As 2024 draws to a close, we took a look at the past year and the year ahead with Christina Blacklaws, the former president of the Law Society of England and Wales who, after leaving office, has developed a career supporting businesses as a non-executive director, consultant and strategic advisor. One of those advisory roles is chair of LawtechUK, an initiative to “turbocharge” the UK’s lawtech sector, delivered by CodeBase and LegalGeek and funded by the Ministry of Justice.
LawtechUK has invested an incredible £100m in one year in the startups in its program and it is also advising law firms on how to capitalise on the latest advances in tech. Law firms have been given an opportunity to talk to legaltech providers, startup and scaleups and “have a play with what they’ve got to offer to start to normalise it.” In 2025 it will be a case of how to translate that into efficienciess.
For Blacklaws, one of the huge areas of potential for GenAI technology is in helping to solve the access to justice crisis and she talks through some of the exciting work being done in this space and why we’re on the cusp of meaningful change.