Session on 25th April 2025

Jana Blount, an innovation consultant specialising in legal innovation and former head of Radical Change at DLA Piper, shared her great insights on how lawyers can develop the skills needed to thrive in an increasingly technology-driven profession. Drawing from her experience transitioning from litigation to leading innovation initiatives at a global law firm, Blount offered a practical framework for lawyers at all career stages to adapt to the changing landscape.

From Frustration to Innovation: A Personal Journey

Blount’s path to legal innovation began with her own frustrations as a practising litigator in Miami. “I remember coming home one day and saying to my then-husband, ‘My God, I am going to do this for a bit longer and then come back and sell to all the law firms better ways of doing things because this is just not what I went to law school for,'” she recalled.

This early recognition that legal processes could be significantly improved eventually led her to DLA Piper, where she established and led the firm’s Radical Change initiative—a programme focused on creating new services and approaches for clients. During her eight-year tenure, she built a data team, created AI products, and launched a consulting service advising clients on in-house innovation.

The Evolving Role of Innovation in Law

Blount observed a significant shift in how innovation functions within law firms. “When I started at DLA nine or ten years ago, not many law firms had innovation. So you really did need to create an innovation team,” she explained. “But now, with everything that’s happened—COVID, geopolitical issues, new generations wanting different things from work, and generative AI—innovation needs to be part of how you do business, period.”

Rather than existing as a separate vertical alongside finance, marketing, and practice teams, innovation must transform into a horizontal function that impacts thinking and strategy across the entire organisation. This shift requires lawyers at all levels to engage with new technologies and ways of working.

Essential Skills for the Future Lawyer

When asked about the skills lawyers will need in the coming years, Blount emphasised curiosity as the foundational attribute. “If the last five years have shown us anything, it’s really hard to predict what the next five years will look like,” she noted. “If you have a mindset of ‘this is what I do, and I am going to only focus on what I do and do that really well’ without being curious about what else is going on around you and being open and adaptive to learning new skills—you’re screwed.”

This curiosity-driven approach creates opportunities, particularly for those willing to step forward while others hang back. Blount shared her own experience: “I got brought into client pitches because none of the other partners could really meaningfully talk to clients about how we might use technology to create a better service or experience for them. Once you have a few successful pitches and wins and happy clients, all of a sudden I found myself having coffee with the CEO about what else I could be doing.”

For lawyers seeking to position themselves advantageously in this changing landscape, Blount highlighted several key areas to develop:

1. Human Connection Skills

As generative AI increasingly handles tasks across all levels of the profession, the human aspects of legal practice become more valuable. “Lawyers play the role of trusted advisor. That’s something I don’t see ever going away,” Blount emphasised. “It’s absolutely imperative that you are able to hold a great conversation, do that negotiation, build those relationships and create that trust with your clients. Those skills are going to be more valuable now and in the future than they have been in the past.”

2. Digital Literacy and Prompt Engineering

When asked by a participant about improving digital literacy, Blount advised a practical approach: “The only way you improve is just by trying. You’re not going to be an expert the first time.” She recommended experimenting with tools like ChatGPT or Gemini, and even suggested asking the AI itself how to improve your prompts.

This requires a mindset shift from “trusting your previous experience and knowledge” to “trusting that you are capable of figuring this out.” Blount noted that effective prompting is becoming an essential skill—one that builds on lawyers’ existing abilities to give clear instructions and define deliverables precisely.

3. Cross-Disciplinary Thinking

The future belongs to lawyers who can make connections across different areas rather than those with only deep expertise in one narrow field. “What became more and more rare was people that knew a bit more or knew a lot about different things and could make connections that those really focused on only one area were unable to see,” Blount observed.

With generative AI now capable of tasks previously requiring experienced lawyers—like finding relevant precedents or checking email tone—the value shifts toward those who can integrate knowledge from multiple domains.

4. Predictive and Proactive Advisory Skills

Perhaps most excitingly, Blount highlighted how technology enables lawyers to deliver more forward-looking advice: “A huge thing that I don’t hear many people talking about is the benefits of utilising these technologies to give more predictive and proactive advice for our clients.”

By leveraging AI to process vast amounts of data—from legal databases to political signals—lawyers can better anticipate regulatory changes and market shifts. “You could take in data from politicians’ tweets… and get indicators that would show you where things could be headed, which allows you to provide more proactive, predictive advice to your clients about how they can prepare ahead of time rather than being reactive.”

The Human-Technology Balance

Despite the technological transformation underway, Blount remains optimistic about the legal profession’s future, emphasising that the most valuable aspects of lawyering cannot be automated. “No one wants to talk to a chatbot about certain situations,” she noted.

Lawyers’ judgment will remain crucial in determining not just what technology can do, but what it should do. “Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should,” Blount emphasised. “Lawyers are really great at making judgment calls around what really matters and what could bring value to our clients going forward.”

Conclusion: Opportunity Amid Disruption

Rather than viewing technological change as a threat, Blount encourages lawyers to see it as an opportunity to evolve their practice and deliver greater value. By developing curiosity, enhancing human connection skills, building digital literacy, thinking across disciplines, and providing more predictive advice, lawyers can position themselves to thrive amid disruption.

The lawyer of the future will not be replaced by technology but will instead harness it to focus on what matters most: solving clients’ problems with insight, empathy, and judgment that machines cannot replicate. As Blount concluded, “We as a profession are struggling and there’s a lot of fear mongering out there… but let’s just flip it to that opportunity.”