Embedding Innovation Where It Matters Most: Exclusive Q&A with Victoria Duxbury, BCLP
- cosmonauts
- 1 day ago
- 4 min read
Innovation in legal services delivers real value only when it is embedded into everyday workflows and trusted by lawyers.
As Lead Knowledge Counsel for Real Estate at BCLP, Victoria Duxbury focuses on embedding innovation into real legal workflows - balancing technology, risk, and professional judgment.
In this exclusive Q&A, she shares how the Legal Knowledge function drives firm-wide innovation, supports adoption, and is reshaping how legal knowledge is created and reused.
Enjoy the interview below.
1. What role does the Legal Knowledge function play in shaping BCLP’s overall innovation strategy?
The Legal Knowledge function acts as both a strategic enabler and an operational integrator of innovation. We ensure that innovation efforts are grounded in the realities of legal practice by translating lawyer needs into workable, scalable solutions. We set firm‑wide standards, curate best‑practice processes, and build/refine the frameworks—templates, taxonomies, workflows and playbooks —that allow innovation to take hold consistently across the firm.
We also play a critical role in adoption and change management, helping to embed new tools into everyday workflows and equipping lawyers with the skills and confidence to use them. By bridging legal expertise with technology and operational design, we help ensure that innovation delivers measurable improvements in quality, efficiency and client experience. We know ultimately that successful innovation is where our lawyers see firsthand that using the tool(s) is making their lives easier, without compromising on the quality of the end product.
2. How do you balance innovation with the risk‑averse nature of legal practice, particularly in highly regulated or precedent‑driven areas?
The balance comes from designing innovation around controlled, safeguarded workflows rather than replacing professional judgment. The right tools allow us to automate or accelerate repeatable elements while lawyers retain oversight, validation and final decision‑making. The advancement of document automation platforms is a case in point here. Low code platforms allow us to more easily create bespoke templates for particular clients. We see an increasing number of features within those platforms that help us verify the transaction data as we’re drafting – for example Companies House look ups and AI tools that can interrogate heads of terms and help create a first draft. Dropping automation models into transaction specific workflows, which will often involve other innovation, ultimately allows for smoother deals.
We spend a lot of time testing our solutions in order to de‑risk adoption, particularly before scaling them into more complex matters. Clear governance, quality standards and client communication are essential—particularly in regulated environments, where transparency about how technology is used (or not used) supports trust, helps manage expectations and ultimately ensures compliance on both sides. Innovation doesn’t displace risk management; it strengthens it by making processes more consistent and auditable.
3. What challenges have you encountered when integrating new technologies into existing legal workflows?
The biggest challenge is ensuring that technology integrates seamlessly with how our lawyers need to work commercially. Legal workflows are often complex, bespoke and shaped by long‑standing habits and/or requirements, so introducing new tools requires careful change management, behaviour modelling and targeted training. It is unlikely to be a “one size fits all” solution.
Another challenge is maintaining consistency and energy levels when different teams or individuals adopt tools at different speeds. Aligning technology use with pricing models and matter‑management approaches is also crucial; tools only deliver value when embedded into the full lifecycle of a matter. Finally, the pace of development means that keeping lawyers confident, current and supported requires regular (but not excessive) communication and ongoing enablement. For any tool to be and continue to be successful in practice requires commitment and support from all levels, including senior management and those who, due to their role, are unlikely to ever need to use all tools themselves.
4. From your perspective, how has innovation changed the way legal knowledge is captured, curated, and reused?
Innovation is shifting legal knowledge from static, document‑based repositories to more dynamic, structured, reusable data. Particularly on complex deals lawyers have historically spent a lot of time investigating how a scenario has been dealt with in the past – generally through speaking to colleagues or searching back through document management systems or knowledge collections. The tools we are now seeing allow for much more sophisticated solutions – where a lawyer can curate tailored banks of particular types of document allowing for easier interrogation and ultimately more consistent, higher quality results. That shouldn’t replace the lawyer to lawyer conversations which we know are invaluable, but it will enhance them. We are also likely to see an uptick in the use of data‑rich outputs like playbooks, clause banks, decision trees and dashboards—that capture insights in more actionable, client‑centric formats.
5. Which competencies should modern lawyers develop to operate successfully in technology‑enabled and innovative legal environments?
Modern lawyers need a blend of technical fluency, commercial awareness, and traditional legal judgment. Key competencies include:
AI and technology literacy – understanding what tools do, their limitations, and how to integrate them into workflows.
Efficiency and process discipline/legal project management – planning matters strategically and selecting the most effective tools depending on the context.
Data‑led communication – presenting advice in clear, structured, client‑ready formats – this may ultimately mean moving away from lengthy reports and documents.
Adaptability and curiosity – being open to new ways of working and continuously learning.
Candid reflection & generosity – the self-discipline to reflect on closed transactions and extract/share/tag useful drafting and knowledge along with the context of the deal for the benefit of others going forward.
These skills will help ensure that lawyers remain trusted advisors while leveraging technology to enhance—not dilute—their expertise.
Victoria’s perspective reinforces that effective legal innovation is less about tools and more about adoption, governance, and designing systems that genuinely support lawyers in practice.
Victoria will be joining Future Lawyer UK 9.0 Day 1 on the panel “The AI-Ready Lawyer: Talent Sourcing, Training, and Retention in a Changing Legal Market”, where she’ll explore how firms are building capability, confidence, and sustainable talent strategies in an AI-enabled legal environment.
Register to join the conversation and hear directly from Victoria and other leading voices at Future Lawyer UK.
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