I am very honored to join the Spanish chapter of the European Legal Tech Association and head its section on skills and training. Yesterday, the chapter, led by María Jesús González-Espejo and Laura Fauqueur, presented the Spanish team to the Ilustre Colegio de Abogados de Madrid (ICAM). Each of the section leads in attendance — including Carlos Martín Ugalde, Paloma Aparicio, Moisés Barrio, Manuel Deo, Alberto Dorrego, Gonzalo García Valdecasas, Juan Manuel Moreno (for Javier Martín), Mariló Pardo, María Belén Pose, Pablo Rabanal, and myself — were asked to describe what we hoped to achieve within our respective areas.

To be quite honest, I hadn’t put much thought into what I was going to say. Even though I am fluent in Spanish – having lived in Spain for almost two decades – I am not as good of an improviser in Spanish as I am in English. But when the deputy of digital affairs from ICAM, Esther Montalvá, opened the event perfectly hitting the nail on the head with the challenges and opportunities facing the legal profession, I knew exactly what message I wanted to convey: Lawyers need to  focus on and reinforce our original value proposition:

1. We are your confidants.
2. We are your advocates, here to defend your rights and your interests. We are not mere traffic lights signaling when to stop and when to go.
3. We are communicators.

As such, to be an effective lawyer today and tomorrow, you need to improve how you gain and keep your clients’ trust, how you defend their interests, and how you communicate with them, their customers, regulators and other third parties.

At least that was what I wanted people to hear, so I was happy to read in the Lawyerpress.com that that is more or less what I actually said (in Spanish):

Lo importante es preguntarse, en este contexto, cómo podemos los abogados seguir aportando valor”, reflexionaba Eric Napoli durante la presentación de la ELTA española. “Creo que, a pesar o gracias a la tecnología, podemos poner en valor tres de nuestras características que no debemos olvidar. Somos personas de confianza, como los médicos. No somos meros asesores: ayudamos y defendemos los derechos de las personas. Y somos, o deberíamos ser, grandes comunicadores.

My plan is to organize a discussion open to the public on this topic in July. Stay tuned!