Tech Law from the Dawn of the Internet to the AI Revolution with Mark O'Conor

Samad Masood: Welcome to the Professionals where we discuss how to survive and thrive as a professional services executive. I'm Samad Masood from the Infosys Knowledge Institute, and today I'm here with Mark O'Conor, a partner and global co-chair for the technology sector at law firm DLA Piper. And hello, Mark. Thank you for joining us on The Professionals. I'd like to start talking a bit about some background on your career. It's spanned an incredibly interesting period of time in the technology industry, and starting off, I think in 1992. So, tell us a bit about what you've seen and how that's shaped you.

Mark O'Conor: Sure thing. I'm delighted to be with you. I actually studied Law and Information Systems as it was called at university, and had a year or two's module on AI, funnily enough. Sorry, late '80s, early '90s. And of course, it was entirely theoretical at the time and fascinating, but I thought I'd never see that again. It was just some tech, and I was focusing on getting qualified as a lawyer. So, there I am, I qualify. I turn up to my first job at Bird & Bird. Fabulous firm. It was the only firm in London at the time, 1992, where every lawyer had a PC on their desk. That's how ahead of its time it was. 1992 was also the year the first text message was sent. That dates it, doesn't it? A few years later having qualified, I was then licensing text technology and got to travel with Bird & Bird to Prague, to Houston, and so on.

There were good fun times. You do a two-year qualification, your training contracts as you know. And so, I qualify in 1994. And a really well-meaning partner takes me out for a beer and says, "You want to be a computer lawyer? I feel that I ought to take you for a drink just to check, because this computer stuff, it might not be around much longer. You might be limiting yourself in your career." But I politely disagreed at the time. But yeah, I love the fact that he cared enough to take me out. But we look back and laugh.

Samad Masood: These computers Mark, I think they might just be a fad.

Mark O'Conor: They might be. And this was '94, so 1994, cast your mind back. The first PlayStation was announced in '94, and we already had the internet in its early forms, but the World Wide Web appeared in '94. And again, working at a place like Bird & Bird was fantastic because by 1995 we were writing government guidance on the legal issues of the internet. So fascinating whole new field of law. That's early '90s. Late '90s, we spent an awful lot of time talking about this potential Millennium bug, if you remember. Y2K, and the plane had fallen out of the sky, and so forth, and of course it didn't. And well, you just keep going in cycles, don't you? Mid 2000s and everyone's starting to talk about as-a-service, cloud compu-ting, and what that might be. In the 2010s early time, we started talking about deep mind and early ma-chine learning, as part of digital transformation. And you bring it right up to speed right now, and every conversation with clients is about the day job, but also about AI. What they're doing, what we are doing.

Samad Masood: That's crazy. And it's interesting to think that writing the legal advice for the internet, we're sort of in a similar time now, aren't we, with AI? It's sort of coming round again and there's a lot of uncertainty about that.

Mark O'Conor: You are absolutely right. On the one hand, there is old wine new bottles, because the issues are the same sorts of issues. Contracting for modern technology, getting value from the thing you are buying, and so on. But there are plenty of new issues. I remember just running up to the 2000s, late '90s, there was a big rush of new legislation, particularly coming out of Europe. The e-commerce directive, dis-tance selling directive. I went to some parliamentary discussions about whether or not internet service providers should be regulated. And here we are now, what, 24, 25 years later, and it's happening again. The EU is in the midst of its digital decade. Everyone's talking about the AI Act, of course, but there's more than that. The Digital Markets Act, Digital Services Act, and. Talking to clients and certain general counsel who are trying to keep up with this, of course, they're standing in the way of a regulatory tsu-nami. And we just keep making life more complex. So, the regulatory burden and the compliance head-ache is just growing all the time.

Samad Masood: I think we'll talk a bit more about this and the end of this conversation when we're looking to the future. I'd like to ask you a bit more about the moments that really formed you in your career. The theme of this podcast is that professional services people, they have a lot in common, but one of the things they have in common is that they don't get to talk very much about the kind of work they do, because very much it relies on a sort of level of discretion and client confidentiality. But there are those critical moments in what can be a very tough and challenging job. If you look back over that career, the things that really shaped you as a legal profession as a lawyer today.

Mark O'Conor: Yes, there are a few that immediately spring to mind. I start with the human aspect. And maybe it's something that I would recommend to young professionals now. Go into the office, go to meetings, even if you're a surplus requirement, just have the human interaction. The more technological we get, the more the human piece is going to really be key. I remember going to meetings with a senior partner, and I used to write down the cool phrases he said. Literally I'd have a book of key sayings and I thought, "I'm going to weave those into the way I speak to clients in the future." I had the back of the book as well, which was the nightmare things he'd said. Because sitting in a room with the client, you'd some-times see the eyebrows go up, and you'd see that a joke or something had landed badly. So, you learn, don't you, from the good and the bad. There were things that I wanted to emulate, and there were things that I thought, "Wowee, I will never do that." So, you start to know tiller adjust as it were, from what you see.

Samad Masood: It's interesting because it is a job where you are always on show in front of the client, and you've got to be very careful what you say. Because the wrong phrase can make you look very unprofessional.

Mark O'Conor: Unprofessional, being too jokey, being too serious. You've got to get the Goldilocks zone, haven't you? Just right in between the two. But other things, your question makes me reflect on things that change the way I practice. And again, two little stories that add up to just thinking about trying to be proactive for clients, give the best service you can, and give the feeling of, people talk about delighting your cli-ents, which sounds a bit odd doesn't it? But actually, getting to a place where value is really perceived. One example, I think I was a trainee, and a friend of a friend needed a lawyer and instructed me. I thought, "Wow, I've got a client base already." I'm a trainee. Two days later they sent me an email say-ing, "We are going with someone else. You're disinstructed."

Well, yes, fired. Hired and fired in two days. And I stood there thinking, "What just happened?" And so, I phoned them up and they were very friendly. And they said, "Word of advice, you've been instructed. You should have got straight on the phone and told us how delighted you were and looked for ways to meet up and take things forward. You didn't." So, they were pretty hard taskmaster, but they were expecting instant sort of gratification. That never left me. I mean, it hasn't left me. That's a long time ago. The oth-er one was something that happened in private life when I was lucky enough to get to the point where I could buy a house, instructed a conveyancer. It's a hugely stressful thing, isn't it? Your first house pur-chase, you don't really know what's going on. And this chap phoned me up and he said, "Hi, Mark. I'm calling to let you know there's nothing for you to do."

So, I was perplexed, thinking, this is a very strange phone call. He said, "But next week you'll need to start thinking about..." And he listed off a few things. I said, "Thanks very much," and put the phone down. I leaned back in my chair and thought, "Wow, I have just been supremely managed. This is great." Not only did he tell me nothing to worry about, but he managed my expectations for next week, so I can get ahead of it. And I thought to myself, that's conveyancing, that's not my area of law. But the principle is the same.

If you can update before being chased and so forth, if you can look around the corner and try and antic-ipate, and make sure... Because a lot of people worry. And people worry when they don't know what's going on. And we've all had situations in our private lives or professional lives where you seek to chase because you don't know. And you can come across as quite brisk on email and so forth, can't you? But actually, it's just lack information. So, if you fill that gap proactively in advance, that keeps everyone's blood pressure down.

Samad Masood: And I suppose that last story with the conveyancer relates quite a bit to the hiring and firing in two days, because there was an information gap, wasn't there? It's back to also that point of balance. Because as a lawyer in this situation, as a consultant and accountant, you are paid by the hour. And on one hand you need to feel that you are filling those hours with valuable time, but also that you're not wasting those hours by charging for something that wasn't asked. And that's a difficult balance to create. The feeling of client that work is being done, but the right work, and effectively, and not wasting. It's a diffi-cult balance to maintain.

Mark O'Conor: You are absolutely right. And more and more we talk about client value. I mean, what is the point of a professional advisor? What's the point? You are there to bring expertise, to bring a second pair of eyes, to bring deep sector knowledge. Probably a mix of all three and various other things as well. But at the end of the day, you are being asked for a correct answer, a practical answer, an actionable answer, and an answer that has value that the client is happy to pay for. So, as you say, it's all communication, it's all scoping. It's all getting it absolutely right and making sure you are reaching through and looking at the desired outcome with precision.

Samad Masood: So, you've been in a high growth area. You've described being there really at the start of the internet and mobile as well. One of the biggest fears of anyone in professional services is being on the bench, being unutilized, unwanted, unneeded. Have you ever experienced that? In the industry you are in, I imagine there's always demand, but have you ever experienced fallow periods? And what's your advice for those, and how to deal with that and get out of that?

Mark O'Conor: Definitely fallow periods/ definitely everyone does. And actually, I talked to a senior partner once and he described it as part of the natural paranoia of a partner, in particular. Once you make partner, you are therefore running your business within the business. You are responsible for your clients growing yours, sharing them, institutionalizing them, and so on and so forth. And there are times when the deals stop, that for example, if you do a lot of public sector work and then there's an election, there'll be a pre-election standstill period, for example. We've gone through the global financial crisis where deals liter-ally stopped, and that was interesting. We were all terrified as COVID hit. Actually, we got busier. I think I had the busiest periods. And it has never calmed down since then. But sure, yeah, I'd be lying if I said it wasn't otherwise. I have had some quiet Augusts. I remember vividly about 12 years ago, coming back to work after Christmas and thinking, "Ooh, actually nothing to do today. Gosh."

And so, you think it's all over. "I'm dreadful, I've got no practice, I'm appalling. I've got nothing going on." And of course that's not the case. It's just how it happens. But it does give you the stimulus and the kick up the pants you need to make sure you can try and cover this. So how do you do that? You do that in various ways, don't you? Make sure you are relevant, you are in industry groups, you attend events. The networking and power of just connectivity is super important. You think to yourself, "Okay, what deals have I just done? What things am I reading about?" You can turn that into podcasts, into small blog posts, into large articles, and so on and so forth. And you can get yourself out there. And in fact, if you are always out there, then you kind of paper over the fallow periods.

Certainly, in my career, I have had those. What's helped has been community within a firm and outside. I, for example, am a member of something called the Society for Computers and Law. And it's a charity. It exists to further the conversation and thought leadership around tech law and law tech, right? Both ends of the telescope. I've always been a member; it's been a useful source of information. And some-times I've written the odd article. But getting further involved is a good thing like any charitable purpose, because it is an educational charity. So, I've been lucky enough through that sort of interest, to graduate through, become a trustee.

I was the chair for six years, and now I've sort of come out the other side and I'm vice president currently, and writing a book with a professor who is the president, Professor Richard Susskind, looking at the 50 years as a society. Which is brilliant. But the key reason for mentioning this is it is a society, a commu-nity. And who knows? The legal profession is small, the tech legal profession is smaller. You never know. I've had two jobs. I've been at Bird & Bird for 14 years and DLA now for 19. So, I'm not a jumper and mover. But you need to make sure you are connected with like-minded people, and you push the community side as much as the legal expertise side.

Samad Masood: You mentioned in part of your answer about as a partner, that moment, becoming a partner, is a big moment for anyone in this industry. You become a mad man, to put it in Goodfellas terminology. What was that moment like? And you mentioned community. How important was that as you made partner, what was that?

Mark O'Conor: Really important. I was absolutely determined to become a partner. Being indiscreet, I was absolutely convinced I was ready to be a partner, probably a year before anyone else was. So, I pushed and pushed. And because they didn't agree with me, I thought, "Well, this is dreadful. I can't believe it." So, I looked around and I had some interviews, and just saw whether the grass was in fact greener else-where. It wasn't necessarily, and I stayed, and the year after I was my partner. But it was absolutely al-ways my aspiration. And I know it isn't everybody's. And there are all sorts of careers within law and pro-fessional services aren't there? But for me, I wanted that title, that badge, and so on.

And of course moving laterally, I've been a partner for four, nearly five years when I moved, you come in, not so much with status, I don't care so much about status, but with a sense of that people say, "Okay, come on then show us what you can do." And that's really exciting. But you work very, very hard the year or two years run up to partner, and it doesn't get any less. A good friend of mine, Kip burden at DLA, says it's like you've won a pie eating competition and the prize is more pie. Basically, your targets go up and up, expectations go up and up. So, you never take your foot off the accelerator. You can tell probably I love my job. I get to go to work and try and solve problems every day. So, I count myself hugely lucky.

Samad Masood: And you mentioned when we spoke originally about surrounding yourself with a bright, motivated, di-verse team. Should we talk a bit about that as well? So, when you are in that role, you say you've got to prove to people you can do something special. But you are then overseeing a pyramid really of other people in your organization. And how does that change?

Mark O'Conor: Professional services generally, law maybe in particular, are quite hierarchical. We reinforce that all the time. You get older, more senior, your rate goes up. There's a reward for being alive. If you have more ex-pertise and experience, that kind of makes sense. I don't like hierarchy. There are plenty of people in le-gal services and professional services that do, but it just feels like perpetuating school. School, pre-fects, teachers, and on and on and on. That grates for me. So as far as I can on the matters I work on, I surround myself with as a diverse a team as I can. If you think about it, some of the youngest bright law-yers have one, got things to prove. Maybe they're trying to qualify. Two, they are closer to black letter law, perhaps than you are. They studied it more recently. And then they are without even trying, a digital native.

So that just bring some of that perspective. The best fun and the best outputs and outcomes we get for clients, are when we have a multifaceted team, different ages, genders, ethnic backgrounds, and dif-ferent offices around the UK or overseas at DLA. And we work as a team. And we have some banter. We try and make it fun as well. But literally we get on calls, we get on teams, channels, and we say, "Right, there's these 10 things to do, there's five of us, I'll do those two, you do those two. Let's meet here at the end of the day and see how we got."

And then you have that collective sense of pulling in the same direction. In my view, that's the way to get the best out of teams. Gone are there days where the partner throws something on someone's desk as they're running out the door to go and play golf and burns that individual's weekend. And that just isn't right. Never was right, was it? It did happen. I've burned weekends proofreading and all that nonsense. Partners who you couldn't see for dust. But you just can't get away with that in modern society. It's not right.

Samad Masood: As you say, the younger generation are coming in with some pretty key skills that they shouldn't under-estimate. And I think that does change the dynamic somewhat. Looking ahead, you've seen this great recent history of the technology industry. We're on the cusp of an AI revolution right now, and I'm sure it's generating lots of interesting work for you. How do you see it changing the role of professionals such as yourselves? Particularly with generative AI. I joke sometimes that generative AI is very good at string-ing together jargon in the right order. And you could say that is the heart of professional services, or con-vincing someone that you know something when you might not have that much depth. What's your view of how AI is going to change things?

Mark O'Conor: We ran a tech conference last year in Dublin, and we were lucky enough to have Mark Little, broadcast-er, serial entrepreneur, speak. Two things he said that stuck with me. He said, "You need to be comfort-able with cognitive dissonance, because you are holding two competing things in your mind at the same time. The opportunity and the threat of AI. Be comfortable with that." And of course, everyone smirks, thinking that's not very comfortable. And then secondly, he said, don't believe anyone who tells you that they understand or know the future of AI. So, we're all guessing. What we do know is that we're in the foothills for sure. The opportunities are amazing. But we are like a toddler. Early, early days of AI. We can barely imagine how it'll be and how it'll change the way we work. But you can break this down. There are those, and it is a bit hackneyed, and it's been in the press and so on, hasn't it?

There are those that say we're all doomed, it's an existential threat, and so forth. And to use the film analogy, there's the Terminator crew. We're all going to be extinct; it's going to take your jobs. What was it? Marvin Minsky in 1970 who said, we'll be lucky if they keep us as pets. This narrative has persisted for a long time. I prefer the other type of film, the Marvel universe where Iron Man is augmented. And I think AI is going to give us superpowers. Talking to, for example, Christina Demetriades, who's the gen-eral counsel at Accenture, her hope for the future of AI, she says, is that she'll get back more time to think. In our working life, I remember receiving instructions from clients, by letter. And you'd take a day to reply by letter. And then you'd look at it the week after. Now, if I don't reply by email in the same day, the clients think, "What the hell? This person doesn't love me." And they can go to someone else.

So, the speed of response is far, far quicker. So, if you can adopt AI in a sensible way, you can help with that speed. And paradoxically, you can help do things quicker, and give yourself time to think. I love Cristina's view of the world. So, we at DLA, have bifurcated the way we look at AI in two ways. Internally, we're looking at optimization, augmentation, productivity savings, and so on and so on, using our data. But then that flips over into the external view of innovation. Because if you can harness your data for in-sight, then you can come up with new solutions and better products and services for clients. So, the two aren't mutually exclusive.

OpenAI themselves and others have famous graphs and looking at the potential losses of jobs. Col-leagues, particularly in our employment team, say they think it's less job, but more tasks. Certain tasks will be automated, but the jobs will remain, and probably the jobs will have different tasks. Reacting to and using the technology. So, another hackneyed phrase perhaps, but the solution to the machine is in the machine itself. You probably heard that sort of quote, in the sense that it's a super interesting time to be practicing in tech law, but just to be advising in professional services. With the ways in which we can summarize, we can turn into visual, all sorts of complex things in a way that help businesses move forward.

Samad Masood: Yeah, yeah. Well, I think as you say, we're in the foothills. Hard to know which tasks will remain and which will stay. Hopefully, the ones where we get to think, stay. The ones that we have to do, go. But as you say, it's a balance there. It's a very exciting time. I really, really have enjoyed talking to you about this. Thank you, Mark, so much for your time.

Mark O'Conor: Thank you very much.

Samad Masood: Thanks for listening to this episode of The Professionals. It was produced by Yulia De Bari and Christine Calhoun. Dode Bigley is our audio engineer. If you want to hear more episodes, please like, and sub-scribe. See you next time.