Class of 1929 will enter a very different world

◆ Rob Aberdein looks at what the future holds for legal trainees

The phrase ‘less is more’ advocates the notion that simplicity and clarity lead to good design. The same could be said about the future of the legal profession in Scotland.

I’ve seen significant changes in working practices during my career, but I sense that the pace will only increase as we head towards the end of the decade. So, what might the legal landscape look like for a Scots Law student starting their traineeship in 2029?

Firstly, I suspect there will be significantly fewer law firms. This will be due to the age profile of partnerships in small and medium firms, cost and increasing importance of technology, efficiencies of scale, increasing regulatory burdens and enhanced levels of competition and investment due to the reality of alternative business structures.

Fewer law firms doesn’t necessarily correlate to fewer lawyers but I imagine that will happen too. Generative AI will take on much lower-value transactional work – where junior lawyers and paralegals traditionally cut their teeth – which might mean firms have less need for these types of roles. We might also see fewer legal personnel physically located in Scotland as technology and flexible working enables more near and offshoring and more ‘digital legal nomads’.

There may be fewer law firms and lawyers but the upside that greets our 2029 student may be a more diverse array of business models in which to build their preferred career path, including consultancies, special project law firms and multi-disciplinary partnerships. Law firms will also continue to build increasingly large ‘technology cores’ and I can envisage a future where coders and legal technologists have burgeoning value and voices in the boardroom.

Less real estate? You might think so, but speaking to Edinburgh agents, the office market has never been more buoyant. This could be a combination of businesses shedding real estate during the pandemic and being too prudent in relation to their perceived future needs. I suspect offices will increasingly be repurposed as collaborative and client-focused spaces, rather than where people work at a desk, and will be in high-profile locations, to squeeze out an additional marketing benefit.

As the demographic of clients shifts towards Gen X, Y and Z being more dominant, we are also likely to see law firms having to demonstrate their carbon, climate and ESG credentials more robustly, alongside their capability in the courtroom or boardroom. Good sustainability credentials will also likely dictate where the best emerging legal talent chooses to go.

As the decade draws to a close, we may even see formal legal education evolve to focus on skills and capabilities that are more relevant to a modern-day lawyer. Could we see less Roman and space law and more coding, environmental law and leadership training?

Clients will almost certainly be more drawn to firms who can ‘wow’ clients with exceptional experiences, customer journeys and innovative and frictionless technology. What’s certain is that change iscomingandfirmsthatwant to remain relevant, commercially viable and attractive to the next generation of client and legal talent need to have a clear vision as to what their ‘future state’ is and how they plan to get there.