Insights from the FutureTech Stage at #BLTF2025
What a great day charing the FutureTech stage by Zero Networks at the Netlaw Media #BLTF2025 this week. Incredible speakers and contributors, and a tsunami of insights. As ever, packed to the rafters and with a heap of increased maturity this year added to the ever awesome vibe.
Some take aways to share and boo if you missed the behavioural science, quantum and futurist sessions in particular: simply brilliant.
The legal industry is top trending in the tech disruption opportunity stakes. Many have settled into the focused work beyond AI proofs of concept and pilots.
Did you know if you want people to use tech, you need to stop talking about tech? Yep. It turns out we can get way more scientific about our behaviour and use this in law, including to stop us all outsourcing our brains to ‘the machine’. Expect behavioural scientists to be in demand, and to see this discipline built into tech tools.
Quantum secure communications have arrived. Trials are live in London, as the bus to board ahead of the day when quantum computing breaks traditional cryptography. Whatever the big tech announcements, quantum commuting is a way off and of more limited utility than we will be led to believe. It wont speed up all computation but it will be great for certain tasks. We’re advised to focus on utility and sidestep hype. Yes to regulation for applications, versus standards being more appropriate to hardware.
Still a mixed landscape on client demand, with some wanting AI and others blocking its deployment. Nonetheless, sophistication is increasing and a law firm having an innovation person wont even get close to the right RFP answer.
Clients should remember their buying power, demand extended adoption support, and push hard to understand the limitations of tech to cut through lies and exaggeration. Procurement is a valuable skillset in this climate, particularly where clear water is opening up in pricing.
We can expect to see AI move beyond our user interfaces and increasingly into the background of all our tools and systems. The premium will turn to joined up workflows and delighting experiences, including the opportunity of ‘feminine design’, to quote Dr Katherine King. Everyone’s excited about agents of course, except SecOps.
To cleanse and structure data or not to cleanse and structure data… depends who you talk to. Data remains a critical commodity, including building ‘journeys’ to capture or generate what we don’t yet have but need. The best time to plant a tree…
It’s wild to think people had to walk in front of cars waving a red flag in the 1860s and now we have no-hands-on-the-wheel self drive. But life and death and everything in between matters. It’s unrealistic to leave everything to regulation and this is where AI ethics comes in, including to provide strategic advantage, e.g. record iPhone sales when they introduced app tracking transparency. In law, depth of AI ethics is of course a must, same goes for new frontiers like space infrastructure and smart cities.
In law firms, 26% of hourly billing is spent documenting things, 21% accessing information, 19% analysing it and only 15% on advising and 5% guiding juniors. We will see those stats shift tremendously through AI automation. Also a mad fact: according to Clio the average billing is now 3 hours a day - what has happened to productivity?!
Very few firms want to pull away from the pack on innovation, preferring peloton safety. This is to miss the market reshaping you wont catch up the other side of the pass.
In the SME law space, clients compare law firms to Amazon and banking apps and expect that level of utility. No digital = no clients.
Digital extortion is big business. The adage of don’t negotiate with terrorists seems to be long gone. 1 in 3 randoms get paid, providing a tidy investment stream back into criminal R&D and operational excellence (wish I was joking). Nation state grade capability is normal. Get ready with your (1) payout policy (2) reporting policy (3) insurance (4) incident response relationship (5) bookmarking nomoreransom.org.
Cyber intelligence is legal data and will be part of future billables and liability frameworks, e.g. data artefacts in M&A transactions on criminal servers. Obviously this space is particularly big in financial services with the landing of legislation like DORA.
Transactional practice will be reformed through agentic methodologies combined with smart contracts. Litigation practice will be reformed through advocacy agents and AI judges deciding on evidential data. These changes predicted by tech futurist Joseph Raczynski, alongside ‘lexbotics’, where dialogistic interactive legal agents handle a range of tasks, will lead to a reduction of 60%+ in lawyers and 30% in law firms by 2030. Law firms run as DAOs will have AI partners and associates and we’ll embrace digital clones for meetings. Blended technology including, harnessing distributed ledger, is where it’s at for the future.
With or without AGI, Richard Susskind’s call to collective consideration of the wide-reaching implications of AI for society we would do well to heed.
And in addition to the unfathomable intelligence writ large across his space visuals, a note from Brian Cox to billable hour lovers everywhere: ‘time is not part of our universe’.
Check out the agenda for speakers.
Loved seeing so many old colleagues and new. It’s an incredible time to be alive and an incredible time to be working in law. The world order is reshaping and the legal profession within it. May we enjoy this moment as much as we take responsibility for our next.
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As I said of the agenda in advance and referencing speakers:
Like an anthemic house track, we are set for countless crescendos. We get to explore:
▶️ The intersection of behavioural science and AI with award-winning expert Lucía Elizalde-Bulanti. This subject is going to be everywhere soon.
▶️ The progress and potential of quantum computing with physicist and person who makes complex things simple, Prof Tim Spiller. With recent launches from 3 big techs in this space and the potential for a post-encryption world, let’s figure out what’s on the cards.
▶️ Global AI ethics with the incredible Riyanka Roy Choudhury who runs projects at Codex, Stanford USA. As professionals in law, this one is at the top of the agenda.
▶️ The rise of digital extortion with security scientist Raj Samani and what to do about it. I left the prep session for this one activated and aghast, and I thought I was up to speed! A 'not to miss' for GCs and law firm leaders.
▶️ What tech vendors are seeing across the market, with trends, challenges and the advancements they are anticipating, with lots of tips for those on the innovation and buy side.
▶️ The hard-hitting realities no one is talking about to 2030, with tech futurist Joseph Raczynski. That we'll be leaving this session with a lot to think about for the road or in fact roads ahead is an understatement.
Add to this event chair Richard Susskind's insights and interview with physicist and TV favourite Brian Cox on the main stage, brilliant content across other stages, heaps of tech demos and collaboration to explore, colleagues old and new, and it’s set to be an incredible and insightful day.
Frances Anderson Anissa Tennah Lauren Wilkie Rebecca Caruana Nick Beddows Christina Blacklaws (she/her) Christian. Toon - FCIIS Sucheet Amin @simon brown Katherine King Jill Schornack, Oliver Tromp Alex Smelt Karim Nassar Myles McLaren António Vasconcelos, Martin Dean hashtag#BLTF2025
