This book compels the legal profession to question its current identity and to aspire to become a strategic partner for corporate executives, clients and stakeholders, transforming legal into a function that creates incremental value. It provides a uniquely broad range of forward-looking perspectives from several different key-players in the legal industry: in-house legal, law firms, LPO’s, legal tech, HR, associations and academia. This publication is a platform for leading legal professionals that offers a new perspective on the accelerating transformation in legal. Combining expert contributions with editorial insights, it argues that the new legal function will shift from a paradigm of security to one of opportunity; that future corporate lawyers will no longer primarily be negotiators, litigators and administrators, but that instead they will be coaches, arbiters and intrapreneurs; that legal knowledge and data-based services will become a commodity; and that analytics and measurement will be key drivers of the future of the profession. A must-read for all legal professionals, this book sets the course for revitalizing the profession.

“Humanization and the Law” combines two current and complementary trends in the business-to-business (B2B) market of the legal industry: digitalization and humanization. On the one hand, digital transformation in corporate legal departments and law firms continues to advance. Contract management, e-discovery, due diligence, legal operations, and forensic data analysis are just a few examples of task areas where the use of intelligent software solutions minimizes legal risks and increases compliance, enables efficiency gains and cost reductions through automation, and allows faster and more agile responses to changing market demands and client expectations. On the other hand, the increasing number of failed digitalization projects shows that technology alone is not enough to successfully transform legal departments and law firms. Software solutions must be integrated into existing work processes, be easy to use, and provide real benefits in order to be accepted by employees. People and their ability to make decisions and lead others remain the focus in an increasingly digitalized legal industry. More than 20 authors provide insights into why human aspects matter for business, what organizations can do to increase the mental well-being and motivation of their employees, and how to prevail in the upcoming war for talent in the legal industry. “The legal industry has been largely dismissive of “soft skills” and “humanizing law.” One of the paradoxes of our time is that the ascendency of automation, artificial intelligence, blockchain, Big Data, and other technological platforms has elevated, not diminished, the importance of humanity. It is not only what distinguishes us from machines but it also enables us to apply our humanity to machines. The legal function will play an important role in this process but must first take a hard look at itself.” (Mark A. Cohen, in “Foreword”)

Vols. 20- contain "Cumulative subject matter index."