Law Firms Are Turning to Online Training Platforms as Apprenticeship Model Falters

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The Shift: Law Firms Are Turning to Online Training Platforms as Apprenticeship Model Falters

The pandemic upended how law firms train their employees—no longer could associates learn from partners at the office, but instead, had to rely on webinars or Zoom. Many, however, bemoaned that something valuable was lost through teaching staff remotely.

Fast forward to today, and while the pandemic is in many attorneys' rearview mirror, training in law firms hasn’t snapped back to how it was in the days before COVID-19. Increasingly, law firms are turning to legal education startups that marry digital, remote training with more hands-on instructions, to teach their staff and hone their skills.

This shift is the result of a few converging trends—the need for associates to learn new technology skills, the demand for additional training as the market becomes more competitive, and by extension, the lack of time partners have to teach their colleagues.

While the pandemic showed the potential of training employees through online platforms, whatever its perceived shortcomings, law firms are finding they can still embrace that method as new pressures continue to make more traditional training less viable.

The Conversation

It’s no surprise that many of the online training startups serving law firms were founded by former lawyers themselves. Abdi Shayesteh, for instance, served as a senior associate at King & Spalding and as a deputy GC at bank MUFG Americas before founding lawyer training startup AltaClaro.

In an interview around the time he launched AltaClaro, Shayesteh stressed the need for lawyers to be better prepared for their jobs, and have access to more experienced attorneys to act as coaches.

“We saw this gap where we would like to make sure that everybody [has] access to coaching services for career development,” he said.

Ian Nelson, co-founder of learning platform HotShot Legal, and a former attorney at Kramer Levin Naftalis & Frankel and Reavis Parent Lehrer, also experienced this gap as a new lawyer. “I sort of lived that panic of being a clueless baby lawyer and law school typically just hasn't really prepared people for the realities of practice, and that just always kind of stuck with me.”

Many of these legal digital training platforms look to bridge this gap by including feedback from real lawyers and simulating real-life scenarios.

"Doctors get to practice on cadavers, pilots get to practice on flight [simulations]—well now lawyers are getting the chance to practice on fake clients," Shayaesteh said.

Many firms are receptive to this new approach. AltaClaro, for instance, counts Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe; K&L Gates; Taft Stettinius & Hollister and Husch Blackwell, among others, as clients.

“The big differentiators from our end are the learn-by-doing aspect of it … it's super valuable to us because that's a way better learning experience for someone than sitting through a webinar, being like … ‘maybe I was paying attention, and maybe I was playing Candy Crush,’” said Nathan Dooley, Orrick's client service transformation director for the corporate business unit.

Those using the platform are also finding the hands-on approach to digital training beneficial.

"It was great to ask more pointed questions and get clarification on any questions that we may have had during the actual course, and I think they just gave really good pointers," said Amanda Morales, a Boston College law school student and Orrick summer associate who leveraged AltaClaro’s training on prompt engineering offered by the firm.

The Significance

While AltaClaro’s courses span a number of topics—including litigation and legal writing—many firms are using the platform for generative AI training, including prompt engineering lessons.

The use of these digital learning platforms for technology skills is widespread— afterall, it’s not usually something law firm partners can teach on their own.

K&L Gates, for instance, partnered with AltaClaro to create and deploy a new course that trains law firm partners and managers, and legal departments, on generative AI.

“You can see the winners and the losers in the gen AI and AI space will be the ones that best train their people on how to use these programs responsibly and effectively so that their clients have the confidence in engaging them, and that’s definitely where we’re headed,” said K&L Gates partner Brendan Gutierrez McDonnell.

Such technology training can also make firms more appealing to younger associates, who often put a premium on law firms that understand and prioritize legal technology.

But fostering technology skills is far from the only reason firms are turning to these platforms. While many relied on the in-person apprenticeship model to teach new associates, in today’s competitive market, there just isn’t partner time to spare.

AltaClaro executive legal editor Patricia Libby, a former attorney at Arnold & Porter, and a legal writing professor at the University of Southern California (USC) Gould School of Law, noted that firms don’t have “the luxury of a first-year associate [learning] about a case through a whole year of discovery like we used to do.”

Shayesteh echoed a similar sentiment, adding that “the competitive landscape doesn't create an opportunity for that apprenticeship model [which] has kind of withered away due to law firm economics."

The shift from the apprenticeship model is likely growing. Shayesteh noted that in the past four years, Altaclaro has gone from “from three Am Law clients to almost 80.”

The Information

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The Forecast

These digital learning platforms may turn out to be a long-term fixture at law firms. Even if the competitive landscape changes and firms determine they don’t need to train their associates as much, while partners find more time to teach their colleagues, the benefits these platforms afford are likely too significant to be discarded.

If firms find these platforms train their staff adequately enough to continue to at least supplement the apprenticeship model, it’s unlikely that they’ll want to give up the amount of time these platforms save by freeing up partners to focus on client work instead of internal education.

Firms also are becoming more hands-on in partnering with online learning startups to design the specific courses they need for their lawyers—a trend that is likely to continue, and grow, in the coming months and years.

Rhys Dipshan is the senior editor on the legal technology news desk. Contact him at rdipshan@alm.com and follow him on Twitter: @R_Dipshan