The Modern Litigator & Arbitrator: Top Legal Careers Advice from 3 Experts - A LIDW Special - S10E21

0:00The way that I'm using tech and particularly AI at the moment to create content, to develop brand voice, is hugely beneficial for a small business such as IPOS not to have to go out to the external consultant for that marketing content. Justice delayed is justice denied. If we effectively use the available legal technology, I think we can accelerate matters quite a bit and get a better level of efficiency. If you look at where we are in the legal profession, and you know something about that as well, Rob, there's a bit more longevity and the technical literacy of users is problematic. There is that hype and I think it will continue to an extent because there is always something new, new things look great, everything demos well, but our job is to think what will really move the dial, what will help me to better serve my clients, what will help me to win new work, what will help us to be more profitable, and those are difficult questions which I think a lot of lawyers are still wrestling with.

0:54On today's Legally Speaking podcast, I'm delighted to be joined by three fantastic guests from the world of disputes. Firstly, Lucas Mestelis, international arbitration partner at Clyde & Co., professor of transnational commercial law and arbitration at Queen Mary University of London and co-chair of the London International Disputes Week, LIDW. Next, returning guest, Hetty Jackson-Stops, mediator, partner of IPOS Mediation, founder of Simply Resolved, former Alan and Overy litigator, and former government lawyer, and currently leading the Legal Tech Showcase at LIDW. And also returning to the show, Emily Jones, Legal Director and Barrister at Pinson Masons, co-chair of the London International Dispute Suite, specializing in commercial litigation and leading Pinson Masons litigation and regulatory practice development function.

1:45This episode is all about the modern litigator and arbitrator and how legal tech AI are changing dispute resolution in practice, not just principle, because the real question is no longer whether change is coming. It's what has actually changed, what is genuinely adding value and what still depends on human judgment. So today we're getting into the realities of modern disputes, practice, the opportunities, the risks and what great litigators and arbitrators need to look like in 2026 and beyond. So a very big warm welcome all. Hi Rob. Hello Rob. Hi Rob. Great to have all three of you with us today and before we get into the serious stuff we have three cheeky icebreaker questions.

2:27Firstly what is your favorite beverage and secondly what is your preferred choice of footwear on a typical work day? Coming to you first Lucas then Hetty then Emily. Thank you Rob. I mean my preferred beverage is always sparkling water actually pretty cold sparkling water. If I'm not at work I do like a gin and tonic. Now Now, you said the qualification of work. And normally, as a male lawyer these days, I still think that it's better to have normal shoes. If I have the choice, I would have Birkenstock or Dr. Sol Sandals. There we go. Good choices. Coming to you, Hetty, next. And for me, a flat white every day.

3:05And on my feet, probably trainers if I can get away with it on a work day. Like it. And Emily? I'm a coffee one as well. for me it's a cappuccino and don't judge me but any time of the day it's a cappuccino and shoes I still generally will wear heels when I'm in the office or in the city but train as if I can get away with it when I'm at home. I'm hoping my Italian mother-in-law does not hear that early part of yours. And the third of course cheeky icebreaker question before we get into today coming back to you Lucas what is one piece of legal tech or everyday technology you now rely on that would have seemed unthinkable earlier in your career?

3:47I often use working in a multilingual environment I often have to resort to machine translations by Google Translate I don't always like to use the copilot automated answers in Outlook but some emails just deserve of them good response and Hetty what's one piece you can't of tech you can't live without now I think it'd have to be my smartphone because showing my age when I started my career it was the BlackBerry um so yeah I think it's probably the smartphone BBM messenger I think uh back in the back in the day and Emily how about you yeah I mean I was also going to say my my iPhone I mean I you You know, I remember the days of kind of bringing my clerk after court to say, has anything come in while I've been out?

4:39And also having a BlackBerry. But I also, you know, I nowadays use CoPilot every day. So, yeah, lots of things have changed, right? Absolutely. And with that, we're going to get into all of your interesting stuff that you've been getting up to. But to begin with, Lucas, would you mind telling us a bit about your background And also your perspective you bring to when it comes to litigation, arbitration and indeed legal innovation. I haven't done litigation for almost 20 or 30 years, but I do arbitration exclusively in the last 25, 30 years. And arbitration has embraced technology much, much faster than other parts of the law.

5:19So video conferencing, sort of remote examination of witnesses have been quite common over the years. So during COVID, the transition to online hearing seems to have been quite simple. Of course, there was always the question about 360 degrees cameras. There was a question about sort of quality of connection. But arbitration has embraced technology for a very long time. Now, the problem, of course, with modern litigation and arbitration is that it is incredibly, incredibly document heavy. So we started using AI models because it simplifies the access to documents. We can identify repetitions. We can identify discrepancies.

6:15And in the last, perhaps, I was quite sceptic to be fair, but in the last 24 months, we have been using AI platforms for various stages in the drafting of pleadings. Not for the drafting itself, mostly as a document management system and as a check that we don't miss details that are on the record. Thank you for sharing that. And it's interesting, isn't it? The amount of changes and transitions we see over the years. Hetty, obviously returning guest to the show, we know a little bit about your background, but please do give us a bit of a refresher and also your perspective you bring when it comes to those particular areas as well and generally legal innovation.

6:57Yeah, absolutely. It's great to be back. I started life as a lawyer practicing litigation and arbitration, spent a few years working with the government legal department and then started running IPOS mediation 10 years ago now. I have, since we last spoke, Rob, also developed an online dispute resolution platform. So my part and my role as a mediator, I'm looking at how we can make the process more effective in the run up to mediation. I still believe in the use of a human mediator, but I think there is a lot that can be done with legal tech to get parties to mediation, particularly those who are unsophisticated users, unrepresented litigants as such.

7:45Just describing me there, basically. And Emily, yourself returning guest to the show as well. Great to have you back, but feel free to give a mini refresher on your background and also your perspective when it comes to all things sort of litigation, arbitration, legal innovation. yeah so I'm a legal director in the litigation and regulatory team here at here at Pinsent Masons and I focus on more on the litigation side so on sort of complex commercial litigation often with a cross-border element my career path I suppose has been slightly unusual and as a result I think kind of bring a range of perspectives and so I started my career as a self-employed barrister at a commercial set and obviously I now work in a large international law firm but also I have a rather different role from most lawyers in that my work is principally not that of a kind of traditional fee earning lawyer.

8:39My focus instead is on things like horizon scanning, thought leadership, developing new client propositions and ensuring we deliver effectively for our client in disputes matters. And of course, in recent years, a lot of that piece has been around how we best use tech and, you know, latterly AI. Absolutely. And obviously, it's going to be a rich part of today's discussion. But I want to sort of start maybe with then versus now. And Lucas, coming to you, because before legal tech became very much mainstream, how would you describe the day-to-day reality of litigation, arbitration? Appreciate modern times, a lot more arbitration on your side in recent times.

9:18But what were the biggest structural pain points at the time? Thank you, Rob. I think that gives me an opportunity to go back a bit, because I don't think I've given enough about my background. I have had a rather unusual legal career in the sense that I have, I qualified as a lawyer several years ago. But then when I started practice, I mean, when I qualified, I did not start practicing in a traditional sense, but I almost immediately started practicing as an arbitrator on the back of being a full-time academic. and I went back to being a council after about 18 or 20 years of being an arbitrator.

9:59And I remember particularly with the academic hat and working at an institution that has always had the law and technology as its DNA, the Queen Mary University of London. We were having, some of you might know it, but I wouldn't be surprised if you don't, but they were from about 2000-2001, Cyber Weeks, ADR Cyber Weeks, organized by Colin Rule and Ethan Katz and Amherst College of Law. And a lot of that seemed to be very much science fiction futurology because the idea was how we get computers to make decisions. And I think that has been set aside to some extent for some time. And then because technology was so present, I remember being involved in working groups, particularly in the International Chamber of Commerce arbitration system, about writing protocols that arbitrators and parties can use about the use of technology.

11:02The debate these days is, do you say something about AI? But then was, what is the compliance that parties have to do about using a file transfer platform or what sort of bandwidth you want to have if you commit to have sort of, sounds very silly these days, when you want to have a remote examination of witnesses. So it was very, very basic and archaic, but a lot of the debate and the discussion was there. So I think the first things we've done is the online hearings and the remote hearings. That came interesting enough first. Then the big debate was about transcripts, hearing transcripts, which can be very voluminous, especially if you have a hearing which goes over a week or two weeks or three weeks, and you have the adrenaline having made the cross-examination, but you have to go back to the transcript to make sure that before you prepare for the following day that everything is correct.

12:03So this type of live node-type structures became very much part of our DNA. and then there were things like document management, sort of relativity and document production platforms. So this started all very slowly, but somehow they were not coordinated and I think there were different pillars of technology, but without the foundation view, perhaps even without a roof. And what we've seen in the last sort of five years, perhaps 10 years when law tech has become not just a mainstream business, but a very big business to support the law. We've seen that we try now to put the foundation and the roof, which engineers and architects will say that's very bizarre.

12:51You normally start with the foundation. But we will be putting pillars, and the pillars have stood very, very strong. And now we come to sort of take a bit more of a holistic approach. So that's what the very basic level collaborator or the like would do. But also systems that work on not on cost saving, not having to travel, but on efficiency, how you use your time more effectively, how you don't exhaust yourself by going through one million pages of documents. Because let us be honest, no one can read one million pages of documents. And a lot of the cases do have one million pages of documents.

13:32yeah absolutely and that's where i think tech can be for for good and you know the overall well-being and you know hopefully lawyers getting out the office to spend some more time with with families and all that stuff really really matters so i guess coming to you then hetty around sort of what's genuinely changed what developments over the last few years have changed the way that you work and what now feels normal that would have perhaps seem rather radical you know a good few years back? I think as a mediator, the key thing is, and reflecting what Luca said, is online mediation, which didn't exist pre-pandemic.

14:05That has completely changed our business in many ways. We're now only at about 19 % of the mediations that we do are online. Everything went online in the pandemic, and it meant that we could continue doing business. And it still has its place um being able to to connect with parties who might feel more comfortable in their sitting rooms rather than in a in a um a shiny law firm's offices means that they might come to mediation in a more relaxed frame of mind or find the whole process more approachable um but also the cross border collaboration um and the ability to to to mediate across borders or to have speakers um you know, joining from overseas, you know, we've all seen hybrid events, you know, for example, at LIDW, there will be some speakers, you know, coming in from abroad on a screen, and it will be like they're in the room, you know, all of that has moved on massively.

15:01From a business point of view, the way that I'm using tech and particularly AI at the moment to, on a marketing side, to to create content to develop brand voice is hugely beneficial for a small business um such as ipos you know not to have to go out to the external consultant for that marketing content and to be able to create the the brand voice and then and then and then create the the blogs or the introductions or whatever it is um website copy uh using ai is is hugely beneficial and and and time efficient absolutely you know i i attested that i think done well you can be a huge amplifier through utilizing these tools.

15:41Emily, you've been very patient there. There's a lot of hype around legal tech. We're seeing VCs chucking in a lot of money, multi-billion dollar valuations, people hiring celebrities to get their legal tech noticed, et cetera, et cetera. So there's a lot of noise in legal tech and AI and the CEOs of the big companies are telling you it's a multi-trillion dollar opportunity, et cetera, et cetera. But from a sort of day-to-day perspective, beyond that hype, what has genuinely moved from hype for you to become genuinely more useful in terms of your disputes practice? Yeah, it's a great question.

16:12And I think there is that hype. And I think it will continue to an extent because there is always something new, you know, new things look great things, you know, everything demos well, but our job is to think, okay, you know, what will really move the dial? What will help me to better serve my clients? What will help me to win new work? What will help us to be more profitable? And those are difficult questions, which I think a lot of lawyers are still kind of wrestling with. I think in terms of, you know, examples of where we have seen the most transformative impact, you know, Luke has talked about the million documents that you often need to review in the context of a large dispute.

16:48And that is, you know, that large scale document review piece is the most mature area and, you know, where some form of AI has been in use for years. And now we're starting to feel the benefits of gen AI. But that is genuinely transformative technology which has changed the you know the speed and the economics of those exercises completely um there are also um great tools which help lawyers kind of quickly digest and get to grips with factually what has happened i think you know as disputes lawyers um frankly any lawyers um everyone's had the experience of kind of getting that dump of documents from a client who needs advice and they need it quickly because they're dealing with business critical issues and you've kind of got to really quickly marshal that information and work out a picture of what's happened so that you can have a meaningful conversation with the client and start to develop a strategy and that sort of you know developing that chronology used to be a really time-consuming exercise and I think that's something where we're seeing AI deliver you know really marked benefits so that the lawyers can more quickly get to the point of being able to you know think about the the strategy um which after all is what our clients really need from us yeah absolutely it's that sort of you know tech tech for good but actually you know it's that strategic thinking it's that human judgment all of that risk balancing where you really add the the value as the legal legal counsel and so we've touched on a couple of use cases but we'd love to come back to you lucas in terms of you know legal tech particularly used well we've talked about hype but now let's actually move to a more positive lens around sort of things that have been used really well is it in disclosure case strategy evidence management hearings collaborations client reporting tell us what are some of the best use cases you've seen lucas almost all my cases have a cross-border element and often my clients are hundreds of miles or thousands of miles perhaps away so the the collaborative approach is is very important But my concern has always been that we are very clear in engaging clients whenever we use technology so that they're very much aware of what use of technology we do.

19:10And also we are clear as to what work product is ours and what product is not ours. I found I mean in my last three bigger cases in the last sort of 24 months we used to three different sort of technology platforms I suppose I suspect I haven't had any sponsorships or not mention any of them but in one of them it's advertised itself as being particularly good in setting the story, the factual background and I have to say they were particularly superb in the case with a lot of documents I was asking, I'm acting for the defendant, we fed on the documents and effectively we also added the documents that we have in our possession.

20:00And it completely gave me a very sort of detailed chronology in a clause system so there's no fakes or problems. But also it gave me discrepancies between the other side's case and the documents. And these were about, I think in this particular case, maybe 524 discrepancies, which meant that somebody had to spend perhaps a couple of days to go through all of them. But it was much, much quicker than having to go and review all of these documents independently. So this tunnel vision meant that we did that very well. When it came to writing, because it was so detailed, we haven't used the cut and paste function of the factual background.

20:44It would not have worked. We also have as a firm, I suppose, most lawyers have their own style and we didn't want that to interfere. But it identifies sort of issues that we can raise and if we can raise very effectively. In the other system, we use our internal agentic copilot, which had the similar function and which was prepared to go a bit further, even to say what are the likely counterclaims on the basis of the facts or I know that this particular individual was key in some negotiation so that I will type the name and say can you please give me the interactions of this person with the client and then as a matter of I mean I could have asked a trainee who has read all the documents or a junior associate but I could do that from my own computer and get a response within sort of a couple of minutes and the response will be accurate and then I will take it to my team and then just have a very focused discussion.

21:42The third system we used, we used it very late and the question was whether we use it for cross-examination purposes, especially for experts. I mean, some of the experts' reports are notoriously esoteric and difficult to understand for most lawyers who are simple-minded. And then we fed the expert reports and said, which are the questions you would ask the expert on the other side. We came with a list of questions. Now, of course, when you get the list of questions, it gives you also the list of likely answers, which are pro one side and pro the other side. And again, we did that exercise once we have done our sort of roadmap map of the questions we're going to ask the witnesses to see whether we're missing something.

22:34We did not use the questions in that particular format because we thought the counselor on the other side, a very good firm as well, might have used the same system. It would be very much a scripted sort of cross-examination. But I found that going through the documents, the evidence, and also sort of preparing sort of questions very, very effective so that all the document management and they are integrated with other document management systems that everyone is using these days for that work incredibly well. But also the collaboration, the fact that we can use sort of very simple sort of technological sort of platforms to exchange vast amount of documents with a client or be on opposing sites on computers and feel like that we can create a momentum, that's very important.

23:28I do have a bit of hesitation as to whether online hearings are as good as one thinks. Particularly, perhaps I'm treading in Hattie's waters here. I think if there is a chance that the parties could settle the case, the settlement would be easier if the parties are in the room, have seen the faces of the arbitrators and the reactions, and over coffee they might just soften up a bit and sort of trying to engage in direct negotiations, which perhaps is an area where the lawyers would not be involved. But if all of that is being remoted, all it remains is that anger and the feel that you did not say what you have to say.

24:11So, yes, it works very well for hearings, but I don't think it always achieves the whole range of opportunities. But everything which is pre-hearing and post-hearing, in my view, is absolutely excellent. We really have made our life quite a bit easier without saving perhaps as much time as on things we do, but certainly saving maybe 10-15 % of the time that we would have spent. Today's Legally Speaking podcast episode is proudly sponsored by Clio. If your legal management software feels more frustrating than helpful, you're not alone. Many solicitors across the UK delay switching because moving client and case data sounds like a headache.

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25:37Where do firms or teams or practitioners still get it wrong? And what are the common blunders or overreaches you are seeing? I think that when I see parties come to mediation, there are two things linked, actually. One is a failure to prepare properly for mediation. And that is a failure to change from that adversarial mindset into a collaborative one. putting parties in putting yourself in the shoes of the other party and working out what you need to say to get them to say yes to what you're asking because essentially you're trying at mediation you're not going to you're not going to persuade them that you're right um that's never happened at mediation where a party comes in and says oh you know oh yes i've now listened to your arguments and i now absolutely agree with everything you say that absolutely isn't what happens it's about getting to a position where they can say yes to what you're offering and in order to do that you need to really prepare and really put yourselves in the posh shoes and i know one in-house counsel who actually gets her teams to role play mediations and plays the devil's advocate and one one one team member plays the other side um so i see that i'm meaning perhaps less than than previously as people become more familiar with mediation you know most most um uh lawyers are sophisticated users of mediation, but it does surprise me at times the attitude of some who come to the mediation table and are still wearing their very much adversarial hat.

27:11And, you know, if you shout across the table at the party on the other side, you are not going to get very far towards settlement. And that the second thing really is the human judgment, the human element of dispute resolution. You know, ignore that at your peril. um uh there is um and it's a particular uh favorite of uh subject of mine topic of mine is you know the psychology of negotiation the psychology of dispute resolution um you've got you know real read dale carnegie's um you know how to win friends and influence people before you come to mediation it is it is a little dated particularly in his chat about women in the in the home and men in the workplace but the principles are the same you know smile you know make friends with people we do deals with people we like so you need to build rapport across that table and try and build that trust and rapport across the table so that people are willing to say yes to what you're proposing so I think it's those two things I'm often surprised by the failure to grasp the basics of human nature and psychology of negotiation.

28:29Yep. Smiles go for miles. And the rapport wins the war. I remember a mentor told me that, you know, rapport wins the war. And it's so true. If you can get that rapport going, you absolutely will get influence and hopefully get, I guess, mediation settled. There's a big London challenge, though, Emily. I just want to come to you. You know, given London's legal heritage, the legacy systems, what are some of the practical barriers that still exist to adopting new technology, particularly in dispute resolution? And how should firms and the tribunals think about accountability as they look to modernise?

28:59I mean, there's a lot in that. I mean, I think to sort of try to unpick it a little bit, the kind of the legal heritage points in relation to London. One of the things I think is really brilliant and exciting about London is that you do have this, you know, these sort of preeminent dispute resolution institutions and professions, which are very long standing and highly regarded internationally. But we also have this kind of very leading legal tech industry, which, you know, by and large, go really well hand together, hand in hand. And I think that's one of the things that makes it a great place to practice and a great place to resolve disputes.

29:45The other thing I would say just about barriers is when we talk about things which hold us back, whether as practitioners or institutions or systems, we shouldn't necessarily think of those as in a negative sense. Sometimes those are just really important things that we need to think about relating to you know risk and integrity um you know in commercial disputes we're dealing with you know lots of sensitive information um large sums of money often um and often with you know with parties that have chosen to resolve their disputes in a particular forum um because of um their view of the process and the expertise that will lead to them getting an outcome in in that forum so those are all things to be you know respected and and protected um i think um obviously there are some areas where there is room for improvement um you know our courts are a public function and there are legacy systems and older buildings so things like online dispute resolution platforms and the kind of ability to sort of plug and play trial technology in in-court buildings you know those will be things that will inevitably continue to evolve and I do believe we will see that.

31:09I suppose moving on to the kind of accountability piece I think the most important thing to say about accountability whether you're a practitioner or a tribunal is that it can't be outsourced. We need to all be thinking about that whenever we are, you know, selecting or designing a tool, when we're engaging with clients or users about a tool, when we're reviewing the output of AI tools. So, yeah, really, you know, we've all seen the cases about hallucinated case law authorities and need to check that your submissions don't contain those. But I think it goes beyond that. You know, we need to be able to explain and justify the approaches that we've taken.

31:47Yeah, no, thank you for highlighting that. And like you say, the system's there to be respected as well. I think it's a really valuable and important point. Lucas, coming to you now with a two-part question, Hetty was touching on before the human judgment side of things, but also sort of want to look at impact on clients. You know, as these tools are getting better, where does the human judgment become even more important rather than less important? And perhaps as an extension of that, how have clients' expectations changed in the advent of this sort of tech revolution? Let me perhaps start with the second question because I think we have a key role as lawyers to engage with clients at all different levels and especially even given the option of using technology where it's appropriate.

32:33Therefore, I think it's good to be clear to clients. I mean, we had a client recently who told us that they have another firm that they have used in another case, they have used technology, they were very happy with the technology. So when the matter was raised about certain users of AI was absolutely no problem whatsoever. But because of their hesitations, we also need to reassure them that strategy, so drafting is ours not left in technology. Now the other question about the human judgment, we have seen development of platforms that do an automated dispute resolution scenario. So effectively no human intervention for the judgment in smaller consumer cases, unpaid invoices, unpaid park fines, challenging park fines.

33:32And I think for these simpler legal matters, that will work very well. In the simpler cases where the problem might be is empathy. I think not perhaps of not somebody having paid a park fine where, of course, everyone would be empathetic, but think about sort of an elderly person who relies on a small state pension and does not meet a payment in sort of a loan that they have had from the bank. I think there, for example, you could have a bit of a range of judgments depending on how much empathy you can put on the system. Now, for the cases I would normally work, unfortunately I don't do these cases, cases, although if I had time, I would be spending a bit more time doing a bit of this pro bono work.