What do people
actually value?
Do lawyers and their clients agree on what creates value? We are bringing both perspectives into the study.
Join the Research ↗Research · Framework · Diagnostic
Legal expertise
is the baseline.
What comes next
is the differentiator.
A framework exploring how lawyers turn legal expertise into better decisions, stronger outcomes and greater business value.
Research · Reflection · PracticeFounded by Bianca de Souza
01 / A working proposition
The value is in
what happens next.
You know the law.
You understand it.
Now what?
Technology is making legal information, drafting and analysis increasingly accessible. Legal expertise remains essential. The question is what you do with it.
- Can you turn expertise into better decisions?
- Can you manage risk intelligently?
- Can you communicate so people act?
The modern lawyer creates value in what happens next.
Explore the Framework ↗02 / Put the question to work
Explore what creates value.
Test it in practice.
What do people
Where does your
value come from today?
Reflect on your everyday approach. Receive a profile across six practical areas and development actions to try.
Test your current approach →From legal expertise
to business value.
Explore four capabilities that connect what lawyers know with the outcomes their work enables.
Explore the framework →Receive the research report.
Request a copy when the findings are published.
The framework / The evolving proposition
From legal expertise
to business value.
Legal mastery at the foundation. Three capabilities that help turn expertise into outcomes.
01 / Legal masteryKnow what matters.
Know what matters.
Exercise judgement.
Apply the law with context, proportion and confidence. Know what matters, where uncertainty remains and when to bring in specialist support.
Three capabilities alongside legal mastery
Understand the business
behind the question.
Connect legal advice to strategy, risk, operations and commercial priorities. Understand the objective before recommending a course of action.
Ask: “What decision does the business need to make?”
Make legal work
work better.
Design smarter processes, services and technology around how people actually work. Turn recurring questions into useful tools, with clear exceptions and a route back to Legal.
Ask: “Why are we answering this again?”
Turn insight
into action.
Communicate, influence, negotiate and build the trust needed to move people forward. Make the next decision clear to the person who needs to act.
Ask: “Can this person use the advice?”
The value these capabilities can enable
What improves in practice?
- Better decisions
- Faster progress
- Smarter risk-taking
- Greater efficiency
A proposition under investigation. The framework draws on more than 75 research papers, industry reports and professional publications, alongside experience in practice. The study tests and refines its proposed capabilities against what clients and stakeholders value, including where their experiences challenge the framework.
The Modern Lawyer Study
What do lawyers value?
What do their clients value?
We are testing how lawyers understand their own value and whether that matches what business professionals actually value from legal.
Listen on both sides
of the advice.
The study brings together in-house and private-practice lawyers, business professionals, and legal operations and technology specialists.
It examines perceived value, experiences of AI and the capabilities people believe legal professionals will need. You do not need to use AI to contribute.
Value provided.
Value experienced.
Do legal service providers and their clients agree on what makes a contribution useful?
Technology use.
Everyday experience.
What benefits, barriers and changes in work do participants report from AI and legal technology?
Current practice.
Future priorities.
Which capabilities do people think deserve more attention as legal work changes?
Your perspective belongs in the study
Help test what makes lawyers valuable.
Tell us what makes legal support valuable in your experience. Your perspective will inform the next iteration of the framework, including where it needs to change. Read the participant information before taking part.
Inside the study / Explore the questions behind the research
Purpose of the study
What makes a lawyer valuable to the people and organisations they serve and how might that change as AI becomes more capable?
The Modern Lawyer Study compares legal, business and legal operations and technology perspectives to identify agreement, reveal differences and inform the framework. It explores value today, reported technology benefits and future capability needs. Technical expertise remains part of the inquiry, including whether it continues to distinguish excellent lawyers.
What the research is testing
- What creates value now? The outcomes, capabilities and ways of delivering support that participants prioritise.
- Where do perspectives align or differ? Lawyers’ assumptions about stakeholder priorities compared with business respondents’ own views.
- Where, if anywhere, does support fall short? Reported unmet needs, friction, barriers and desired improvements.
- What may change over the next three to five years? Expectations about future strengths, alongside reported uses and benefits of AI and legal technology today.
- Which capabilities warrant development? Participants’ perceived gaps and priorities for change.
The shared future-capability questions focus on valuable in-house lawyers. These are expectations, not predictions proven by the study or assessments of actual skill.
Define value before measuring it
Value means a meaningful outcome for the recipient, considered alongside the cost, effort, risk and alternatives involved. We distinguish what legal support achieves from the capabilities and delivery that make it possible.
| Concept | What it means here |
|---|---|
| Value | The benefit the recipient perceives, relative to cost, effort, risk and alternatives. |
| Outcome | What improves: a better decision, progress, managed risk or an avoided problem. |
| Capability | What enables that contribution: expertise, judgement or commercial understanding. |
| Delivery | How support is experienced: clarity, responsiveness, relationships and usability. |
| Differentiation | What makes an adviser preferable to alternatives or worth instructing again. |
| Visibility | Whether evidence of contribution reaches people and helps them understand or use it. |
The questionnaire captures perceived priorities and experiences. It does not calculate the economic value of a lawyer or independently verify business outcomes.
Why business professionals are included
We apply business frameworks to the future of legal services, with design thinking as a core framework. Design thinking starts with understanding the people a service is intended to help, then uses those insights to define problems and shape better solutions. Here, that means listening directly to the clients and colleagues lawyers serve and using their perspectives to inform the framework.
Business respondents describe what they value, where support falls short and what would help them make decisions. Comparing these views across responsibility levels helps keep the framework grounded in different users’ needs, while recognising lawyers’ independent professional judgement.
How the research relates to the framework
The framework supplies questions to investigate, rather than conclusions to confirm. Any published findings should show the respondent mix, analysis method and limitations, including evidence that challenges the model. No empirical findings are presented on this website.
Is the diagnostic part of the research survey?
They are separate experiences. The Jotform survey collects research responses under its participant information. The diagnostic is a reflection tool: its answers are calculated in your browser and are not submitted as research responses.
Follow the research.
Ask a question, receive updates or request the report when it is ready.
Participate / The Modern Lawyer Study
A more useful picture
starts with your perspective.
What do you value in legal support and does it match what lawyers prioritise? Share your experience to help test the framework and identify where professional development should focus.
The person behind the question
I kept coming back
to one question.
I’m Bianca de Souza, a solicitor, in-house legal counsel and a curious mind.
My work sits at the intersection of law, business, risk, technology and the people who ultimately have to make decisions.
And across all of it, I kept noticing the same thing:
Knowing the law is essential. But knowing the law is not the same as creating value.
The Modern Lawyer Framework began as an attempt to understand what comes next.
Connect on LinkedIn ↗
From practice to question
The work made the question difficult to ignore.
In-house practice puts you unusually close to the consequences of legal advice. You see what happens after the memo is written: whether a decision gets made, whether a process works, whether a risk is actually managed and whether the business can move forward.
My work across commercial contracting, data protection, compliance and emerging technology made me increasingly interested in that space between legal expertise and organisational outcome.
As AI becomes increasingly capable of supporting research, drafting, review and analysis, that question becomes more important, not less.
If access to the legal answer becomes easier, where does the lawyer create distinctive value?
That question became the starting point for the Modern Lawyer Framework.
- Solicitor of England & Wales
- In-house legal counsel
- In-house Legal Counsel of the Year 2025
- TEDx speaker
- Featured by The Law Society
Commercial law / Data & privacy / Compliance / AI & legal innovation
Law taught me the rules.
Practice taught me what happens next.
The Modern Lawyer Framework is teaching me how to take that further.
Ideas in public
Continuing the conversation
beyond the framework.
The Law Society feature
Why modern lawyers must think differently about technology, commercial awareness and people skills
Read the feature ↗TEDx
Jump Off Your Metaphorical Cliff
Watch the talk ↗Legal Geek 2026
The Modern Lawyer Framework
London · 14 October 2026
Vinyl Stage · around midday
Contact us
Good questions deserve
a conversation.
Ask about the research, share a perspective or connect with Bianca de Souza. Here is where to find us.
Join the Research ↗Ask about the study.
Questions about participation, the framework or the research? Email Bianca directly.
research@modernlawyerframework.comStart a conversation.
For speaking, collaboration or anything else about Modern Lawyer Framework, get in touch.
hello@modernlawyerframework.comAdd Bianca de Souza.
Follow the thinking as it develops, share your experience and continue the conversation.
Connect with Bianca on LinkedIn ↗Hear what we learn.
Request the report when it is available. You can also choose research updates or leave a question; each option is separate.
Request the report →No publication date has been set. Requesting the report does not subscribe you to progress updates.
Stay involved / The Modern Lawyer Study
A question today.
A clearer picture tomorrow.
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