With AI and other emerging technologies rapidly reshaping the world and its demands, legal professionals are at a pivotal moment in the profession’s history. This shift brings an increasing responsibility to stay informed about the industry's current landscape and its future trajectory. 

To be clear, acquiring cutting-edge knowledge and skills isn’t just about maintaining the profession’s integrity or your standing within it—though both are at stake—it’s about securing your future in the industry. 

Legal professionals who stay attuned to evolving technological trends can safeguard their role and relevance in the industry, while those who ignore these advancements risk obsolescence as technology surpasses their capabilities. 

This isn’t just alarmist rhetoric—there’s a genuine concern, even among the most traditional experts, that many legal professionals may be left behind due to slow adaptation to industry changes. 

So, what is the key to staying ahead in this rapidly changing landscape? 

The key lies in actively seeking knowledge, developing new skills, and embracing change. 

That’s why, at the upcoming Legal Innovation & Tech Fest, we’re uniting top legal experts and global professionals to tackle these crucial challenges: 

• Innovation & Tech 

• Generative AI 

• Skills for Driving Change 

• Next Generation of Lawyers 

Featuring a lineup of visionary speakers and interactive sessions, this event will equip attendees with the knowledge and tools needed not just to keep up but to excel in the 21st-century legal landscape. 

Before we welcome you to the Hilton Sydney on April 9th and 10th, we wanted to unpack some of these topics with our speakers: 

Robyna May 

Tell us about your session? 
 “In this Panel ‘Technology Leaders 2025 Strategic Outlook’ we’re looking at the current priorities, navigating the digital landscape and what you need to do to have a successful technology roll out. No doubt a little bit of cyber security in there as well. And I imagine people will talk about what they're doing with AI. The session will be quite practical – both in terms of what people are intending to do and what people have done in the past that's worked quite well.” 

In terms of the role of legal professionals, how do you feel that's evolving? 
“I think this is an interesting question, because we're certainly starting to see this and I imagine other law firms are, whereby you've got your law clerks and your graduates coming in and they rely on artificial intelligence tools, whether that's augmenting their work or whether or not they're relying on it too heavily is probably another question. But they're certainly coming through with that expectation to use these tools and indeed the skills to be able to leverage those tools. 
 
I can see as they start moving through and moving up, they're bringing that expectation along with them.  You know, a very different way of working. But then you've got the people that are still very embedded within law firms who are acting as their supervisors and mentors who may not have the same understanding or even access and certainly aren't using the tools in the same way. 
 
So in terms of what I can see, the legal profession doing, I think there's going to be this real sort of period of transition and it's going to be very generational and we just need to make sure that, in particular, the people that are the supervisors have a good understanding of what's actually coming up. 
 
And then in the same way, I think there's a real opportunity for those younger lawyers to be mentoring up.  
I can see the whole practice of law is going to shift a little bit in that the real emphasis on critical thinking is going to go way, way up while AI takes care of the boring bits.  
 
The emphasis on being able to do things quickly or rapidly will be augmented more by AI. But at the same time it's that balance between people relying on AI so heavily that critical thinking skills are then affected by that. AI won’t be the differentiating factor, the ability to think critically will.” 
 
What excites you most about attending the legal tech fest this year? 
”The opportunity to network with other attendees and understand their challenges. I think it does feel like a real inflection point and we've got a few things going on in the Australian market. So obviously you have got an AI transition which is not just the emergence of AI tools, but now actual robust products that people can adopt with some surety, which is one aspect. 
 
There's AML on everyone's minds and trying to figure out how they're going to be able to manage that. Not so much from the New Zealand colleagues, they've already figured it out, but from the AU perspective, . And I think people are also marrying those two things together and trying to figure out how we can use AI to try and solve this AML problem. 
 
I think there is a lot of collective problems that are the same for a lot of us. 
So it's just going to be good to meet in a space where we can talk about those things in a fairly open way.” 

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Lauren Dyson 

Tell us about your session? 
My presentation, "The Inbox Detox: Lessons Learned in Rolling-Out Matter Tracking" will be about the lessons learned from rolling out matter tracking across our internal legal teams. I will also compare this to other projects I've worked on outside of the legal space, particularly focusing on the implementation of relationship management (CRM) systems in other organizations and highlighting some of the differences and lessons learned there. 

At Westpac, we have over 20 legal teams and 200 lawyers. About six years ago, we first onboarded matter tracking for some of our high transactional teams, and now all our legal teams use it in some capacity. It's been quite a journey, with many lessons learned along the way, numerous challenges, and a few mistakes. We want to share these experiences to help others understand the process. I believe that most organizations use some form of manual tracking, but there are variations in standards. We've been doing this for a while now, so we've learned a lot about how to drive improvements in customer service and executive reporting through matter tracking, which has been a significant focus for us. 

In terms of the role of legal professionals, how do you feel that's evolving? 
I think everyone will probably mention the impact of AI and advances in technology. We have a role to play in keeping up with these developments and ensuring that lawyers stay up to date. However, we must also honestly assess where we are and make sure we prepare correctly and put the right processes in place before onboarding these tools. 

In our role, we need to approach interactions and the rollout of new technology with empathy, understanding that we are changing things rapidly in response to the evolving technology landscape- causing change fatigue. We need to put ourselves in the lawyers' shoes more than we have in the past, especially when dealing with very busy people. We have a big focus on customer service and understanding the link between customers and in-house legal teams. In-house teams have a unique opportunity to see across an organisation and address potential pain points and inefficiencies to improve customer service. Therefore, I believe there needs to be a shift towards how lawyers can become more service oriented and demonstrate their impact on improving customer service. 

What excites you most about attending the Legal Tech Fest this year? 
I'm always most excited about meeting Legal Ops professionals. We’re a small team, so we don't often get to meet with Legal Ops professionals, and we always find that we learn and make great connections. Last year, when we spoke at Legal Tech Fest, many people reached out to us about records destruction, and we've been continuously sharing those learnings throughout the year with several different organizations at a similar stage to us. The most beneficial thing was finding some amazing Legal Ops professionals and a community to bounce ideas off. We meet up regularly and chat about what's going on in our space, which is invaluable. We've shared a lot about records destruction and learned about the types of executive reporting are peers are focusing on. It’s been a great experience. 

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Nam Truong 

Tell us about your session? 
”Our session is ‘Unlocking the power of Microsoft 365 for legal teams'. In my role at Law Squared, we work with in-house legal departments of all shapes, sizes and levels of maturity. Something we hear time, and time again is that in-house legal teams are trying to balance limited resources with increasing demands for efficiency and innovation. We’ve heard that while niche legal technologies can offer specialised solutions, they often come with a hefty price tag and complex integration.  

 When we ask clients about their use cases to identify what they are trying to accomplish, we often recommend that they leverage proven technologies, already within their organisation’s IT stack. Using tools like Microsoft 365 can solve for 90% of most legal ops challenges – and it’s something their business is already paying for and comfortable using.  

Our Techfest session aims to help legal teams make better use of these existing technologies, particularly by using those familiar and trusted tools in their Microsoft 365 suite. We’ll talk about how you can identify these opportunities to leverage Microsoft and in doing so, improve end-user experience, increase process efficiency and reduce risk – all without the need to invest in complex, pricey software.  

In terms of the role of legal professionals, how do you feel that's evolving? 
”All professional – legal, sales, marketing – they all need to understand and become digitally literate – we're moving into a world where technology is going to be a core driver not just of efficiency, but also of growth.

Lagging on digital adoption will be a serious disadvantage and a skills gap that more and more General Counsel are eager to close – either by recruiting for practitioners who already have those skills or building capability internally.  It's exciting to see all the technologies that now exist to solve legal problems, but the legal tech market is crowded and often overwhelming. That’s why I’m so passionate about helping in-house legal teams get more value out of the familiar, trusted technologies, such as Microsoft, that are already in their grasp.   

In today’s work environment digital literacy and adaptability is a non-negotiable for modern lawyers. There's no excuse if you're a lawyer to be still saying chatGBT instead of chatGPT. These are the things that impact your credibility.  
 
The ability to quickly pick up on the latest changes or what are these tools that are coming to market in technology and then best use them to serve your purpose. Technology is evolving so rapidly. ChatGPT completely changed how the entire world views technology in under a year. And that's not going to be a unique experience. There’s going to be more and more instances of that level of transformation in the future. 
 
And you know, we haven't even gone into quantum computing or true virtual reality to augmented reality experiences yet, so it's not really about being a master of technology, but it's about having a strong, generalist understanding so that you can navigate more and more uncertainty – and opportunity.” 

What excites you most about attending the legal tech fest this year? 
”Connecting with the legal ops community is always energising and I’ll be making an effort to talk with as many people as I can at Techfest, not just vendors, but  in house teams and speakers. 

Finding out about what's happening on the ground, speaking to people and hearing some of these really cool stories about how they are implementing AI and other technology systems that are saving them 70% of support ticket calls. 

Having those conversations is the best thing about legal tech, bringing the community together at Australia’s biggest conference, it’s always an exciting time for me.” 

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Lauren Myers 

Tell us about your session? 
”This session ‘It's Your Time to Shine: Knowledge Management's GenAI Glow Up and How to Leverage It’ is a collaboration from three knowledge managers, one from a large law firm, one from a mid-size law firm and myself, who works in-house. The session isabout the way GenAI has impacted and changed the knowledge management industry.  
 
One of the things that we had found is that knowledge management has become a lot more valuable because of its transformation by AI, because a lot of the work you've got to do to prepare for an AI future is knowledge management based, such as focusing metadata, reducing privacy and cyber risks and getting all your governance controls in place so that you are able to capitalise on all the opportunities of AI, and make sure that your getting the best out of it in the future. The presentation will cover this sort of work that we've been doing in all our firms and organisations.” 

In terms of the role of legal professionals, how do you feel that's evolving? 
”One of my main focuses, I do a lot of tech training - I think that the law industry in general, including all the professional staff, is really need to focus on tech literacy and digital literacy while also keeping a really open mind about learning and always increasing skills. I feel like the pace of change is going so fast and I know it’s going to be a real problem if you disengage from that generally, if you don’t keep on top of the new things and what’s coming. 

I think the good thing to remember is that a lot of it can be self-taught, even though it can seem very overwhelming when people need to engage with new processes. 
Once you start doing it, it just becomes part of the way you work, and it makes you so much more able to deal with all the change that's coming as well because you expect that you will need to keep learning. I think that's probably the thing that people need to focus on in the law industry at the moment.” 

Where's the best place for people to be able to do that? 
”It’s about being self-driven, getting your hands dirty with the tools. It’s as simple as Googling and Youtubing, which doesn't sound very fancy, but what I always try to say to people when I'm doing training - I don't know anything special about this application, I’ve just taken the time the time to learn about it. I think that there are lots of different ways you can learn, lots of stuff on the Internet, a lot of forums, and work of course provides training – it's about creating the right space to learn for yourself.” 

What excites you most about attending the legal tech fest this year? 
”When I started in this role, I was lucky to come to this conference not long after I started it was mind blowing for me.   

 What excited me about attending Legal Tech Fest while being new in my career, was the sense of community.   

The part that I always find the most value is definitely the networking and the connection, which I think is because it's the one event that everyone goes to and there's a lot of Interstate people, and so much opportunity to be able to catch up with colleagues and people I’ve met over the years. 

I think the most valuable reason to attend is to see what people are working on, what's coming and to see what you're going to be thinking about in the future and what's on the horizon.” 

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Are you looking to thrive in the legal profession of the future? 
The Legal Innovation & Tech Fest is a gateway to two amazing days of cutting-edge content, networking and knowledge-sharing, delving into key areas of the industry: Innovation & Tech, Generative AI, Skills for Driving Change and Developing the Next Generation of Lawyers. 

This is the only event in Australia that brings together hundreds of law firm business and technology leaders, senior corporate counsel and service providers to celebrate the talent, tech, innovations and ideas that are transforming the way law firms and in-house legal teams operate. 

With 40+ technology vendors, 65 Speakers and 300 delegates, the event must not be missed. 

Secure your tickets online or speak to the team.