David Fowlis, a regulatory policy manager at the Legal Services Board, is joined by Roger Brownsword, Professor of Law at King's College London, to discuss how technology is being used and regulated in other professional services sectors in the UK and what lessons legal services regulators can learn from the experiences of others.

The views expressed in this podcast do not represent the views of the Legal Services Board.

David Fowlis, a regulatory policy manager at the Legal Services Board, is joined by legal services consultant Alison Hook. In their discussion about the ethical and regulatory challenges presented by disruptive technologies, Alison identifies the lessons to be learned from abroad and compares the varying responses to technology by regulators internationally.

The views expressed in this podcast do not represent the views of the Legal Services Board.

David Fowlis, a regulatory policy manager at the Legal Services Board, is joined by Noel Semple, Associate Professor of Law at the University of WIndsor, Ontario, to discuss whether the existing regulatory framework is sufficiently flexible to respond to challenges presented by the increasing use of technology in legal services. 

The views expressed in this podcast do not represent the views of the Legal Services Board.

David talks to Dr Anna Donovan - the inaugural vice dean of innovation at University College London's Faculty of Laws - about blockchain and its use in legal services. Anna sets out how legal services providers are using blockchain now, how this may change, and the implications for regulators seeking to respond to blockchain's evolution as a legal tool.

The views expressed in this podcast do not represent the views of the Legal Services Board.

David Fowlis, a regulatory policy manager at the Legal Services Board, is joined by Associate Professor of Law and Computer Science at Swansea University Adam Wyner.  They discuss what regulators can do to ensure that legal education addresses the challenges presented by LegalTech so that lawyers have the knowledge and skills required to shape and use technology to deliver legal services effectively and ethically.

The views expressed in this podcast do not represent the views of the Legal Services Board.

David Fowlis, a regulatory policy manager at the Legal Services Board, is joined by Professor Lisa Webley. They discuss the latest technological developments in the legal services context and how these may affect the current practice of law. They also examine how these changes may give rise to ethical considerations similar to or distinct from those already affecting the profession and whether these may require a regulatory response.

Aisling O'Connell, Technology and Innovation policy lead, and Paul Nezandonyi, Head of Communications and Engagement at the Legal Services Board (LSB), sit down to discuss the latest LSB Technology paper. They outline how legal services regulators can actively support technology and innovation that safely increase access to legal services and explore the ways in which technology can help open the legal services market up to citizens and small businesses.

In March 2021, the Legal Services Board published its 10-year sector-wide strategy to reshape legal services to better meet society’s needs.  Since publishing the strategy, the LSB has been developing plans to curate the strategy, in other words, engage the sector to collaborate and deliver on the Strategy. As part of this, the LSB has developed a Reshaping Legal Services microsite which will be a platform for stakeholders to showcase their work and how it aligns with the strategy.  

Alongside this, we have also developed the RLS podcast series to document progress against the strategy’s challenges across the sector and identify ways for stakeholders to collaborate and deliver to reshape legal services to better meet society’s needs through fairer outcomes, stronger confidence and better services.   

The first episode of the Reshaping Legal Services podcast looks at how we can dismantle barriers to a diverse and inclusive profession, which falls under the ‘fairer outcomes’ theme of the strategy. In this episode, we interview Debbie Foster, Professor of Employment Relations and Diversity at Cardiff Business School and Chair of Lawyers with Disabilities, Law Society, Jane Burton, who tell us a bit more about their joint research project called ‘Legally Disabled, which produces valuable research on the career experiences of disabled people in the legal profession. Then in the latter part of this episode, we speak with Elizabeth Rimmer, Chief Executive of LawCare, who tells us about LawCare’s work to improve mental health in the legal services sector and where she sees the future of legal services. 

You can find out more about Legally Disabled here: http://legallydisabled.com/  

You can follow LawCare on Twitter: @LawCareLtd.