December 13, 2019

 Patrick Lamb

 Nicole Nehama Auerbach

litigation practice of law

Anna Lozynski is the General Counsel of L’Oreal Australia and New Zealand, an accomplished author and an in-demand speaker. Anna’s most recent book is Legally Innovative, which has 3 parts—Be Bold, Be Curious, Be Disruptive (you can tell why we like Anna so much!). As Anna writes, “[s]ince popping the lid on the legal transformation jar some years ago, legal innovation has totally become my jam.” But more than just looking in as an outsider, Anna lives the legal innovation thing every day.  You can access Anna’s books on her website.

~ Nicole Auerbach & Patrick Lamb

Founders, ElevateNext

Interview with Anna Lozynski

Anna Lozynski

Executive General Counsel, Author, Thought Leader

Q: What do you predict will be the two biggest changes in the legal profession as of 2025 and why?

I predict the mystery, and to an extent, the confusion around legal innovation and its relevance to the legal sector will be largely solved, but still perhaps not quite ‘the new normal’ in the way lawyers deliver legal services. Over the next five years, as the level of what I call IQ2.0–Innovation Intelligence–increases and becomes more prevalent across the legal ecosystem, we will see less time being spent leaning into the fear and resistance and more into the benefits of change, the practicalities of implementing innovation, and doing law differently. Lawyers with an innovator’s mindset will be in higher demand by the business community–skills such as change management, creativity and collaboration will be a must-have for lawyers. General Counsel will need to have a greater strategic focus on legal operations, including data, in their departments in order to align with business expectations and practice with relevance.

I also predict that legal career paths will also start to significantly shift, borne out of a mix of necessity and enlightenment, with more lawyers occupying the legal roles of the future–something I cover in my e-Book, The New Age Lawyers (which, thanks to Elevate, is available for free). In parallel, I anticipate we will see more law graduates bypassing a “long term” career in the law, and instead use their training to pursue entrepreneurial interests or other careers–the notion of a “long-term” career will become heavily influenced by the gig economy and a generational desire to have a series of careers. This will in turn have an impact on how we nurture and value legal talent.

Q: What should be the biggest change as of 2025 but won’t be?

• A fundamental adoption of legal tech across the entire profession, not just pockets.
• Legal innovation and legal operations being offered as core subjects in all major law schools around the globe.
• BigLaw firms fundamentally changing their business models to greater incentivize and facilitate the adoption of legal innovation.
• The widescale end of the billable hour.
• In-house lawyers having bigger budgets!
• It being far easier to hire a unicorn (a.k.a., a lawyer of the future); that is, one with a trifecta of intelligences: EQ (emotional), TQ (technical) and what I call IQ2.0 (innovation intelligence).

Q: If you could design something that does not exist right now that you think would be of help to you or the industry in 2025, what would it be?  

Simplicity is a luxury. Collaboration and connection are becoming more and more business critical. In that context, APIs will have a significant part to play in the future of legal tech. At present, while there is not one legal tech vendor that offers the full suite of capabilities, once the use of legal tech becomes the “new normal,” clients will (and so too, will their business clients) want a single operating system or interface to access legal support. Imagine if you had to carry a separate smart phone for each of your apps! That means existing legal tech is going to have to connect and “talk” to one another a lot more than it does now. It necessitates the existing legal tech world to undergo a transformation of its own.

I’d love to see a disruption of the legal conference model so that legal tech vendors are not separated as sponsors from the conference conversation, but rather wholeheartedly placed at its center. In my view, law students should also be given free access to these conferences with conference organisers developing stronger ties to Universities to facilitate this.

I’d also love to see an update to CLE requirements such that legal innovation sessions become mandatory for every practitioner.

And so much more, I could write an e-book about it!

Q: If the current you could give advice to the future you about anything (doesn’t have to be law-related), what would it be?

Your ideas should make others feel uncomfortable–that’s how learning and change happens in unimaginable ways.

Anna Lozynski is a General Counsel & Author – you can discover more about her innovative ways here, and by following @legallyinnovative on Instagram.