Newcomers, new legal roles: legal innovation consultant

Our first interviewee is Maria Govis, Manager at KPMG UK. She has a non-linear career path: from a translator/interpreter she turned lawyer and then a legal innovation professional focusing on meaningful innovation, legal and IT project management, legal process improvement, contract lifecycle management, and legal design. Undoubtedly, introducing her journey will inspire other lawyers.

Did you work in a traditional legal role?

Yes, I worked as a paralegal in an IP law firm in Germany for three years (I worked there over the last years of my law school and during my bar exam preparations). 

When did you change, and what was the trigger for doing that?

Quite early on in law school, I started noticing inefficiencies in the legal system: court and litigation systems are outdated and bureaucratic. Legal processes are slow and intransparent. Access to the law is an issue.

I started having questions on how to improve our legal systems or do the business of law differently. At that time, I started reading books and articles about legal innovation and legal technology, and it slowly but surely solidified my decision to work in the legal innovation space instead of the traditional law. 

What do you do now?

I am a legal innovation professional focused on the digital transformation of legal, compliance, and data privacy departments.

I spent 3+ years in a legal innovation company in Germany managing digital transformation projects. I started with consulting on legal process improvement and legal operations and then focused on managing tech implementation projects on ServiceNow.

I now work in KPMG based in the UK and am responsible for solutioning and legal technology configuration, leveraging my legal process understanding and experience with tech implementation projects and tools. 

Before law, I studied translation and interpreting, and I feel like in a way, I am doing something very similar now but translating between the language of lawyers and IT experts.

What kind of experience/certification/skill is needed to fulfill this role?

What is crucial is a hands-on working experience with tech teams and tech tools. You quickly learn how other professionals (e.g. developers or UX/UI experts) operate, and that the way lawyers work is not the only possible one.

What is also needed is a practical experience of project management, team management, and customer relationship management.

Certifications and trainings are beneficial (I had to complete the tech tools trainings), but hands-on experience is everything. Don’t be afraid to try things and learn on the go. 

I have a habit of picking a book about any topic I want to understand more of. I am convinced that a combination of a book and a practical hands-on experience brings much more than a theoretical course - especially in the field of legal innovation, where things change much faster than a university curriculum can be put together. 

How do you see the future of this role, what are the perspectives?

This type of role will definitely continue being in demand, as the companies are adopting technology for efficiency gains and need guidance on its implementation.

What will of course change and evolve is the technology in use (GenAI and others). 

So, it is important to stay on top of the industry updates, stay curious and open-minded as to how our ways of working will evolve, and how to best advise the clients. Lifelong learning is definitely the most important skill in this role. 

Do you have any thoughts to highlight for the readers?

The impact of AI on this and other industries is undoubted: more and more tasks usually associated with junior roles will be taken over by it, now and in the years to come.

This challenges our usual idea of career progression to where juniors start with manual / more mundane work, and progress towards more complex, strategic tasks. There may not be enough of those manual tasks to start a career with.

With this in mind, we will need to rethink career progression, human input and meaningful work. I do not have ready answers, but this is something I would encourage the readers to reflect on as applied to their careers - especially if they are just starting their professional life.