Big Data Technology, Evolving Knowledge Skills and Emerging Roles

Abstract

In a world where articles and tweets are discussing how artificial intelligence technology will replace humans, including lawyers and their support functions in firms, it can be hard to understand what the future holds. This article, written by Alex Smith, is based on his presentation at the British and Irish Association of Law Librarians conference in Dublin 2016 and looks at demystifying the emerging technology boom and identifies the expertise needed to make these tools work and be deployed in law firms. The article then looks at the skills and expertise of the knowledge and information teams, based in law firms, and suggests how they are ideally placed to lead these challenges as a result of their domain expertise and their existing, well defined skills that are essential to this new generation of technology. The article looks at the new technical environment, the emerging areas of products and legal problems, the skills needed for the new roles that this revolution is creating and how this could fit into a reimagined knowledge team.