Sarah CharigI’ve always had good memories of my time working as a lawyer at Norton Rose Fulbright. Joining as a trainee in May 2012, I benefited from the firm’s excellent training programme. I was taught a high level of technical expertise and got to know many talented and inspirational people. I was fortunate to do a six-seat rotation which meant I completed an international seat doing shipping finance in Greece and undertook a client secondment, which was a real privilege. I also enjoyed the opportunity to be involved in the firm’s charitable initiatives and employee networks. I qualified into the Transport, Trade and Energy disputes team where I worked on large shipping and energy arbitrations and High Court disputes. 

At 18 months qualified I wanted to broaden my experience. I moved to a general commercial litigation role at Fladgate LLP, which was a smaller firm with one disputes team. This meant I advised clients from a range of industries on many types of disputes.

A few years later, having seen the development of technology in the legal industry, I decided to change direction. I joined a legal tech start-up, Lexoo, as a Client Solutions Manager. My primary role was to grow and support their client base so I spent most of my time speaking to GCs (predominantly in scale-ups) to understand what they cared about and how we could solve their problems. However, working at a start-up you get involved in all aspects of the business. I also project managed our multi-jurisdictional legal projects, supported on operational aspects and used design methodologies to conduct customer research and develop our offering. I learnt a lot about the legal tech world but I was also exposed to a very different way of working and thinking. At a start-up you’re encouraged to experiment, fail fast, learn from your mistakes and adapt quickly. You often can’t wait to make something perfect, you have to just get it done. It is a different mind-set to working in a large law firm where there are established precedents and ways of working. 

I’d always kept an eye on what law firms were doing to drive change in the delivery of legal services and Norton Rose Fulbright had a strong reputation of taking innovation seriously. I had kept in contact with my former colleagues and the firm, both personally and through the alumni programme, so when a Product Project Manager role came up in Transform, the firm’s innovation programme, it was a great opportunity to build on the skillset I’d developed at Lexoo. 

I now work in the Applied Tech team, made up of developers and business analysts. We are aligned to the New Law aspect of Transform which involves creating solutions using process, people (that may be paralegals, lawyers or technology experts depending on the task) and technology, to take on work law firms historically could not. Our team design the process and build the products to ensure the best end-to-end solution for our clients. My role involves working with technical experts in my team and lawyers as end users to ensure the solutions meet the requirements. My blend of legal and non-legal experience means I’m well placed to act as the interface between the lawyers and the development team.  

One of my recent projects has been working on the development of a horizon scanning and global guide product. We know from GC clients that managing regulatory risk globally is a real pain point. There is a flood of information relating to legal and regulatory updates so it is hard for clients to find information relevant to them. When they do, it is also often very general and not tailored to their needs. We have designed and built a database where tailored legal updates from our global network of lawyers will be stored and tagged against a detailed taxonomy. Clients will be able to access the updates relevant to them via a secure central portal. They can search and filter their updates, making finding important information easy. 

I’m very happy to be back at Norton Rose Fulbright. It has a unique culture and is a lovely place to work. This new role has also brought an exciting new challenge, working on the innovations I find so fascinating whilst still delivering the excellent high quality service the firm always does.

To contact Sarah or find out more about the work of our Transform team, please contact her at sarah.charig@nortonrosefulbright.com.