Leveraging Data to Produce Content Lawyers Need: Wolap is Pioneering Legal E-Learning in Latin America
There is little doubt there is a competency gap between what a student gets in university and what the workforce requires. Volumes have been written about the reskilling and upskilling needed for the digital economy, or fourth industrial revolution.
But what does that mean for lawyers? We find ourselves constantly behind what the new technologies are, and what they imply for our practices. Spoiler alert: we will continue to do so.
As the speed of change increases, finding high-quality and relevant educational content will be a must. High-quality content of course is a baseline. The relevance bit is the tricky part. In law, content quickly becomes outdated, and often obsolete.
Technological evolution, geopolitical macro shifts, and legal regulations compound to make this task seemingly impossible. How do you create the best courses, webinars and lessons for an audience that actually needs that information at a specific point in time?
Enter Wolap, the one-of-a-kind legal e-learning platform that serves the Latin American (Latam) legal market. It leverages several data points to ensure content production is relevant to the needs of its users. Tapping into different sources of information, Wolap is able to identify and predict the matters that are top of mind for lawyers, at a given date. Imagine the enormous upside of knowing beforehand your content will be needed.
They nailed the quality requirement. Partnering with the best universities and a standing team of top-tier lawyers willing to create content, they are able to access that resource in record time.
Corporate Legal Education. Legal Education for Non-Lawyers
Latam is no stranger to the tendency of growing legal departments and reducing outside counsel outreach. A partner of a major law firm in Argentina recently told me something that sums it up: “Our clients have become our largest competitors.”
My personal take on the future of legal education is that, specifically in corporate matters, legal departments need to educate other areas of the enterprise, to empower them to make decisions without going through legal.
Wolap's Masterlaw is a platform that has led the change on in-house training in Argentina and expanding to Latin America, with more than 350 subscribers among the top law firms and corporations. I asked its founder and CEO Augusto Van Thienen how he sees the trend on in-house training.
"COVID-19 brought a new set of opportunities for online legal education allowing our platform to offer its subscribers not only just on time, but tailor-made courses 24x7x365, given the fact that in Latin America law and regulations are in constant change.”
My personal take on the future of legal education is that, specifically in corporate matters, legal departments need to educate other areas of the enterprise, to empower them to make decisions without going through legal.
Specific legal training for sales teams, doctors, contractors, and HR is not yet a priority for legal professionals in Latam, but it will soon be. Otherwise the speed of change will either drown inside counsels with consultations, or, worse still, they will be avoided and liabilities go through the roof.
My takeaway for the future of legal education: expand to non-lawyers, and empower them, whilst raising the bar for our profession.
