Lucy Bassli has decided to start her own company, InnoLegal Services PLLC and join LawGeex as Chief Legal Strategist. Seattle’s Bassli spent 14 years at Microsoft, from 2004 as a Senior Attorney, followed by Assistant General Counsel, Legal Operations and Contracting (2012 to 2018).

I enjoyed writing “Women of Legal Tech” with Bassli on Legaltech news last month, so much that I decided it was time for encore:

 

6 QUESTIONS FOR LUCY BASSLI

 

CodeX 1: You were known for changing legal inside of Microsoft, how is leaving that job going to help you change the industry?

Lucy Bassli: It was great to have Microsoft as a platform to influence law firms and legal service/tech providers, but at the end of the day I could only speak on behalf of one customer. I needed to be able to have a voice for corporate clients in general, and to be able to help firms think more creatively about what innovation can mean for them. There is no one definition of innovation, and every  firm can do something their way to be innovative.

On the flip side, I could only make improvements within one corporate legal department. I was being called by so many peers and colleagues at other large corporate legal departments for advice on how I had done things. As someone who did it first-hand, I knew I could help other companies also become more efficient in their legal departments.

 

CodeX 2: What are the challenges you see in your new endeavors at InnoLegal and LawGeex?

Lucy Bassli: The challenges are quite the same for both my advisory business and for LawGeex. Change is hard and slow within legal. There is growing appetite and curiosity, but making the decision to actually try something is a whole other thing. The key is that there is caution with the idea of “trying.” Lawyers need to embrace experimentation and appreciate that they may fail but will learn a ton. They are trained to be adverse to unknowns and uncertainties, so this is a cultural gap that is inherent in the profession.

 

CodeX 3: What are the limitations and restrictions in the legal industry that you see as the biggest blockers to real change?

Lucy Bassli: In private commercial practice, culture and education is the biggest hurdle. Culture is obvious – we love looking back for precedent and hate risk. So, looking ahead and trying something new is simply contrary to everything we are taught. Which brings me to the education gap. Education can be divided into two clearly demarcated parts: law school and legal practice.

Law school focused on traditional case law and issue-spotting, with maybe a little bit of hands-on practical experience, mostly in litigation and some writing. Then these lawyers continue their education in practice by taking a minimal amount of Continuing Legal Education (CLE) to maintain their license. (Most focusing on substantive legal topics and areas of law, with a dedicated set of education for ethics credits.)

So, what’s missing? The practical set of information that every lawyer today needs to know about legal tech, ancillary services, operations and evolution from legal practice to legal service delivery. As part of my new endeavors and professional bucket list, I am working on a book for lawyers so that they can get the general awareness they need, in a very simple and consumable format.

For the broader issue of access to the law, the hurdle is definitely regulatory. We’ve closed ourselves off and created a system only we can understand. That is simply not effective, and not working for the mass population of this country.

 

CodeX 4.  With 80% of Americans unable to find a lawyer or afford a lawyer, it’s time to change the way legal works so that everyone can get help. How can we do that?

Lucy Bassli:  Two things need to happen. One: open up the practice of law to others besides lawyers. Two: technology needs become easy to use across every court system to complete basic tasks. We shouldn’t need to make lawyers easier to access — we need to make the law easier to access. So many things just do not need a license to accomplish, yet we prevent people from performing the most basic tasks for themselves.

 

CodeX 5: It’s no surprise that Law Schools are losing students, partly for huge costs and partly because of the restrictions to practice. How will we fix that?

Lucy Bassli: Many schools have started to figure out that they need to teach new and more relevant skills in addition to traditional legal issue spotting skills. Those schools have created programs and courses to reflect these new skills. That will become the norm over time. Law schools will begin to turn out multi-faceted practitioners who can flex to fill different needs in the legal ecosystem. Law school will again become an appealing destination those who want to be part of the legal industry, but not have a traditional “lawyer” job.

 

CodeX 6:  What do you think about the commentary today on the legal industry? 

Lucy Bassli: Lots of talking from people who have never lived it. I appreciate the need for provocateurs, but legal is not an industry that can get scared into changing. Legal professionals must understand the need for change — and they need to see how it can be done. Lawyers will not jump into something where they have no reference points. People need examples of what works and how. This is why I am always keen to find the other Unicorn Lawyers out there who get the value of data, process and technology and want to try something different. We need more of those to speak up.

 

MORE READING!

Bassli has recently written four articles of an eight part series for Thomson Reuters.
• The Legal Ecosystem: A Look at Tension Points for an Industry in Turmoil (Part 1).
• The Legal Ecosystem: The Regulators and the Do’ers (Part 2).
• The Legal Ecosystem: Law Schools Are Catching Up with the Times (Part 3).
• The Legal Ecosystem: Law Firms — In Defense of the Institutions (Part 4).

 

Other articles include:
LS LawSites: Robert Ambrogi
Legaltech news: “Women of Legal Tech”
Law365: “Make Way For The ‘Unicorns’“
Legal Talk Network: “Technology that Drives the Legal Industry.“
CodeX Blog: “Women of Legal Tech: Lucy Endel Bassli.“
Bassli was a presenter CodeX FutureLaw 2017.

 

Monica Bay is a Fellow at CodeX and a freelance journalist (Alchemizing Law LLC). She is a member of the California bar. Email: mbay@codex.stanford.edu. Twitter: @MonicaBay.

Photo courtesy of Lucy Bassli.
Cover: Clipart.com.