Tess Blair, an eData specialist with the law firm Morgan, Lewis & Bockius spoke with Legaltech News about the future of data and technology in the legal world. The message? Lawyers should be using data to learn something they didn’t know before, or to help clients in new ways. 

We highlighted three of the biggest takeaways from the Q&A with Blair:

1. A new legal world in 10 years: “I see a profession where access to legal technology will be easier and broader... Instead of countless contract review/analytics platforms and e-discovery packages, perhaps we’ll have fewer but really good ones that are offered on platforms differentiated by user base. The winning platforms will be simple, secure, nimble, but importantly will be designed to optimize practice by leveraging user data.” 

2. Monetizing and using data is key: “For a profession that is in essence an information consumption, generation and delivery business, law has not even begun to figure out how to exploit the value in our data, our information, our knowledge. Indeed, a lot of lawyers will tell you they can’t even find it half the time….Until we finally acknowledge that and start to think about our data the way Silicon Valley does, legal will never realize the enormous untapped value we’re sitting on.”

3. There’s a major opportunity to make legal platforms available to regular users: “I’d like to see the gap close between the consumer user experience and the legal user experience, and my user experience in legal is downright pitiful compared to my experience using even the most basic online consumer platforms. Maybe we don’t want a MySpace for legal, but can we get an Amazon or a Spotify-like experience?”