Written By Ariane Ang

Alternative Legal Services

Alternative Legal Services offers innovative solutions for high-volume, document-intensive legal work. It uses technology and legal expertise to deliver a service that is cost-effective and tailored to the client’s requirements. This type of service can be used across a myriad of practice areas including: dispute resolution, employment, finance, real estate, and projects.

Georgia Macqueen-Gamble is an experienced lawyer with a demonstrated history of managing civil litigation practices in a number of jurisdictions and leading teams of high performing legal professionals. She is the Senior Solicitor in the Alternative Legal Services (ALT) team of Herbert Smith Freehills and Co-Chair of the firm’s IRIS LGBTIQ+ Network. At Herbert Smith Freehills, she leads large-scale, multi-million dollar civil litigation and regulatory projects with a team of legal professionals who deliver bespoke technology-driven legal services to enterprise clients. Outside of work, Georgia volunteers as the State Director for Out for Australia, an organisation that seeks to support and mentor aspiring LGBTQIA+ professionals as they navigate their way through the early stages of their career.

INTERVIEW

How did you end up working in Alternative Legal Services?

A little bit by chance, it certainly wasn’t deliberate. Prior to working in Alternative Legal Services, I was a personal injury lawyer. So I spent about five years on the plaintiff-side doing quite intense work injury and litigation matters. I found litigation life quite intense, the hours were really long and personal injury work can be quite emotionally-taxing.

In 2019, I thought “I don’t want to be a lawyer anymore” or “what else is really out there for me, I really value my life and I want a work-life balance, how can I make that happen?” I heard about Alternative Legal Services and that they had this new technology-driven practice area that was a global offering. So the team works across the world, meaning that at 6pm, or whatever time that we stop working, we are able to pass on to the rest of the world and follow the sun. So you know, Perth can continue working, and Beijing can continue working and so on. So it truly is a role where I can leave work at work and have just ended up loving it and really being motivated by efficiencies and technology along the way and really now thought “you know I’ll stay here until I figure out what I wanna do.” But this is how I see my career playing out and it really is an area of law that is exploding and getting bigger.

Can you tell us a bit about the type of work you do in Alternative Legal Services?

It ranges depending on the types of matters that we’re working on but generally it’s quite project-based. Our teams are set-up with qualified staff, with lawyers and teams of legal analysts, who essentially undertake the review work. A classic kind of day for us, is we might receive some instructions from a client about a regulatory notice, for example ASIC, and ASIC want a whole lot of information for whatever reason. Essentially the client tasks us with finding that information within their databases, wherever that might exist, whether it’s in email, inboxes, or a drive somewhere. We then process that data into some legible way so it can be compared and read. We then use technology to reduce as much as possible how much human review is required. By comparing what documents are the same and what are conceptually similar. We know what the kind of concepts are so we use computer-assisted learning to teach concepts so the documents are either put into two baskets or ranked into: ‘what you might want to look at’ or ‘this is junk, don’t look at it’. What was previously a manual task and paralegals in a room just doing discovery and pouring over documents, is now automated as much as possible so our lawyers and our qualified staff and our legal analysts are only looking at what is actually adding value.

Do you think the job market in the legal industry will be impacted by the use of automated machines to remove manual work from the document-review process?

I don’t think so, I think no matter how much you can automate the law and any type of litigation in particular, I think there will always be a need for nuance and the need for human intervention and human analysis of the output of the machines, where I think there’s benefit beyond what machines can offer. I guess, yes you might say we aren’t hiring as many paralegals to do you know this meaningless task, which is pouring over documents. Instead, we’ve created an entire practice group that’s creating its own profit well-beyond and its own jobs within that. I think the benefit of really allowing lawyers to do the valuable work is much more important. I actually don’t think it has any impact on robots stealing our jobs or anything like that. 

What are some misconceptions about Alternative Legal Services?

I think that it’s not real lawyering or that it is kind of just the overflow, or that we’re just reviewing documents. I think that that is a huge misconception. The work that we do in harnessing technology, figuring out what is out there and what it can do for us, is more what my role is than reviewing documents. I think the opportunities for stopping and actually thinking about, “ok what is the best way to do this” is an opportunity that I’ve certainly had in Alternative Legal Services, that I don’t think I had in traditional law, where you’re often just expected to turn over your matters or turn over your cases just in the same way, cookie-cutter approach, “this is how we do it, this is how its always been done” and I think being in a role that is innovative by nature, allows just taking a strategic approach to what is usually quite a straightforward thing. But actually thinking outside-the-box to say “well, how can we do this better?” is the best kind of part of the Alternative Legal Services. When I first came into it, I didn’t think it would be such a big part. 

Do you think in the future, we’ll move away from traditional lawyering and move more into Alternative Legal Services?

I think they compliment each other quite well. So I think, you’ll certainly see more fims having their own similar offerings or consulting firms having expertise in this discovery kind of field and it being more of an expectation as well, that this is how it’s done. That will also come from the courts as well. A lot of the discovery protocols now consider this type of technology as being required and the costs of doing it any other way will be really questioned and scrutinised quite a lot. When courts know that it’s out there and your opposing solicitors know that it's there, if you’re saying it's going to cost us a million dollars because we have to review all these documents by hand or assess these claims, there will be a lot of scrutiny. There has to be a push, clients aren’t going to pay for it anymore and the efficiency of the legal system will hopefully push people to use that technology in the first instance.

What has been the most fulfilling part about your role at Herbert Smith Freehills?

I think because of the nature of the work, the opportunities that I’ve had to add value outside of just ALT. I think having a 9-to-5 or a workplace that encourages flexibility has allowed me to not only co-chair our Pride network at the firm, but also volunteer in my spare time and also during my day at work. I think it’s having a role that is important in the deliverables that I have and getting a project done on time and to cost and keeping the clients happy, but that I’m also able to spend time on other things and really engage with them.

Particularly the Alternative Legal Services because of how there’s lots of legal analysts which are generally graduates or younger professionals, I think it provides a really unique working environment that our culture as well is one of not just excellence but efficiency, and inclusiveness, and making sure that everyone is doing work that they’re proud of, and doing things that they’re really interested in. That’s the biggest … It’s a real benefit of ALT, I think that we are kind of like the younger-hip-pink-haired lawyers. 

Georgia sports pink hair whilst working as a Senior Solicitor at HSF.

Herbert Smith Freehills offers flexibility and a really good working culture and I hope that a lot of, if any other firm, offering similar type services would be doing the same really. It is an alternative path and a legitimate path, and people may choose it because they have no interest in being in litigation and working over the weekends for whatever reason, and they can still make that choice and be a successful lawyer. I think that is the key point.

Can you tell us a bit about the work you’ve done with Pride at Herbert Smith Freehills and the work you’ve done to improve inclusivity within the firm and generally?

Yea, so when I first joined ALT, there wasn’t, I guess, a specific queer-network within that practice area. The firm itself has a network with presence in the bigger states and the bigger offices. In my previous firm, I’d been involved in their Pride network as well and some event organising and things like that helping out with things, like a stall at Midsummer and things like that. But when I joined HSF I had a real sense that there was a gap in the difference between networks that were for the firm and for marketing opportunities, rather than a network that actually was for identifying employees or for allies to actually come together and to make change and to actually identify where not only the firm, but where within our industry we’re falling short, and what we can do to improve the accessibility of law to all intersections of what being queer is and to actually make sure that the people that are in the firm are feeling that too and that it’s not just a flag flying exercise.

There’s a lot of things that we’ve done. We’ve run a number of ally training sessions, focusing on inclusive language. The firm sponsors a number of scholarships for the Pinnacle Foundation, for example, which provides tertiary scholarships to young queer students and I think the opportunities that I’ve also had in speaking at universities and through HSF, I’ve started mentoring law students at a number of universities, at Sydney Uni and Monash Uni, and just providing visibility has been a big part of that role for me. It’s just getting out there and showing people that yes, you can be queer, and have pink hair, and a woman and still excel in the law, and any gender diversity, no matter how you identify has no bearing whatsoever on your ability to contribute and perform in your role. So it’s been a lot of education, I think, making sure that we’re reaching people within the firm that might not know gay people or might not engage in queer spaces.

For example, last week the co-chairs of the network, we sat in on the firm’s Working Parents Network Group which is not a space where they usually talk about queer things and gender identity, but having those confronting conversation with people who have children to say this is how you can actually make a difference. Be aware of the language you are using around your children. Being lived experiences within the firm and giving a face to them to say well we went through this and this is what we’re directly telling you, you can do to make a difference. That’s a big part of my position and I take it very seriously, that education piece and making sure that where people are unsure, that they are educated and that they have the resources to find out because I think that being ignorant is just not an option anymore.

If someone were to start working in Alternative Legal Services and wanted to move into traditional law, are there pathways for them to do that?

Yea, I think absolutely, it is, I think it is exceptionally grounding to move into a traditional maybe commercial disputes practice. Because if you have that mindset already of “how can I do this better” and have the knowledge of how to use the technology already and you know how it all works, and when you’re getting assistance from ALT, for example, you know exactly what they’re doing. That happens quite a lot even in our firm that we share resources or people go on secondments in disputes teams or end up working in disputes teams for whatever reason. They certainly complement each other because traditional litigation still has all of those aspects to it and it isn’t that far removed. You’re not losing, you’re still making legal decisions, you’re making tricky privileged calls on a confidentiality clause, and interpreting whether what a lawyer has put into an email is actually legal advice or not. The attention to detail and the skills that you build would well-place someone to move into litigation, they really complement each other well.

What has been the highlight of your career, is there a memorable case or particular matter that has really stood out?

I think a lot of my stand-out matters and things come from my time in personal injury which might not be as motivating for the ALT spiel I’ve just done. But anything that I’ve done that has made a genuine impact on someone’s life. I remember early in my career, the first ever big matter that I worked on was the Black Saturday bushfire class action and I worked on that for probably three years straight and that experience for me was kind of life-changing in my ability to talk to people, to understand or even try to understand the depth of people’s experiences when they’ve gone through a traumatic experience and then also have to follow that up in legal proceedings and a legal fight.

Getting to the end of that is always a positive thing, I just recall even just small wins of the calls, when you call the client to say “Hey, we’ve won it’s all over”, those are the moments I think that were the most defining in my career and that have kept me going. But now I channel that into my people management, in that I am really invested in the young lawyers that I work with achieving their goals and helping them to achieve that. I think that that’s a really unique part of the ALT role and something that I hope to keep doing to champion up others.

How do you maintain your work-life balance and if you’re dealing with a particularly emotional case, how do you process your emotions?

I think for a long-time I didn’t really do anything and I was completely consumed by work and I don’t think I knew what the term ‘vicarious trauma’ or what those things meant or what kind of impact, even though these things were happening to me. But hearing stories day-in-day-out and having people scream at you day-in-day-out takes a toll. I think for me, eventually setting those boundaries really clearly, not only with my work, but with my clients on what I will and will not accept, I think is very helpful. It’s hard to just say alright I’ll just leave it at work or I won’t have my emails at my phone, but if you haven’t set it out that clearly “I’m not going to answer the phone after 6pm” or “I’m not online tonight” and say “These are my boundaries'', then I think you set yourself up a little bit to kind of be expected to be available all the time.

I certainly got into that trap, so I think catching yourself before you burn out is a big-thing. So, exercise, actually taking - you know I’m not a lunch-eater so I don’t go out of the office at 1pm, but at least taking a break, going and separating, because it’s not only beneficial for yourself it’s beneficial for your work, because at some point your brain just can’t do it anymore. Just accepting, “I’m actually not doing anything helpful at midnight, so I’m going to sleep”, so just setting those boundaries and respecting them yourself as well. Even if it is easier to jump on a call at whatever time, saying no, I may not be busy but this is my ‘sit on the couch time’ and my ‘not think about work time’.

What would your advice be for students who have kind of built up that expectation that their employers are going to expect them to be available and they are worried that if they set those boundaries in place it might affect the way that their work performance is viewed?

Of course, I certainly don’t suggest going in on your first day and being like “do not email me after 5pm”, but I think it’s something that I’ve learnt should be and is at the forefront of my mind when I am job-seeking and asking that question. Some people might be willing to do that and put their head down and work and leave work. But for someone who isn’t, I think being honest about that or at least asking the question about what the culture of the firm is or the culture of the workplace that you're entering is, is really important. Because at the end of the day, no matter what boundaries you do set for yourself in those situations, if every single person at the firm works stupid hours and the culture is just generally very chaotic and people just don’t get stuff done until whenever and you are expected to be around, just thinking a bit more critically about that, “is that somewhere I wanna work?’.

But once you're in it, not being afraid to have those conversations, I would be very surprised if the state of more of the legal industry and the way that we’re working towards flexible working, that any employer would not be willing to have that kind of conversation. So, not so much advice, but I think just allow yourself to. If that’s a priority for you and that’s something that you value, then absolutely make sure that you stick to that. There’s a lot of times where I would volunteer for a lot of the overtime and things just because I thought that I have to be the one who works the hardest, but at the end of the day that’s not really a measure of the value you’re adding.

At times, I’ve been criticised for working late or working too hard, or not too hard, but a question can also be asked “why can’t you get this done in your day job? Why are you still here, are you slow? Is there something we can assist with?”. It’s also a bit double-edged like that, you don’t want to kinda just be around for the sake of being around. But I think the law is heading more towards agile working and home and office and being around when you need to be around and adding value where you're needed. I hope the days of having to stay until the partner leaves are somewhat behind us.

Do you think the law industry has been moving towards a better overall work-life culture, especially with the impact of covid?

Absolutely! Yea, I think most of the top law firms that have the resources are putting in the effort from a flexibility perspective to make sure that people who have experienced this flexibility over the last two years can continue to do so, but in a way that you get the best of both worlds with collaboration and having people. But I think people’s understanding of what is actually valuable about us meeting in person has changed. It’s about the collaboration and the group-thought but when we are just doing quick catch-ups, or we don’t have meetings, then it’s better to be at home, it’s more efficient to be at home. I think the understanding and the appreciation or just the trust that people will do their work when they are at home has improved. I think that there was such a misconception that anyone who worked at home was just a mother who had kids or for whatever reason, But now it’s everyone and I think that’s a big culture shift that’s happening at the moment.

What are your top tips for students who want to practise within Alternate Legal Services?

I think engage with the law, and it has been awhile since I’ve been at uni, but certainly when I was studying, there were no units or subjects that focus on technology or any kind of legal operations, project management type things. If it is something that you’re interested in, if you’re interested in tech and digital law and things, then start immersing yourself in that space. Understanding what new law is and the opportunities that exist within it. There’s not only the legal review side that I work within, but there’s a whole discovery side, and forensic technology which is just absolutely fascinating and dealing with large volumes of data across however many jurisdictions. There are only going to be more opportunities, so if it is something that you are interested in, stay on top of what’s happening and connect with people on LinkedIn that share that type of news and things like that. But just engage, is I think the key advice, if it’s something that you are seriously interested in then seek it out and see what’s out there to further your knowledge.

Do you have any tips in relation to extracurricular activities that students could participate in to make themselves stand out when doing alternative legal services applications?

I don’t think anything in particular, and this may only be my personal view on the topic. I guess extracurricular activities are useful. I think, having any kind of engagement with something outside of your work or your paid work, is really beneficial and anything that that might be, if it’s something that you’re passionate about and that you’re interested in and that you can talk about. For me that’s LGBT inclusion, not directly relevant to my work but at the same time, that’s something that I would list and really champion in not only my resumes but in my cover letters and in my interviews as something that I do outside of my work that I’m really passionate about.

I think if what you are passionate about is blockchain or something that is directly relevant then that’s amazing, but I don’t think you should be disheartened or pressured to put forward or get involved in things where you actually don’t really care that much. I think it’s much more motivating and it’s much more impressive for someone to come and say “I’m the chess club person but I take this really seriously and this is what those opportunities have provided for me” or whether it’s sport. For me, playing football was a big part of my young adult life, when I was a grad. In plenty of interviews I spoke about that.

I think don’t be afraid to put forward the unique things about you that you may not think are relevant, but I think when they are asking for extracurricular that’s exactly where you should be displaying your interests. You’re only human, we don’t expect every single person to be “Law is Life” and anything outside of that, or even further that “Alternative Legal Services” is life, I’d think you’re a bit of a nut bag. I love tech but not that much. An appreciation and a passion for other things is only beneficial.

Do you have any final tips for law students interested in Alternative Legal Services?

Nothing in particular, I think just take the pressure off yourself a little bit. I just recall how tough law school was and then the transition from studying to a graduate job, and thinking that basically everything was on the line, and that it was make or break. I didn’t get my first grad job out of university and as much as I cried on that day, it actually didn’t ruin my life. If anything I’m much better for it and the experiences that I had in the interim before finding a practising role were some of the most exceptional and best experiences that I’ve had. The way the industry is moving, at least the way I see it, is there are so many pathways. There are so many things to do with a law degree and the traditional “Ok, I gotta do my clerkship then get a grad job at the big four then work my way from associate to partner before 30” is just not the narrative anymore.

There are just so many other opportunities that make being a lawyer really exciting at the moment and there’s a real drive and opportunity for young lawyers, in particular entering firms to also have a huge voice, I think. And to drive particularly where we’re moving towards, technology, flexibility and innovation. The knowledge is not coming from current disputes partners. It’s coming from people who have working knowledge just because they understand blockchain for some reason or they just have a working knowledge of cryptocurrency and could work us through a matter or whatever. That kind of growing knowledge and ability to step outside of what has been accepted for so long is coming from the bottom up.

Suggested Electives/activities:

Electives:

Undergraduate

• LAW4542 AI, Technology and the Law

• LAW4160 Negotiation and Conflict Resolution

Postgraduate

• LAW5650 Technology, Design and Innovation in Legal Services

• LAW5811 Online Dispute Resolution and the Future of Justice

Experience/Activities:

• Generally be involved in activities you are interested in!

• An understanding of cryptocurrency and blockchain can be useful.

IN THE NEWS

Alternative Legal Service Providers Are Quickly Becoming Mainstream for Law Firms & Corporations, Creating a $14 Billion Market (Thomson Reuters, 2021)

Thomson Reuters discusses the increase of collaboration between law firms and alternative legal service providers, the key findings of the report show a decrease of concerns and an increase in cost-efficiency and competitive edge.

“Over half of law firms and corporations still have concerns about using ALSPs, such as quality of services and ensuring confidentiality of client information, but those levels of concern are dropping.”

“Law firms and corporations say that over the next five years they expect to nearly double the average number of ALSP service lines they use. The report concludes, “if anything, we’re just at the start of a steeper growth trajectory.”

Link to article

Four imperatives for the next-generation legal department (McKinsey, 2021)

McKinsey notes the four areas that the legal industry must adapt given advancements in technology.

“While each situation requires tailored analyses and recommendations, we believe four general imperatives should be top of mind for every general counsel building a next-generation legal department:

1. clarifying the functional purpose and priorities

2. setting up for a changing legal ecosystem

3. preparing for a new wave of corporate litigation

4. enabling careers for legal talent.”

“New means of collaboration, the rise of litigation financing, and advances in technology are changing the legal ecosystem. Technological developments, for example, are increasing the volume of data to be processed, enabling remote working arrangements, requiring new security measures, and adding technology skills to the department’s talent needs.”

Link to article

The Pandemic Might Be The Tech Disruptor The Legal Industry Needs (Forbes, 2021)

Remote work featuring e-signatures, video-conferencing, and digital files has transformed the way the legal industry works and forced the adoption of technology that lawyers previously were too risk-averse to consider in the interest of client-confidentiality.

“One of the biggest drivers was the growth of alternative legal service providers (ALSPs) that use technology to gain efficiencies in delivering services — such as legal research, document review, ediscovery and litigation support — at rates that are more competitive than traditional law firms.”

“In addition to the productivity, efficiency and cost savings technology can provide, legal teams will be able to promote greater transparency and convenience to clients, and employee quality of life benefits too.”

Link to article

learn more about Alternative Legal Services

WHAT WILL LAW FIRMS LOOK LIKE IN 2049? (Herbert Smith Freehills, 2019)

Mark Rigotti, Partner and Senior Advisor, predicts changes to the legal industry for the next three decades to come based on technological advances and the work in the legal industry in the last 30 years.

“Technology is doing away with the paper trail and much more commodity work will be standardised or outsourced. Artificial intelligence is simplifying data discovery so that we can spend more time collaborating with our clients. First-touch interface will be handled and perhaps mediated by virtual helpers.”

“In its place, lawyers will do what they have always done and hunt out the next wave of economic change, which could come from tougher international regulators, the emerging laws that will govern big data and privacy, climate change-induced developments and the global clients already rising in Asia.”

Link to article

LAWYER AND LEGAL TECH – A SYMBIOTIC RELATIONSHIP (Herbert Smith Freehills, 2018)

Lloyd Langenhoven, Senior Lawyer, comments on the way technological advancements change the way we live and do things and its impacts on the legal industry.

“Gone are the days when firms can dismiss the integration of legal technology within their firm as a non-essential and “futuristic” endeavour. Well-known legal services like LexisNexis and JutaStat are examples of where legal technology has already become infused with legal practice.”

“A lawyer who is adept at coding could well be a prized commodity in the law firm of the future.”

Link to article