Education
In the first of two education focused plenary sessions, Nuala Haughey moderated: Legal education in a post-Covid world: Shaking the assumptions, but now what? Featuring a panel of Scott Bales, Dr. Eimear Brown, Rob Marrs and Mary Mutugi. The lively roundtable discussed the impacts the pandemic has had on the legal profession and considered what innovations have been put in place to ensure legal education, examinations and apprenticeships. This is particularly key when considering the current talent bottle neck many jurisdictions are facing, exacerbated by the pandemic.
The second plenary session, saw a panel of Susan Kaak, Michelle Mafurt and Margie McCrone, moderated by Cori Ghitter discuss: Can we still do this? Exploring life long competency in legal practice. Following on from a 2020 plenary session, this talk tackled the tricky issue of lawyer competency and ensuring standards amongst practicing members of the community. Listen to the session to discover different jurisdictional approaches to the issue of ongoing competency.
The education plenaries lead to two enlightening breakout sessions, who owns the pathway? Broadening access to the legal profession & who is training the community based lawyer of the future?
Fundamentals
Moderator Patricia Schwartz chaired a panel of Nuala O’Loan, Lisa Webley and Brian Doherty, who sort to unpick regulatory theory and explore different regulatory models across jurisdictions in the fundamentals plenary: Why do we do what we do: regulatory theory and practice. This session explored the importance of legal regulation on society and what positive and successful regulation looks like.
The two breakout sessions, Interview with the regulators: who do we regulate and why & How do we investigate and enforce?, supplemented the fundamentals theme.
Technology
AI is becoming increasingly important in all areas of life, in this plenary session, Rise of the machines, moderator Ashod Mooradian and panel Zi Qian Chang, Rotimi Ogunyemi and Julian Webb, discussed its implications for the regulatory community, including issues around transparency and bias, as well as outlining the ethical implications for the sector.
This plenary session lead to two additional breakout sessions, AI in the access to justice toolkit & Regulating AI in the legal marketplace: where to draw the line? Which further explored AI in the legal market.
Consumers
In, The role of regulators in promoting fairer legal services: responding to issues of vulnerability and legal capability, a plenary session focused on consumer rights, a panel of Nigel John Balmer, Nigel Coppack, Margaret Hagan and Michael Katagaya, moderated by Steve Brooker, explored consumer vulnerabilities and how to address these to reduce unfairness and improve legal capabilities.
This plenary session followed on with a breakout session titled: The role of the regulator in market transparency and comparison services
D&I
Equality, Diversity & Inclusion: are regulators part of the problem? This breakout session focused on how regulators themselves may be part of the problem and how they can change to promote a fairer and more inclusive legal sector.
Moderated by Alison Hook and a panel of Cord Brugmann, Paula Hannaford-Agor, Paul Philip and Jordan Furlong, Does fortune favour the bold? Deconstructing legal innovation approaches and finding a path forward closed out this year’s conference. The discussion took some of the innovations and concepts discussed throughout the conference and in taking a ‘big picture’ approach, examined what’s working and what’s not working in legal innovation.
Don’t forget to go back and catch up on any sessions missed or re-watch your favourites. All conference content will remain on the platform for at least six months so you have plenty of time.
Once again thank you to everyone who attended and see you all next year in Chicago!