a vendor side role, although increasingly larger law firms are cultivating this role internally, or hiring experienced experts into this role from outside of law.

Does what?

The responsibilities of product manager vary depending on the size of an organisation.

In larger organisations, product managers are embedded within teams of specialists. Researchers, analysts, and marketers help gather input, while developers and designers manage the day-to-day execution, draw-up designs, test prototypes, and find bugs. These product managers have more help, but also spend more time aligning these stakeholders behind a specific vision.

In smaller organisations, product managers spend less time getting everyone to agree, but more time doing the hands-on work that comes with defining a vision and seeing it through.

In either case, a product manager will mostly be spending their time on the following types of tasks: 

  • Understanding and representing user needs, for instance via interviews, design thinking workshops, prototype testing with customers, and market research.
  • Monitoring the market and developing competitive analyses.
  • Defining a vision for a product, in terms of why it exists / is necessary, who it serves and how.
  • Aligning stakeholders around the vision for the product, including developers, UX, designers, C-level and marketing. 
  • Prioritizing product features and capabilities, which requires a deep understanding of the customer, the business and wider organisational priorities.
  • Creating a shared brain across larger teams to empower independent decision making.

Confusingly, there is a similar, but usually distinct role, known as a product owner. While a product manager defines the direction of the product, including vision setting, alignment and prioritisation, the product owner should work more closely with the development team to execute against the product manager’s goal. This means product managers tend to work with outside stakeholders whereas product owners work more with internal stakeholders.

Has what qualifications?

There are no formal qualifications needed to become a product manager. If the focus of the role is product development, an employer will usually ask for a degree related to their industry.  If the focus is on product marketing then employers may ask for a marketing or market research qualification.  

However, in most cases, experience is key, which can be gained by working with more experienced product managers and teams.  Sometimes product adjacent roles can segue into product management, e.g. subject matter experts (e.g. legal or finance), development, presales and sometimes sales and marketing roles.  

Works with whom?

Works closely with sales, marketing, C-level, and development. Product managers will also work very closely with customers.  

Uses what tools?

Product management has no shortage of tools, disciplines and frameworks.  Product managers may use any of the following to guide and develop their work and teams:

Project / Product Management Methodologies

  • Waterfall. Best for projects completed in a linear fashion. Projects are broken down into linear and sequential stages, where every piece of the project relies on the completion of preceding deliverables.  E.g. if you are building a house you can’t begin the roofing without first having finished the underlying structure.  Because this working style doesn’t permit going back to a prior phase (e.g. once the roof is on, you can’t easily redesign the foundations), it relies on detailed documentation and long-term planning.
  • Agile. Best for adaptive projects with simultaneous workflows.  Agile breaks projects into smaller iterative periods, usually combining simultaneous, incremental workflows.  Agile works well where adaptability is important and available.  Hence it is often popular in software development.  This can work especially well where you expect requirements to evolve over time.
  • Scrum. Scrum is a sub-discipline of Agile, and uses two-week sprints to get work done. These sprints are planned in advance, executed, and then reviewed at the end of the two-week period. During sprint planning, the team creates a sprint backlog. The team completes these backlog tasks during the sprint, managing the work among themselves. Best for projects focused on getting work done faster.
  • Kanban. Kanban is a type of Agile methodology that focuses on process improvement.  Kanban’s namesake board visualizes the team’s workflow. The board is split into categories of work to be done, work in progress, and completed work, and teams can add more categories as necessary to better visualize their process. Each task is recorded on a Kanban card, which moves from column to column on the board as it moves through the team’s process.

Prototyping tools

  • Wireframing tools.  Apps that allow the development of interactive wireframes, i.e. mock-ups, that prototype the look, feel and functionality of a product without having to build the back-end systems.  Examples include, Sketch, Balsamiq, Invision and Figma.
  • Paper prototyping.  As the name suggests, this involves making cheap, quick and low fidelity prototypes with paper (or other cheap materials) to simulate the basic elements of a product.  The cheapness usually encourages customers to provide honest feedback.  This is for two reasons: (1) customers don’t feel bad criticising cheaply made prototypes, whereas with expensive prototypes there can be a tendency to hold back because of the effort evident in making them; (2) customers focus on whether the product solves needs functionally, and less on details like the aesthetics, which can be useful if unsure that the product idea solves an unmet need.
  • Product collaboration apps. Apps to facilitate and document collaborative working such as customer workshops, design thinking exercises and so on, e.g. Miro or Mural… or a whiteboard, pens and sticky notes!
  • Product / project management apps. Tools that make it easy to create, organise, assign, prioritize and log user stories, feature requests, bugs, roadmap milestones and so on, e.g. Asana, Jira, Trello, Basecamp etc.

Role is good for who?

Product management is great for individuals that like getting inside people’s heads, motivations and their incentives and disincentives.  Product management is a lot about behaviour – understanding who people are, what motivates them, what they do and how they work and with whom and why.  It is also a lot about design, and understanding how to create fantastic customer experiences.

Can be a stepping stone into what?

Product management can be a stepping stone into a C-level role, e.g. Chief Product Officer.  It might also be a stepping stone across into entrepreneurship, i.e. launching your own product based business rather than developing a product for someone else’s business.  Product management can also be a good fit for consultancy roles, which often require a deep understanding of people, process and behaviours generally.

Works where?

Product managers will work at technology companies (and any other product based business), but also in-house at law firms and large in-house legal teams where they have a product focussed element to their offering.

Is paid how much?

Product manager salaries range from £42,000 – £75,000+ depending on seniority, and the significance of the product to be managed and the size of the organisation.  Top product management roles at large tech companies can command significantly more.

Work / life balance?

  • Hours. 0900 – 1900
  • Weekend work. Sometimes, although not common.
  • Evening work. 1900 – 00:00 work is not common but can happen, especially when assisting across timezones or when working toward crunch product launches or updates.
  • Remote working. Yes, although ideally more of a face to face role (so either lots of face to face physical meetings or face to face Zooms).
  • Flexible working. Yes, within reason.

Software Developer / Engineer

Software Developer Infographic

Is who?

Software engineers can take a wide variety of forms and functions. These roles naturally exist on the vendor side, but can exist in private practice.

For instance, in private practice an example is A&O’s i2 team, which has developers ringfenced to that function (i.e. not focused on traditional law firm IT remits), and exists to identify and develop innovation opportunities within the firm and for A&O’s clients.  

In large in-house legal teams, it is unlikely that you will find developer talent ringfenced to the legal team, although the legal team might be able to draw upon the organisation’s wider development team should they have one.

Does what?

Software developer roles come in a variety of forms.  The main variations are the below ones. Like everything, the distinction between these roles is often less than clearcut, e.g. some modern development frameworks distinguish much less between front and backend in some aspects, and most developers need some knowledge of security factors whatever they are building and regardless of for whom.

Frontend Developer

Frontend developers specialise in user interfaces, aesthetics and layouts. Their role is solely focused on understanding human machine interaction and design, and their skills will usually include design of user interface (UI), design of user experience (UX), and the underlying technologies that fulfil most user interfaces, such as CSS, JavaScript, HTML, and other popular UI Frameworks (e.g. Angular and React).

Backend Developer

The backend developer specialises in design, implementation, functional logic and performance of an app’s / website’s back end, which is usually made up of some combination of a server, application code and a database.  By doing this they are enabling the user-facing side of a website to exist, which is built on top (by a frontend developer). Their development skills will usually include popular coding languages, e.g. Java, C++, Ruby, Python, Scala and Go, and popular frameworks such as Ruby on Rails, Django as well as database languages such as SQL, MongoDb etc.

Full stack Developer

A full stack developer does both the front end and back end work for a website or app. They have all the skills which are required to create a fully functioning website or app. 

Mobile Developer

Mobile developers write software to run on mobile devices such as tablets and smartphones. A mobile developer understands mobile operating systems such as iOS and Android and the environment (e.g. platform specific integrated development environments (IDEs)) and frameworks used to create software on these systems. For some apps it is possible to write the app once and emulate it on multiple devices (or at least make its design responsive to the needs of different devices), but it is often better to build apps for specific operating systems or devices.

Data Scientist Developer

Data scientist developers write programs to analyse data sets, sometimes using machine learning (a statistical and probabilistic type of data driven AI). They are normally in charge of statistical analysis, machine learning and predictive modelling. They will be experienced programmers – usually expert in R and / or Python – plus a range of open source frameworks and libraries for large scale data analysis and machine learning, e.g. Pandas, Numpy, Tensorflow, Keras, Spacy, NLTK etc.  

Good data scientists will also have very strong backgrounds in mathematics, or applied mathematics disciplines from physics and engineering.  That said, if you have GCSE or A-Level Maths to a good level (A*/A), you can probably learn the fundamental mathematics of many techniques, which are heavily based on calculus and linear algebra for the most part. The slightly childish looking – but awesome – site Math is Fun coupled with Khan Academy’s mathematics courses do a great job of getting you up to speed, or dusting off your existing maths abilities.   

The very best data scientists will also be great storytellers, able to tell stories with data that influence and persuade decision making.

DevOps Developer

DevOps developers are familiar with technologies which are able to build, deploy, monitor and integrate systems and manage back end software, often in the cloud. DevOps usually have experience in the following types of technologies, e.g. Kubernetes, Docker, Apache Mesos, Jenkins etc.

Quality Assurance Engineer 

Quality Assurance Engineers are responsible for assessing the quality of specifications, the workability of the system (i.e. that it functions as specified and is bug-free) and technical design documents in order to ensure timely, relevant and meaningful feedback. The skills needed for a QA Engineer vary quite a bit, but will usually require some familiarity with one or more coding languages, e.g. JavaScript, Python, C++, Ruby, C# and .Net etc. These types of developers should also be comfortable writing and analysing queries and working with different frameworks.

Security Developer

Security developers specialise in creating systems, methods and procedures to test the security of software systems and fix security flaws. They use a variety of tools to complete their job such as scripting languages like Python and Ruby. They also use coding languages such as C and C++ to read and understand operating systems. The aim of their job is to ethically hack systems to discover their vulnerabilities and then design solutions to patch those vulnerabilities so they are no more, and thus render the software less hackable by unethical hackers (i.e. criminals).

Has what qualifications?

A lot of developers have a degree in Computer Science or another STEM subject. That said, software development remains a highly vocational and experience based career path.

It’s worth flagging that computer science and coding are not one and the same, albeit most computer science courses teach both. 

Computer science is the study of how computers work, mostly from the bottom up in terms of the theoretical, electronic, mathematical and increasingly physics driven perspective.  

Coding – or more precisely software engineering – is a branch of computer science concerned with the principles of software design, development, maintenance, testing and evaluation.

Developers tend to specialise in one or more coding languages, but are often expected to learn new languages, e.g. if their role or organisation works with a particular technology or needs to swap to a different technology. 

In many cases, proven experience and ability are often most important.  For this reason, most developer jobs will require candidates to pass one or more tech tests, either online (e.g. often via HackerRank or Leetcode) and / or in person, to determine the technical ability. 

Works with whom?

Developers usually work in teams alongside other developers. In most cases there will be at least one senior developer and one junior developer. Developers may also work closely with product management to ensure alignment between the product manager’s vision for product and its actual implementation.

Uses what tools?

Developers use a ton of tools. Most will use some combination of the below:

  • A version control system, e.g. Git, to manage and collaborate around different versions of code.  Sometimes this will be backed up to a cloud storage capability, e.g. GitHub.
  • One or more coding languages or frameworks.  Front-end developers may use some of the wireframing tools described above for product managers.

Role is good for who?

Individuals who like to combine engineering with creativity, and have a passion for problem solving.  

Can be a stepping stone into what?

Development roles can be very transferable.  Developers can segue into presales, product or work up to CTO roles. Many developers are very entrepreneurial in outlook, so it’s no surprise that developers often work on start-ups and side projects, whether their own or with others.

Works where?

Work for software companies, or technical teams at larger organisations that build software in-house.

Is paid how much?

Developer roles vary enormously in salary.  Junior developer salaries can start around £30,000 and quickly rise to £100,000+ based on skill and seniority.  Developer or developer adjacent roles at large tech companies can command significant overall remuneration packages, including shares and other benefits.

Work / life balance?

  • Hours. 1000 – 1800
  • Weekend work. Sometimes, although not common.
  • Evening work. 1800 – 00:00 work is not common but can happen, especially when assisting across timezones or when working toward crunch product launches or updates.
  • Remote working. Yes, and extremely common pre-covid. 
  • Flexible working. Yes, developer roles are often very flexible.

Knowledge Management Lawyer

Knowledge Management Lawyer Infographic

Is who?

A type of lawyer that focuses on the creation, capture and curation of legal knowledge, and who is typically – but not always – non-practising.

Does what?

Knowledge management (KM) is about creating, capturing and curating legal knowledge, including:

  • Precedents, i.e. legal documents produced for specific client matters that have re-usable value.
  • Templates, i.e. templated legal documents designed specifically for easy and comprehensive re-usability (usually based on the cumulative legal knowledge and precedents pertaining to that document type and its use case(s)).
  • Guidance, i.e. know-how explaining a legal topic, transaction type, process or context to a particular market or client persona.

KM lawyers will also be responsible for the identification, design, development and on-going maintenance (or coordination) of processes and systems for KM creation, capture and curation, e.g. making good use of databases, forms to capture data about legal transactions, document automation (of templates and precedents), expert systems (to automate knowledge) and search to facilitate effective information retrieval.

And finally, KM lawyers are responsible for researching the latest legal points of law, regulatory changes and thought leadership, usually on an on-going basis but also in response to ad hoc demands, e.g. to research the law as it pertains to a specific issue on a live client matter.  

KM has traditionally overlapped into innovation and operations, mostly because of the need to combine good processes, information architecture and technology to organise and make sense of increasing quantities of legal knowledge.  Many law firms have built their innovation or legal operations functions out of what were their traditional KM functions.  

In other firms, innovation and legal operations teams work closely with KM given KM’s existing networks within these organisations and frequent overlap owing to the fact many legaltech products involve some level of legal knowledge management, e.g. AI tools that can be trained using legal data to perform X or Y legal task with data of a similar type.

Has what qualifications?

KM lawyers will have a law degree or paralegal experience. Increasingly, it is to be expected that KM lawyers will have or develop abilities aligned to data science, or may be paired with an established data science practitioner to unlock new ways to exploit the creation, capture, curation and surfacing of legal data in new and insightful ways.

Works with whom?

KM lawyers work with practising lawyers, law firm leadership and often the innovation or legal operations teams.  KM lawyers may also work with business development teams at law firms as KM is often a selling point for law firm clients, who will not usually have their own KM function and therefore seek to rely upon their favourite law firms for this capability.

Uses what tools?

KM lawyers will be heavy Microsoft Office users.  They will also be expert in their firm’s KM systems, typically a document management system like iManage or NetDocuments, but also other databases maintained by the firm’s IT teams to support the creation, capture and curation of knowledge. Some KM lawyers will be specialists in document automation technologies, and often document automation specialists (see above) will sit within KM for this reason.  KM lawyers will be expert users of legal research and search engine technologies applied to legal data.

Role is good for who?

The role is great for lawyers that enjoy the law, in particular either the academic side or the systems based side to law.  The former will gravitate toward the creation and curation of legal knowledge, the latter will enjoy thinking about ways to create and maintain processes for the easy and effective capture or creation of legal knowledge, e.g. document automation and so on.

Can be a stepping stone into what?

KM lawyering can be a stepping stone into legal ops and innovation roles within law firms – hence our mention of this role – as the teams often overlap in function, and in some cases the legal ops or innovation function within a law firm may be an offshoot of the traditional KM function.  

KM roles can also lead into vendor side roles where there is either a need for good general KM skills – e.g. legal AI companies, which require a high degree of precise legal knowledge engineering – or deep subject matter expertise in a particular niche – e.g. a legaltech producing finance focused legal applications.

Works where?

KM lawyers will work at law firms, or less commonly at legaltech vendors.  KM lawyers tend not to work in-house as in-house teams rarely support a full-time KM role, instead either relying on their outside law firms to provide KM resources or requiring in-house lawyers to take responsibility for their own KM.

Is paid how much?

KM lawyers at large law firms, especially those with 4-5 post-qualification experience (PQE) can command as much as £50,000 – £150,000.  Director of KM roles – usually a regional or global role – can command significantly more at the largest law firms.

Work / life balance?

  • Hours. 0900 – 1700
  • Weekend work. Exceptionally rare.
  • Evening work. 1700 – 00:00 work is very rare.
  • Remote working. Yes.
  • Flexible working. Yes.

Consultancy

Consultant Infographic

Is who?

Consulting in general is the practice of helping organisations improve their performance. 

Whilst there has always been consultancy aimed at legal, it is seeing increased attention, partly driven by the surging interest in legal ops, innovation and legaltech.  

The Big Four management consultancies (PWC, Deloitte, KPMG and EY) have each launched management consultancy teams aimed at legal, and in particular in-house legal functions.  

Alongside the Big Four, there is a small but growing number of niche consultancies specialising in legaltech, ops and innovation, e.g. Syke, Wavelength (now a part of Simmons & Simmons), The Law Boutique, Bam Legal etc.

Does what?

Consultancy organisations, teams and roles in legaltech, ops and innovation generally perform a number of functions. These may include:

  • Legal Engineering. Identifying opportunities to transform legal functions via improved application of people, process and technology.  Often this will involve process mapping and measurement of current state operations and using these as a means to define and buy / build toward a desired state that delivers enhanced provision of legal products or services. See our previous article for more on process mapping and measurement.
  • Procurement Support. Helping legal teams research and evaluate legaltech, including development of selection criteria.  May also support the implementation and on-going maintenance of legaltech.
  • Document & Workflow Automation. Document and workflow automation is a big part of both of the above.  It is also often offered as a separate service given it is a more established category of legaltech and operations focused deliverable.
  • Legal Data Services. Building data driven legal products and services. This will usually entail mapping any existing information architecture and analysing ways in which this can be improved, e.g. to deliver better KM or to create new data driven products and services.
  • Legal Design. Identifying and developing ways to improve legal services delivery.  This will entail applied design thinking and service design principles to existing or proposed legal products and services.

Has what qualifications?

A legal background will help, but is not essential.  Consulting experience is definitely attractive, whether in legal or not.  Depending on the size of the consultancy, there may be a need for specialist skills, e.g. product management, developer skills and so on, which will require the experiences and qualifications described above for those roles.

Works with whom?

Consultants will work with a range of client personas, spanning private practice / in-house lawyers but often also the business individuals that rely upon the services of a legal function.  

Uses what tools?

Consultants will be big users of Microsoft Office or similar. They will often be great users of visual and collaborative tools to run and document workshops, e.g. Powerpoint, Miro, Mural and so on.  Process mapping tools are also very common, e.g. Visio, Draw.io etc.

Role is good for who?

Consultancy roles can be good for those who enjoy thinking about legal teams, organisations, processes, products and services from the perspective of how they might be improved, particularly in terms of efficiency.  

Likewise, consultancy may appeal to those interested in designing and building novel products and services for legal businesses.  

In many ways, there is often a lot of overlap with in-house legal innovation and legaltech roles, which resemble internal consultancy roles.

Can be a stepping stone into what?

This type of role can be a good stepping stone into consultancy roles outside of legal, but also into other specialist roles such as product management depending on the focus of experience gleaned whilst working in a consultancy.

Works where?

Consultants may work for a consultancy, be freelancers or sometimes work in-house (e.g. as is the case for most legaltech / innovation roles at law firms, which are usually consultancy roles in terms of function).

Is paid how much?

Legaltech / ops / innovation consultants can expect to command anything between £35,000 – £100,000+ depending on experience, seniority and the size and type of the organisation they work for and with.  Freelancers who build their own business, and perhaps later go on to hire other people into their business, may command considerably more (as business owners).

Work / life balance?

  • Hours. 0900 – 1800
  • Weekend work. Sometimes, especially in the run up to crunch client deliverables during busy periods.
  • Evening work. 1800 – 00:00 work is not uncommon, especially when assisting across timezones or when working toward crunch project deadlines during busy periods.
  • Remote working. Yes, and extremely common pre-covid. 
  • Flexible working. Yes, within reason. Note a lot of consultants at the big consultancies have to travel a lot, and often spend Monday to Thursday travelling to and from (and sometimes working at) client sites, keeping Fridays fixed for work at their home office location.

⚡Don’t forget the rest of the guide ⚡

This article forms part 5 of our 6 part series on careers in legaltech, legal ops and innovation. Please check out the other articles and career profiles for more inspiration and guidance!

The post Legaltech Careers Guide: Roles, Salaries & Work / Life Balance appeared first on lawtomated.