Orrick Chief Innovation Officer
Wendy Butler Curtis was a featured guest on this week’s Law.com “Legal Speak” podcast, discussing breakthroughs in legal innovation in career paths, artificial intelligence and the way legal departments increasingly rely on data in their decision-making. Wendy spoke to “Legal Speak” during ALM’s annual Legalweek conference, where she was on a panel discussing legal innovation at law firms and corporate legal departments.
Asked what she’s most excited about in legal innovation, Wendy provided several examples in the
podcast:
“I’m very passionate about the immersion of new career paths for lawyers and non-lawyers,” Wendy said, citing Orrick’s addition of positions such as an in-house statistician, project management, project attorneys and innovation advisers. “I’m also seeing in (our) clients more and more data-driven decision-making, and so the expansion within legal departments of business professionals and technologists to really facilitate that. That whole development of new positions and opportunities in the legal industry that may or may not be lawyers is really exciting.”
Wendy also told the podcast: “The other thing I’m really excited about is how much client collaboration we’re doing … (they) are really looking at using data to inform decisions that tie to legal.”
In discussing Orrick’s innovation strategy, Wendy notes, “One of the biggest challenges is making sure everyone has a voice in innovation. Your best ideas will come from places you may not expect, so we’ve really invested a lot in ensuring that innovation is a part of our culture…Everybody should be empowered.”
Listen to the podcast at
Law.com or
Libsyn.