Director of Innovation, Europe, Middle East and Asia at NRF, Jeremy Coleman, discusses the next frontier of innovation in the law, and the skills aspiring lawyers need to succeed
In a world where the intersection of law and technology is rapidly evolving, Jeremy Coleman, Director of Innovation, Europe, Middle and Asia (EMEA)at Norton Rose Fulbright (NRF), has positioned himself at the forefront of transforming how law firms operate. His unique career path, which spans continents and industries, exemplifies the non-traditional routes that professionals can take in today’s legal landscape.
Coleman’s journey into the legal world is far from conventional. He began his career in Canada, where he dabbled in various fields, from an internet start-up to co-founding a video game company, before deciding to pursue law in the UK. Reflecting on this transition, he recalls his move from a relatively small Canadian city to the Big Smoke. “Growing up, it just didn’t ever occur to me that working in London was a possibility,” he shared. “Walking into Norton Rose on that first day, heading towards the office with Tower Bridge ahead, the Tower of London across the river, and the city skyline with Canary Wharf in the distance, I couldn’t help but be immensely grateful for the opportunity to work at the firm and in such an iconic location.”
Coleman initially entered law with the intention of building a traditional legal career. He said, “I had intended to go into a legal career, but I don’t think I would have expected at all to end up where I am today.” Although he secured a training contract with NRF—a significant achievement in itself—he quickly realised that his true passion lay elsewhere.
Side-stepping a traditional legal career after his training contract, moving instead into innovation leadership at the firm, I ask him what inspired this move. “Sometimes life is about timing,” he answers. “This opportunity was presented to me at a time when I was questioning whether a traditional legal career was what I really wanted.”
It was in NRF’s Newcastle office that Coleman found his calling, joining Kiran Radhakrishnan, an associate from the London Corporate team. “When I started, I believe there were six of us in total. There were four paralegals, Kiran and me.” And from these modest beginnings, Coleman helped grow NRF’s Newcastle office into a hub of innovation, which today boasts over 300 staff members. The opportunity to build NRF’s innovation team in Newcastle was one that aligned with his persistent curiosity and his desire to approach problems from a different angle, he tells me. As someone who was always asking, “Isn’t there a better way to do this?” he naturally gravitated towards roles that allowed him to rethink and reshape the way legal services are delivered.
In the early days, NRF’s North-eastern hub was a training ground for implementing new technology. “A lot of the technologies we were using, we were using them in very different ways than the firm had ever done,” he recalls. “It was about applying an innovator’s mindset to every situation to say, ‘We don’t have the luxury of 200 years of history to be able to figure out this problem. We have to just figure out what the best path forward is.’”
But what is innovation, and what does it mean in the context of a law firm? Coleman explains that it’s more than just adopting buzzwords and chasing the latest tech trends. He notes, somewhat humorously, that the term “innovation” has been overused:-
“I don’t want to be a downer or ironic, but I actually think that innovation as a word has been used so much that it’s almost become meaningless,” he says. “If you cast that net wide enough it encompasses anything anyone does that is different from how we currently do things.”
His belief is that innovation is not the responsibility of a select few, but of everyone in the firm. Having now relocated back to London from Newcastle, he emphasises the need for a culture where all employees feel empowered to contribute new ideas. “Innovation shouldn’t be owned by anyone. It should be owned by everyone,” he states emphatically. For NRF, ‘innovation’ is about cultivating a mindset that continually asks how things can be done better, Coleman emphasises. It’s not enough to simply introduce new technologies; it’s about transforming the way work is approached across the firm.
Perhaps the most compelling part of Coleman’s perspective on innovation is his belief in making space for it within the culture of law firms. He acknowledges that the legal industry’s traditional focus on billable hours can stifle creativity. However, by creating formal structures that incentivise innovation, firms can begin to shift the culture — the goal, he tells me, is to make innovation part of everyone’s job, not just a select team of specialists. At NRF, Coleman has helped to implement “innovation hours”—billable hours dedicated to working on innovative projects. “Innovation hours at NRF are billable hours which count towards bonuses, with up to 125 billable innovation hours for each fee-earner a year. It’s just one of the ways that we’re encouraging the whole company to take initiative to innovate,” Coleman shares.
Looking to future, I ask Coleman what he believes to be the next frontier of legal innovation. His answer is nuanced. While artificial intelligence (AI) is the obvious next step, he believes the true potential of AI will be realised when it is seamlessly integrated into the workflows of legal professionals. AI, he suggests, should be used not to replace lawyers, but to augment their capabilities—handling rote tasks so that legal professionals can focus on more strategic, high-value work.
“The next frontier is about how AI is then incorporated creatively into applications that already do really important things for us,” he explains. Coleman envisions a future where AI doesn’t merely exist as a chatbot, but where it plays an active role in streamlining legal processes. “What if the AI is part of a much larger workflow so it’s actually helping, making suggestions… It’s incorporated into an intake system and saying, ‘This information is missing, would you like me to ask for it?’” This vision of AI as a supportive tool that enhances efficiency and accuracy is far more realistic—and appealing— to Coleman than the dystopian view of AI replacing human jobs.
“It’s about changing behaviours,” Coleman says. “And once innovation becomes embedded into the firm’s DNA, the possibilities are endless.” His hope is that innovation becomes so ingrained that it is no longer something separate from day-to-day work—it’s just the way things are done.
Bringing the interview to a close, Coleman provides his advice for innovative aspiring lawyers. “Today, it’s not just about being really good at law. You also have to understand how multiple industries work, the intricacies of how they work, how those kinds of commercial decisions are made,” he explains. “To stand out in the legal world, young solicitors need to go beyond legal expertise and develop a solid understanding of the commercial landscape, enabling them to provide strategic, value-driven advice that truly meets the needs of their clients.”
Jeremy Coleman will be speaking at ‘AI and the future of legal practice — with Norton Rose Fulbright’, a virtual student event taking place tomorrow (23 October). Apply now to attend.
