Next Up, the new event in legal IT

On 23^rd February we attended Next Up, the one day event aimed at mentoring, developing and guiding future leaders of IT in legal. The event was held in London at Tanner Warehouse, and throughout the day we heard from various different speakers, and interactive round tables were held to discuss a variety of topics. Key ideas we took away from the day were about networking, what it takes to be a good leader and how to be a good leader in legal IT.

The day began with a session from Jacqui Thornton, who started things off with networking bingo. This entailed everyone going around and speaking to different people in the room in order to fill in a sheet of statements, finding one person per statement. After this icebreaker Jacqui spoke about the importance of networking and gave us some tips. Key things we took away included; prepare- decide what you’re objectives are and set up follow up meetings, Batari’s box how you think and act affects how the person you’re networking with thinks and acts, and vice versa, 93% of communication is non-verbal, therefore it is important to pay attention to what someone is not saying and react similarly. 

A panel discussion was led by Rupert Collins-White of LSN, and on the panel was Christina Blacklaws of Cripps LLP, Maurice Tunney of Keystone Law, Oliver Morris of Picture More and Moira Slape of Travers Smith, who discussed ‘Climbing the Ladder’.  Key ideas to come from the session were; to be a good leader you should be able to read people, make tough decisions, communicate effectively and engage and influence others. Furthermore, leaders should be passionate about what the people they are trying to lead are passionate about. Another point was that law firms don’t do enough for managerial progress, as daily work gets in the way and leadership is a skill we should be developing regardless of if the employee is a fee earner or not.

Chris White, of Clyde & Co discussed ‘Strategies for Success’ for leaders in legal IT, stating that IT needed to be viewed as a discipline, business needs to be thought about first then technology. Furthermore, when speaking to decision makers, those in IT should talk about the benefits of technology, not the technology itself. He also encouraged future leaders to push the boundaries, and being proactive to work out how you can help the business grow.

Luan de Burgh, of de Burgh group topic was ‘Breaking Through to the Next Level’, he spoke about what it takes to be a good leader;  you need to be likeable so that people will want to do what you say, you need to lead by example and do what you want others to do. He suggested that it is important to be a people developer and provide them with the right tools to develop.  The qualities of a good leader are; the ability to engage others, make decisions, anticipate problems before they happen, find opportunities, be emotionally predictable and be able to praise people. Luan de Burgh stated that leaders should not seek approval; it’s not about your ego, you should put yourself last.

In between the sessions there were interactive round tables, covering the topics; effective communication, better business insight, embracing agile, managing the disconnect between users and systems, security challenges for 2016, monitoring and measuring service availability, and the future of collaboration and mobility. We hosted a table on ‘Effective Communication’, and some really interesting ideas came up. Phil Wood, Head of IT at Bristows, spoke about the pain point they are reaching trying to manage email at the firm. As every email is filed there are duplicates, and the amount of storage space it is taking up is excessive. Law firm’s feel under pressure from clients to move away from email as it’s not secure, and are concerned about security breaches releasing their personal data. Bristows have selected Nikec Hub to help move communications, so clients can securely access on demand information without having to contact the firm. They want to change the company culture and create a better experience for the client, by putting all information in one centralised space.

The event was a great success, and we took away some interesting ideas from the day about leadership and technology. In particular, the conversation around what it takes to be a good IT leader within the legal sector brought out some inspiring ideas, we look forward to attending the next event!