The legal services market has turned to Chrissie Lightfoot for her future forecasting at a time when uncertainty has stirred panic and confusion. She fields questions from all over the world about how lawyers can remain relevant when robots finally do take over, and about the viability of the traditional law firm model moving forward. Her prevailing message is that things will be OK. Lawyers already have everything they need to adapt and survive, they just need to be willing to evolve.
She is the entrepreneur-turned-solicitor from Yorkshire who has traded on ‘The Naked Lawyer’ moniker since a book by the same name was published eight years ago. As far as futurists go, Chrissie Lightfoot is neither pretentious nor stuffy. She is brave.
Before talking about business innovation became popular and long before Lightfoot even entertained the idea of studying law, she was wondering how she could make the best possible contribution to society. Driven in equal parts by curiosity and altruism, she talks of a childhood spent poring over books that explored the many possible futures for the world.
“As a teenager, I always had a curiosity with the future,” Lightfoot says.
“I have always been intrigued by what is next and how can we improve things. I was genuinely interested in looking at how I could protect and futureproof my own career and how I could use that to help and teach others as well.”
Lightfoot joined the UK legal profession in 2008. When she qualified, she held on to the single-minded belief that she could use her skills to bridge the world of business and law. Within three years, she had left the mid-tier firm where she cut her teeth to launch a project that was designed to teach soft skills to lawyers. And so, The Entrepreneur Lawyer was born.