As the Covid-19 pandemic continues to disrupt our professional and personal lives, our ‘adapting to adversity’ blog series is back with more news and views on how organisations can tackle the current crisis. So far, we’ve touched on maintaining deal velocity when business is slowing down, and how to understand your exposure to contractual clauses such as force majeure . Now we come to the issue of how law students and paralegals can continue their legal training and/or professional qualifications at a time when offices are shut, and firms are less likely to hire. After all, this is the next generation of legal practitioners, and organisations should be looking for innovative ways to help them during the coronavirus disruption.
This entry looks at a new and exciting partnership that ThoughtRiver is pleased to announce with F-LEX, the online platform that connects law firms and general counsels to lawyers and law students for a flexible, on demand service. Businesses may use the platform to gain temporary project-based work from vetted individuals across several verticals.
We’ve teamed up to allow members on the F-Lex platform access to training and accreditation on our key software, ‘Lexible’. Run entirely virtually, we kick-started things on Friday with an introductory webinar attended by 30 F-Lex users entitled “An Introduction to AI, ThoughtRiver and Lexible”.
Over the course of an hour, attendees were able to gain knowledge and experience of our software, overseen by our own Martin Davidson and Tiana Gordon, with a view to starting a path of accreditation which will stand them in good stead when businesses begin to return to usual.
Feedback was overwhelmingly positive; out of an even split of attendees who had or had not learned about legal tech before, every user agreed that the information was comprehensive and interesting – with 100% wanting to go on and gain full Lexible accreditation.
Mary Bonsor of F-Lex had this to say: "It is great to collaborate with ThoughtRiver and offer an opportunity to our law students to learn a new skill while they are at home. I think it is really important that lawtech companies club together to do what we can throughout this time and support each other. We look forward to helping ThoughtRiver grow and allowing our law students to learn about technology, which will play such an important role in their legal careers":
The first step in our work with F-Lex, the webinar has deeper meaning. It was primed to allow like-minded individuals to connect at a time when our social and professional interaction has been severely restricted. This opportunity to spark conversations and share information in an academic and practical environment is something I would encourage all legal organisations to consider, for both the short- and long-term benefits.
