The future of technology in wills and probate

From lawyer, to Microsoft and Meta, and now to Arken.legal, Anthony Philips legal journey takes him through a series of household technology names and halfway round the world before recently landing as CEO at the will writing and technology platform. 

In this wide-ranging discussion, Philips shares his reflections on his own journye, and that of the wills and probate sector which is going through a process of digitalisation, modernisation and cultural change. 

Wills and probate is a uniquely personal area of law; one in which the interface between people and technology must be navigated sensitively and incrementally says Philips. 

He is an advocate for much of the proposed modernisation outlined in the Law Commission’s wholesale review of wills law; although he is clear technology should be an enabler, not an ideological driver. Practitioners and clients should be able to produce either a traditional paper will or an electronic version seamlessly, depending on what is right for them. Electronic wills are not inherently “better,” but suggests they can provide evidential advantages such as timestamps and enhanced audit trails. But concerns around remote witnessing, coercion, and safeguarding must be addressed with practical, industry‑led solutions rather than by leaving government to define standards alone.

There are lessons from other areas of law and technology to be learned too. Many sectors face interoperability challenges, the integration of different and competing technologies and platforms into each other to create a more seamless user experience, and the need for digital infrastructure improvements across government. 

And in closing, Philips acknowledges there is a huge amount of complexity, interconnectivity, relationships and sector dynamics that take time to understand which all have a role to play in the speed of change.  

The Today's Wills and Probate podcast is available on your preferred podcast provider, and at www.todayswillsandprobate.co.uk. Subscribe today to hear all the latest news and views across the wills and probate sector.

Thank you to our podcast sponsors LEAP Estates, and Property Ladder Group

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:24

Today's Wilson Probate Podcast. One of the leading sources of information for the Wilson Probate podcast. Don't forget to subscribe and sign up to our free newsletter at today's WorldsandProbate.co.uk and follow us on LinkedIn and Twitter.

SPEAKER_02 0:46

Hello, welcome along to the latest today's Wills and Probate Podcast. Listeners to the podcast are aware that the objective behind the podcast is to introduce you to people and organizations who contribute to the success of the Wills and Probate sector. And this is very true in the case of my uh guest today, Anthony Phillips, CEO of Arken Legal. Archon, very well known in the sector, but with the greatest of respect to you, Anthony, probably less well known, having recently taken up the role as CEO. So thanks so much for joining the podcast.

SPEAKER_01 1:22

Devin, thank you, and a pleasure to be here.

SPEAKER_02 1:26

I made a joke when we first met. Your uh predecessor spent many, many years convincing people that he wasn't Australian because he was from New Zealand. There's a great irony here because you are in fact from Australia.

SPEAKER_01 1:42

Yes, unabashed, unabashed, but I have a foot in each camp. I was actually born here, so I can I can I can mourn as well as celebrate the ashes, depending on the scenario.

SPEAKER_02 1:54

Well, that took us 30 seconds to bring up. Well, let's start with a little bit about yourself, uh Anthony, your your background and what has brought you to Arkin in recent months.

SPEAKER_01 2:06

Uh thank you, David. Well, I actually started my career as a lawyer, not in this space, but I trained as a lawyer and practiced for several years, but corporate commercial, IP, telecommunications, that kind of area. And spent most of my career as a technologist, working for technology firms, Microsoft, Meta, some of the better known, but then also a startup. And I love innovation. I like being on the bleeding edge. So my career as a lawyer was sort of in those days internet law, which was new, and then sort of the bleeding edge of intellectual property, then the mobile space when mobile devices were innovating quickly, not as quickly as they might have, but Microsoft, sadly, and meta with uh virtual reality and augmented reality. So really kind of bleeding edge or innovation, where there's sort of an opportunity to literally develop a business, but on the business side, not the technology side, but with a focus obviously on the technology. And somewhat out of the left field, the thing that just really curled my socks on this opportunity was it's a marriage of law and technology. And I really enjoyed the law. I like working with lawyers, I like I like the rigor. There's a lot that I really enjoyed about it, and the marriage of technology and you know, technology is just fascinating and always changing and always new and always interesting. So it's a really great marriage. Those are things, but at a particularly interesting time. So with this wave of modernization and this opportunity that's ahead of us, look, it may happen next year, it may happen five years from now, but I feel very confident it will happen at some point. And to be involved in industry that's evolving in that way in the space at this time is really fun and interesting. So for me, it's a it's a it's a great opportunity. It's dipitous in many ways, and so far I've really been enjoying the journey and the welcome, the very warm welcome that I've received from the team and from the industry. So, yeah, so far it's a it's a great it's it's great to be here.

SPEAKER_02 4:10

And for the uninitiated, and I can't imagine there are that many, who ARKEN and what role do they play in the sector?

SPEAKER_01 4:17

Well, thank you, David. So Akon Legal is a leading software platform that increases the productivity and profitability for practitioners, minimizes risks, digitizes businesses, and hopefully will delight your customers. So this is a drafting tool primarily, but specifically for practitioners that will make their lives easier, faster, more productive with greater certainty. And you know, the feedback tends to be great, and I hope hopefully the listeners will enjoy it too.

SPEAKER_02 4:48

Well, technology is obviously a very big part of today's discussion, so we'll no doubt come back to that. I mean, you couldn't really have chosen a more backward industry in in many respects, given that primary legislation was enacted in in 1837. It's a weird one, isn't it? You know, because we've got so much precedent that's kind of informed so much of our work over the course of the last 20, 30 years, and yet we're still driven by this you know century-old legislation. What do you kind of see that ARCA brings to the table from a technology point of view with regard to what that modernization might look like?

SPEAKER_01 5:31

Right. Yeah, it's interesting, isn't it? I mean, because it is generally remarkable to consider a piece of legislation that governs such an important aspect of people's lives, inevitably, as they say, and taxes, and that it is literally unchanged. But you know, we live in a common law system, so the law can adapt, and for the most part, it works. And you know, one of the things I love about, well, that for me is particularly interesting to me about technology is the interface between technology and people. And here it couldn't be more meaningful. It is so personal. It is, you know, arguably the most personal legal document, formal document anyone will complete. And you know, and it strikes at the heart of people's history, who they are, how they want to be remembered. I mean, it is the absolute bleeding edge of that interface between people and technology. So, in that context, I appreciate that naturally there's a degree of conservatism, and certainly much more than I've seen in other sectors of law that I've worked in. But I get it and I quite completely understand. And in that context, I would be shocked if 100 years from now people aren't still completing paper wheels more or less the same way they do today. Probably not many, but certainly some, for a thousand good reasons. So I think that the role of technology is to recognize the traditions that are there for good reasons, especially the broader context of why they're given the immense personal importance of the topic, support that, but then also support options for the future. So you ask the question what's our role in this modernization? Look, ideally, as a practitioner, you can make a decision about whether you're going to produce a paper will that will be signed or witnessed with ink, or an electronic will that will be signed and witnessed digitally or electronically, and possibly remotely. We can talk about that as well. And to you as a practitioner, that process should be seamless and invisible. So that's where I see our role. Now, we don't know yet what an electronic will is. Believe me, we've got our best people working on it, you know, and we're engaged with you know anyone who'll talk to us, including the government, about how that should go and when that should go and what that should look like. But the end point should be as a practitioner, all of that is taken off your plate. And all you know is that you're going to do your best to fulfill your client's intentions on a in a document. And whether that's an electronic document or a paper document should be seamless to you and made easy. What you'll need to do is understand the legal implications of those two different channels. But if we on our side of the table do our side our work well, that should all be seamless and transparent to you, the practitioner. At least that's the intention, that's the dream.

SPEAKER_02 8:59

Yeah. I think that's interesting to sort of be clear about your role as the enabler of the legislation effectively, or any changes to legislation.

SPEAKER_01 9:12

Yeah, i i exactly. And yeah, no, I think that's that's beautifully put. Exactly. So to make it as easy as possible for a practitioner to do their day job, and we take care of the heavy lifting. Ideally, with transparency, so you know what's happening inside the black box from a legal point of view, and that the whatever the requirements for these electronic documents have been have been met. But for you, the practitioner, it should just be you know toggling a switch on or off.

SPEAKER_02 9:47

And of course, dealing with a lot of the pushback that the profession has raised, particularly around things like coercive control and some of the challenges that you know, to your point about remote witnessing might present.

SPEAKER_01 10:02

Yeah, so look, this is really interesting. You know, um before, in preparation for today, I listened to the excellent interview you did with Nick Hopkins after the release of the Law Commission's report. And he made the point, which I think really strikes home to me, is that there's a distinction between the the will document and the witnessing. So I mean, and I kind of followed up on that, and I'm gonna publish more on this, but just a thought is you know, if you squint at section nine of the Wills Act today, uh you could enable an electronic will. It would need to be witnessed in person contemporaneously, but digitally, you know, arguably you could press a button to signify your witnessing and put a digital signature. Plus, I mean, if you kind of look at it from a court's point of view, there's more evidence. You've got evidence of a timestamp, which you're not getting on a piece of paper. So, yeah, I I think you can squint and make that case. What you can't do is make the case for remote witnessing. I think you know, in fairness, that was specifically rescinded after COVID. So that's the open question. And then I come back to the question is look, as Nick Hopkins pointed out, if the base case is paper wheels today, you know, that's as that we have to be at least as good as that. Not necessarily better, ideally better, but not necessarily better. Then you know, I think remote witnessing can be addressed relatively straightforward. The objections are pretty well understood. There was an excellent piece by a competitor of ours on on today's wills and probate last year, talking about some of some of the risks. Look, I think they're pretty well understood, but I also think they can be well addressed. And what I've seen so far, and what I'm keen to kind of change, is people have been right in raising the the concerns. And I take on board all the concerns that people have raised, but I haven't seen yet people saying, got it. Okay, so that's a good description of the issue. And let's make a proposal on capital T, capital B, the best way to address it. And then let's you know pick holes in that and see where we end up. So that that's where I'm Kenny kind of moved the conversation.

SPEAKER_02 12:38

I think one of the most important things that Nick said from my point of view was that we don't hold electronic out to be any better than the paper version, that it's an alternative route. To your point, it's a toggle for the practitioner to decide I'm going to do this one way or the other.

SPEAKER_01 12:56

Yeah, and I the look, not to be a fanboy, but there's a lot that I applaud in the in the way the commission approached it. When when I just looked at you know, just coming into this role and sort of trying to better understand the space, so you know, spending some looking at the US, Canada, Australia, go Australia, and the way that they've looked to implement, you know, somewhat, you know, electronic wills, once again, means different things to different places. I really like the approach that that they've that we've taken here, where it's it's principle-based, but leaves the specifics to regulation. You know, in the US, there's uniform code prepared by, I guess, their equivalent of the Law Commission. It's not a direct analog. And uh I I get where it's leading to, but frankly, you can fulfill the remote witnessing requirement there, as I understand it, with with video, which is fine, but it's not good enough. And I think the way it's been framed here is we can get into the detail and do something just a little bit better. Look, the the advantage that I see is it's it should always be an option, but if we do our job really well, it should be a great option. Dare I say a better option. Because actually, on its face, a secure electronic wheel is better objectively. There's more evidence than a paper wheel, but you know, there are those issues that you've raised.

SPEAKER_02 14:24

So you joined the sector at a time of of real change or potential change from a sector that was really developing, I suppose, from a technology point of view, if you were working in in AI and augmentation. What were your first impressions once you landed within the sector then? I mean, was it was it kind of what you expected? You talked about the fact that you've sort of looked at some of the other jurisdictions as well. I'm intrigued to know what what an outsider coming in makes of wills and probate in in England and Wales.

SPEAKER_01 14:56

Great question. Look, I I didn't really know what to expect. I did expect that it would be a close industry because I sort of had a sense of it as a sector, you know, how wills are positioned in the portfolio of service offerings from you know lawyers and practitioners. So I had a sense of the some of the dynamics. A few things struck me. One is how how competitive it is commercially. Right. You know, there are a lot of players, very crowded, very price competitive, very low margin across the board in you know, every, you know, our our part, the practitioner part, probate, you know, no one is spared. But what surprises me in that context is how pleasant everybody is. And and I I I I've said it before, and I'll probably say it again. And I I my person my pet theory is it's a subject matter, and it comes back to that interface. It's it's so personal. And I just don't think a, you know, someone without a genuinely good bedside manner, and by which I mean you know, when I say genuine, is they actually have real empathy for their clients and you know, genuinely, you know, doing their best, I don't think they'd be successful over time. So I think it's and so I think there's a high degree of self-selection. I I can only speculate, but for whatever reason, I found people to be surprisingly pleasant and helpful, welcoming, facilitative, in a really pleasing way. And yeah, so actually that that's sort of given that context of what I was sort of expecting, kind of you know, red red and you know, tooth and claw capitalism, to find a very competitive industry being so pleasant is a delightful surprise.

SPEAKER_02 16:57

What do you see in terms of consumer expectations of the market? Again, kind of leaning on some of your experience of working at uh mobile, all that kind of stuff. This is a very different sector, but customer expectations are changing because of the advances in technology elsewhere in life, aren't they?

SPEAKER_01 17:22

Yes. Well, I mean, I I I think some of the preparation for electronic wheels is getting ahead of the market. So, I mean, I just also notice when I travel that the UK isn't as advanced as it used to be in digital infrastructure. So, you know, already, you know, the first contactless payment experience I had was overseas, probably two or three years before it was here. Already there's so much you know, WhatsApp business integration in a lot of other countries. It's a it to me it it feels it's it's anecdotal, but it feels somewhat palpable that you know there's an opportunity for us to catch up. So I see there's an opportunity here to develop the markets. The reports from last year were showing, forgive me, I think was it 41% of people are willed in the UK? Is it 43?

SPEAKER_02 18:18

There are lots of lots of different sort of stamps out there, aren't there? Lies down, lies in statistics. But yeah, around half to two-thirds of people don't have a will.

SPEAKER_01 18:26

Exactly. Yeah, it's in it's certainly in that order. And even for you know, in verdictommas simple wills, you know, people with comparatively straightforward estates, you know, the benefits to uh having a will enormous. I I I think I feel I feel validated in saying I feel the cause is just. I think it's a good thing that we build the market. But then coming back to it's not a great analogy, but I guess coming back to your question, you know, at Meta, I was working on virtual reality, for which you know you can look around. There isn't a big market for today. So, you know, part of the job is establishing and building that market, is education, you know, building demand, showing use cases, all those sort of sort of things. And I, you know, I think that job lies ahead of us here as well. But this all comes back from my aspiration for electronic wills. I think it would be a passing grade for us to collectively as an industry pass legislation that enables electronic wills. Good o. But I think this is an opportunity to kind of, you know, well, what's the realm of the possible? And you know, the realm of the possible would be that we create something with such utility that's so obvious that we can tell, you know, we can tell the people about it, educate people about it. This is why it's secured, this is why it actually, you know, will make your lives better, you know, assuming it's implemented in all the right ways, and and create an uplift. You know, I think you know, uh mere implementation will show you know similar levels of uptake that we see in other jurisdictions, which is very, very, very small. You know, they're outliers. But it's it we're kind of missing the opportunity because you know, all the M-Venwatts that flow from having electronic wills, you know, streamlining the probate process, and then you know, and then our lives generally, now any number of implications, but managed well. And we're at a point now where in other jurisdictions the this sort of digital infrastructure has existed for you know over a decade, in some cases two. And there are lots of examples that you can look to and you know see where the potholes try to avoid them, you know, close close to home. You know, in in Europe, you know, plenty of countries have have already seen the benefits. And I just think you've got to start somewhere. So the ask I I hope the aspiration is more than just implementation. I hope we aspire to help educate the public about the benefits utility of having a will and that you know the rising tide will lift all butts.

SPEAKER_02 21:15

You recently published an industry response following a round table with professionals and other technology providers, and and I we've kind of covered some of the themes that I know kind of came out of those discussions. But what what what are professionals saying that we're missing from the reforms, or or what are professionals saying that the reforms need to do? Because I I love the point that you're making here about we can we can change the systems, we can change the processes, but unless we change hearts and minds, we're still going to be in the same position.

SPEAKER_01 21:51

Yes. So so in in terms of what I what and I don't want to be presumptuous, but I I think it's fair to say what we are unified around is the broad brushstrokes of the proposals. But I think part of the beauty, but then the challenge of the proposals is they are relatively broad brushstrokes. For example, what is a reliable system? We have some views, I've published a diagram, it's something I'm gonna expand on in the in the coming week. And months. But you know, these are things that we have to, I think, you know, boil down to and then come up with a specific recommendation. I think the way forward is for us as an industry. And what I try to do, what I think we're trying to do in this group is bring together a group of leaders that are some of whom are competitors, but with a broad view of the technology, the infrastructure, the legal side, and then hone in on various issues and come up with specific recommendations, very practical recommendations that the wider industry and government can say yes or no to, or you know, that at least move the conversation forward. I think it's too much to ask the government to come with a fully baked recommendation. So, you know, let's let's move it forward.

SPEAKER_02 23:13

I want to dive into that. Because the worry here, Anthony, is that if we don't lead this as a sector, we will be dictated to by the government. And you know, that's not a position that we want to be in because we're the experts, not them.

SPEAKER_01 23:31

Yeah, I I think that's right. But every communication I've seen from the government is that been very open to the consultation. The process has been very consultative. So I feel pretty confident that there's a listening ear. But yeah, I just also think it's incumbent on us to have a point of view. I mean, speaking selfishly personally, I want to have a home point of view, but frankly, I can't unless I know what the industry thinks. So, you know, it helps me move the ball forward. But I think for any one part of the industry to kind of move forward uh alone does not make sense because it is an it's it's an ecosystem, and we collectively, I think, need to come up with proposals, or at least, you know, at very worse, a point of view, and then we we know how to push against anything coming from from government. Uh but you know, I just think there are plenty of good questions as to this that need to be addressed. You know, what is a reliable system? What are the challenges with remote witnessing? I mean, we came very close in 2019 to taking a view on the reforms. Look, depending on the implementation, and this is where the recommendations are so important, uh depending on the implementation, remote witnessing could be many times more secure than the current system.

SPEAKER_02 24:53

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 24:55

But it depends on what you're solving for. That has more hoops you have to jump through, makes it a little bit harder to adopt, a little bit harder to implement, has digital ID requirements. You know, so there's more plumbing involved. You could just go with with video conferencing, as may say. Anyway, so I think that's why there isn't a right answer. They come with you know with risks and benefits, and we collectively need to boil it down and come up with a view.

SPEAKER_02 25:24

Listeners to the Today's Wills and Probate podcast will be aware we have system podcasts, uh, we have a Today's Conveyancer podcast, no prizes for guessing who that's targeted at. And the conveyancing industry has gone through a huge amount of digitization and modernization over the past 15 to 20 years. And one of the challenges it has seen is system interoperability. And what I mean by that for the benefit of listeners, because I know as a technologist you'll appreciate this, is systems actually talking to one another. And there's been a huge amount of very siloed thinking in conveyancing that has actually led us to a position today where a typical transaction can take longer now than it did pre-technology. What are we doing as a sector and what are you doing as a technology business to ensure that we are avoiding repeating those mistakes?

SPEAKER_01 26:23

Yeah, it's it's it's interesting you should raise that because it's something that I've noticed is you know, in I guess I'm more familiar with workplace IT, where you know everything has an API, it's super well documented. Uh the SD gates have been published for the last 10 years. They're a lot of developer communities built around that specific API. It's, you know, so I mean, I've I've seen the nth degree. This clearly isn't that. I've been wondering why. But my assumption is also that, and I think it's also something to do with the nature of the work and the sector, is that digitization has come comparatively late relative to other sectors, and it's now just catching up. But it's a legacy that I observe in in Wheels and Probat as well. I see opportunities for our growth in that space as well, as does the team, and that's something we'll be looking at very keenly. But I I I yeah, I just certainly something I perceive. I I'm presuming it's legacy. I'll I'll it's a it's a question that I'm also still mulling over.

SPEAKER_02 27:28

I think there's there's a lot of work to be done, you know, again to to to going back to thinking about government. One of the challenges that we've had in conveyancing is that uh we've needed HMLR land registry to digitize because they're the arbiter, they're they hold the information, they they hold the key to a lot of this. And in the same way, you know, although we don't have sort of central will banks, we've got the probate registry has had to do what it needs to do in order to enable us to be better as well, hasn't it?

SPEAKER_01 28:01

Uh yeah, 1,000%. Look, I mean they're different approaches to digitizing this part of government, and you could still take a holistic view if we want to have like a you know like an operating system for government, yeah. I guess you somewhat in the way India does, and apparently very successfully. I mean, it's um and as I said, they're kind of selling the operating system around the world now, and you know, and more power to them. Or you could take a an approach where you kind of find a point solution that has all the logical and then what's just given given that this isn't high apparently high in the list of priorities today, and just given everything else going on in the world and the in the country, I can't see that will be. My preference would be to start with a point solution that then prompts all the next obvious questions. So if you have an electronic will, oh, that sounds like a really great opportunity to integrate with a with the probate system. Oh, and then maybe with land registry, and then and oh, look what's happening here. So my preference at this point would be take the first step, do it with the longer view so that all the next the further steps you want to take are still possible and logical, but just move forward with a solution that makes sense in and of itself, but then has all these beautiful options that that flow from it.

SPEAKER_02 29:27

It's been a bit of a meander around modernization technology, incorporating your views on where the industry's going and what we need to be thinking about in in 2026 ultimately. So I'm very appreciative of your your time, Anthony. I have one final uh question, and and uh I'm not sure whether you'll appreciate me asking you this, but you've been in post now for what about nine months?

SPEAKER_01 29:52

Yeah, exactly, about about nine months.

SPEAKER_02 29:55

And uh I wonder if you might share with us what you know now that you wished you might have known when you took the role, but I won't ask you whether that would have impacted whether your decision to join or not.

SPEAKER_01 30:11

Great question. Look, there are things about our business that if I'd known or understood earlier, you know, could have could have done things sooner, would have, could have, should have. You know, it comes back to the point we're discussing before. I I guess I understood, I had a look, I read, I went, came to your publications, I you know, went to LinkedIn, I did the research beforehand, and tried to understand, just internalize the dynamics of the industry. I really didn't anticipate how how competitive it is. Unusually in my experience, yeah. I mean, usually, you know, I've been working in industries where they're you know a relatively small handful of larger competitors and a few upstarts. This is and it varies by incredibly the complexity. And you know, had I understood that earlier, I just it just would have sped everything up for me. It took me a good six months to really actually it's probably even the BWACs and Jackson, you know, putting faces to names and really sort of meeting people and understanding it. That that actually's really, really kind of settled in for me. And look, and I love that, and I really enjoy it because it actually just makes it more interesting. But it I'd I'd love to have known that earlier.

SPEAKER_02 31:29

It's it's hugely interrelational. And and I mean, I I speak about that uh from the point of view of the whole of legal services, actually. As I say, we're a a publisher of specifically three areas of the law, conveyancing was a probate and family, and and you can see even within each of those sort of micro communities, there is a huge amount of interrelationships that, as you say, if you'd known about earlier, you probably would have been able to take advantage of as well. So now I get that completely. Ansi, we're we're we're out of time. I mean, it's been fab to have you on the podcast. I hope listeners have got a bit more of a flavor of who you are, the organization that you're leading as well. And so thank you so much for for joining us.

SPEAKER_01 32:12

A pleasure and it was fun being here. But uh great chatting as always.

SPEAKER_02 32:17

The Today's Wills and Probate podcast is available on your preferred podcast provider. It's also available on today's wills and probate.co.uk. My thanks to Anthony. Thank you as ever for listening, and we'll see you again soon.