The F-LEX Virtual Lunch Wrap Up Blog

Our Virtual Lunch series is taking a wee pause over August, but will be back with a boom on the 23rd of September. In the meantime we wanted to take a look back at the topics we have discussed and examine some of the lessons and key takeaways. 

Firstly, we wanted to say a massive thank you to all of you who have attended our sessions at 12:30 on a Wednesday. Over the 8 sessions we have had over 350 of you attend the sessions. Not only have you attended, but you have been a huge part of the conversation sharing stories, experiences and insights that have helped to facilitate the discussions on the topics we have covered. 

Topics: 

How to feel comfortable talking about “difference”

How to think creatively and generate new ideas 

3 employment law issues you should be aware of

How to use LinkedIn to boost your legal career 

Adding value early: how to use tech and innovation 

How to network like a pro 

How to raise your profile in the legal industry during lockdown

Thank you to the myriad of guest speakers we have had join us who have given their insights into the topics of discussion. Click on the topic to read a summary of what was discussed and the key takeaway points. 

What we’ve learnt from you

Using interactive word clouds and polls we were able to get you involved in the sessions and to find out your thoughts on a number of topics.  

What we have seen is that many of you think that remote working is here to stay and will be prevalent in the future. Moreover, the majority were coping well with this new way of working. However, a few issues were raised. Specifically, many of the respondents felt that they required greater supervision and found that there was a lack of communication. 

Whilst 80% of respondents would like to split more time between home and office work, the aspect that most people missed was the human interaction of the office. People matter and over the course of the Virtual Lunches it became clear that for remote working to stay and be successful firms and managers need to find more effective ways of maintaining employee engagement and development virtually. 

Looking to the future it is clear that the discussions around the environment will remain present as the aspect that they would most like to see change about work post pandemic was the use of less paper. 

Following that trend, it seems that you guys are expecting the future of the legal profession to involve far more automation, AI and flexibility. But, not necessarily right now as 66% of participants said that they had never worked on an agile project.