#BeCivilLaw - a call for moderation in the great innovation debate

"If the message which purchasers of legal services start to get from every participant in the market is that nobody can be trusted, it will be the brand of legal innovation that will suffer."

There is an internecine war going on online, unnoticed by many perhaps, but pretty vicious nonetheless. 

Most days, it seems, when I have a scroll through Twitter and LinkedIn I see the skirmishes. It’s not Leavers versus Remainers, or even Aussies versus POMs. Well, not just them. It’s ‘the real doers’ in legal innovation versus the 'hype merchants', 'the commentariat' and in some cases, each other.

I use the term ‘innovators’ advisedly of course, given that many say that even the term innovation has become devalued and something of a bête noir. 

Speaking as one of the ‘hype merchants’ I suppose (i.e. as someone within our business tasked with communicating our innovation agenda externally) I can’t help wonder whether all of the online griping is perhaps a bit self-defeating in the long run.

Some of the jargon-ridden flam I see in the market is embarrassing and a poor reflection on the organisations issuing the latest ‘announcement’. It is actually anti-PR.

And look, I get it. Some of the jargon-ridden content I see in the market is embarrassing and a poor reflection on the organisations issuing the latest ‘announcement’, to say nothing of those who publish it uncritically.

It is actually anti-PR and, without wishing to name names, technology vendors seem to be pass masters at it. This isn’t necessarily because they are trying to hype or mislead, but because some are selling without really understanding the complex ecosystem of discerning lawyers, legal technologists, knowledge professionals and others in this space.

Anyone in my position worth their salt will tell you that building reputation isn’t mindlessly punting out press releases or measuring views on tweets. It’s often about helping those who are ‘the doers’ to tell their story when they don’t have time to do it themselves, and do so in a way that is relevant to the target audience. It’s about saying ‘so what?’ and ‘prove it’ when the client wants to launch something which doesn’t pass muster into the digital void.

It’s about engaging with journalists and other opinion formers to say “we know there’s a lot of noise in this market, if you ever want some help cutting through the flam, here are the subject matter experts whom we would suggest can help.”

It's worth remembering that this whole area is still pretty new and, while there are some established hands, we can’t expect all journalists to be expert just yet. Equally we need to recognise that there is a difference between professional, NUJ card-carrying journalists whose job it is to critique, enthusiastic bloggers and other commentators.

For my part, having admittedly been something of an early adopter of innovation hype, I made the point on LinkedIn thread recently that I am now trying to move away from announcements of what we’re going to do and trying to focus our PR effort more around case studies of things we have done. This is often very little to do with what technology we used, and much more about what commercial challenge we resolved for the client, and the tangible benefits we helped to drive by adopting a novel approach. This may be less newsworthy and lead to less coverage, but what we lose in volume we gain in credibility.

If the inexorable rise of social media discourse has taught us one thing, it is that trust is a valuable commodity which is easily lost, while confusion is cheap and easy to attain.

We are always going to see things published online and in social media comments that we don’t like, and I am not saying that flammery shouldn’t be challenged. However, if the inexorable rise of social media discourse has taught us one thing, it is that trust is a valuable commodity which is easily lost, while confusion is cheap and easy to attain. Moderate voices get too easily lost.

If the consequence is that the message which purchasers of legal services start to get from every participant in the market is ‘don’t listen to those snake oil merchants, we’re the good guys’, it will be the brand of legal innovation that will suffer (as we’re already seeing with fatigue around the term itself). That can surely only make it harder to bring about the change that many of the participants and seeking to bring about. 

So, the next time you see an online debate getting a bit heated, I'd invite you to use the hashtag #BeCivilLaw as a reminder that disagreeing the in right way is just as important to the brand of innovation - and innovators - as exposing the flam.

As the great 20th century philosophers Bill and Ted once said, be excellent to each other.