What if a lawyer wasn't a lawyer

It all changed on November 22, 2022: the release of ChatGPT was just the beginning. By mid-2023 all labor was unnecessary and humanity began to drift. By 2024 it had taken over; all was lost. These days, only a few disparate pockets of us remain, waiting to be made obsolete, to be replaced. We resist, but who knows how long we’ll be able to hold out.

Whilst the above is an imaginary scenario, it is likely not too far from actual thoughts had by some professionals at the advent of ChatGPT. Even in-house counsel, who were likely salivating at the prospect of all their low-value work being taken over by automation, are now apprehensive about exactly how much of that work will be going.

When asked about possible future changes for the legal profession, Shaun Plant, Chief Legal Evangelist at LawVu, responds with a simple but highly pertinent question: “What if a lawyer wasn’t a lawyer?” Plant’s position is essentially that leaning too heavily into the legal person, and even our legal training, is stifling the evolution of the role. In essence, lawyers are their own biggest barrier to modernization and the trappings of a role so richly vested in history is being held back from the future.

“I quickly realized that a lot of behaviors and the ways I thought and presented information to a business were not very helpful," he says. "Even though it ticked the box of what a good competent lawyer would do, it wasn’t what the business needed from people supposed to be helping it to achieve its objectives. Lawyers doing lawyering holds us back.

“If we had a different label, if we weren’t called lawyers, if we were high-end service providers or business solution providers, we’d have a mind shift in how we would and could use our skills. There’s a lot of stuff we do that’s about lawyers doing lawyering and it comes from legal practice. I advise you, and then that’s where my interest, if you like, ends, even if I’m interested in what actually happened. Is that having a deep understanding of the business? Is that being able to provide a service where you’re not constrained by thinking 'this as far as I need to go from a legal point of view?'”

By freeing ourselves from the shackles of the 'lawyer' title, and even its verb 'lawyering', Plant believes we may be able to move the profession in a new direction, especially within an in-house capacity, to a position which is both resistant to macro change and accepting of micro change. Such adaptations are much needed for one of the longest standing professions and its entrenched ways of being.

“It’s a shackle. I often tell people that when you go in-house leave the baggage of private practice behind. Try to become a different person, don’t think or act like a lawyer. When I first went in-house, I wore a suit and tie every day. After a couple of weeks, I dressed down and found people would relate to me more. Next, I stopped talking like a lawyer. It was a much better way of being.”

A lawyer who isn’t a lawyer is courageous, a lawyer who isn’t a lawyer is relatable, a lawyer who isn’t a lawyer can put the needs of the business first, falling back on their legal knowledge where necessary. Most importantly, a lawyer who isn’t a lawyer has their eyes set firmly on the future and is ready to embrace change whenever it comes. Ready to drive the profession forward, leaving the legal handbrake behind in the dust.