Conveyancing & The Messy Middle: The Real Problem Nobody's Talking About

What really keeps conveyancers working until 11 PM? Contrary to popular belief, it's not client onboarding or digital ID verification – it's the messy middle where communication between lawyers becomes a bottleneck. Peter Ambrose, founder of The Partnership and Legalito, cuts through the noise to expose the true pain points in property transactions.

With 15 years of experience running a successful conveyancing firm alongside developing practical tech solutions, Peter offers a unique perspective on why so many technological innovations have failed to deliver meaningful change. "Nothing's changed in the last 10-15 years for conveyancers," he explains, "because most solutions target the wrong problems or demand universal adoption approaches that ignore how lawyers actually work".

The conversation with Emma Waddingham, podcast host & Editor, Legal News Wales, tackles several myths head-on: that lawyers are uniquely resistant to change (they're not – all humans are), that technology should primarily make processes faster (it should reduce risk first), and that increased transparency might compromise legal work (it actually helps manage expectations). Peter shares how Legalito takes a "bridge-building" approach by structuring information without forcing lawyers to abandon their preferred working methods.

This episode is essential listening for anyone involved in property transactions who's frustrated by the industry's current challenges. Whether you're a conveyancer seeking practical solutions, a firm leader weighing technology investments, or a property professional wanting to understand the bottlenecks, you'll gain valuable insights into how the sector can move forward without expecting lawyers to work unsustainable hours.

Ready to see beyond the industry hype and focus on practical solutions? Listen now and discover how a more collaborative, transparent approach to legal technology could transform property transactions.

For more information and signposting, visit the insights section on legalnewswales.com and use the 'Legal Sector Resilience Podcast' filter.

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction to Peter Ambrose
• 2:03 Creating The Partnership and Legalito
• 5:07 The Real Problems in Conveyancing
• 9:37 Communication Between Lawyers: The Core Issue
• 15:47 Client Visibility and Transparency
• 22:13 The Myth of Lawyers Being Change-Averse
• 29:05 How Legalito Bridges Communication Gaps
• 35:57 The Value of Open Conversations
• 42:58 The Problem with "Shiny" Technology
• 48:47 AI's Practical Applications for Lawyers

Transcript

Emma Waddingham, Legal News Wales: 1:10

I'm delighted to be joined by Peter Ambrose, founder and CEO of London-based Law Founder Partnership and also Conveyancing Software Provider, Legalito. Hi Peter, how are you doing?

Peter Ambrose, Legalito: 1:20

I'm very well. How are you?

Emma Waddingham, Legal News Wales: 1:21

Good. Thank you for joining us. As ever, the podcast is a nice kind of informal chat and an opportunity to bust some myths and be quite candid and supply a bit of support to some of the insight that we've got, including a few podcasts, actually with one of our partner, osprey Approach, that we published recently. So I'll try not to pick up too much of your conversation that you had with Amy Bruce, because that is definitely worth a listen and we'll signpost to that within the podcast. Peter is also joining us for our Swansea Legal Tech Roadshow this year, so an opportunity to meet him in person and if you missed out, I'm sure we'll bring him back. So, peter, tell us a little bit about the partnership and then also Legalito.

Peter Ambrose, Legalito: 2:03

Sure, I started the partnership about 15 years ago. My background was in technology, lived in the States, lived in the Netherlands, did it for about 20 years and decided, even though technology is great fun, it was really quite tedious, very long sales cycles, took ages to get adoption which was relevant here, actually and I decided, therefore, that I wanted to do something totally different. And what would be easier than to set up an offer?

Peter Ambrose, Legalito: 2:29

so yeah, easy so that's what I did. Um, I actually went via the, the route of home information packs. So, if you cast your mind back 2007, there was this problem that people needed to find information up front. They felt it would be useful for moving house. So I set up the partnership as a home information pack provider and obviously the government came in and that all changed. But in the meantime, we'd already decided to set up a law firm. So we were one of the first ABSs and so I got a license got that in 2009 actually and we were one of the first people to to become an abs and what I've done is I've grown that business. We're now about 90 people, got two offices uh, one in london, one in guildford. We service mainly the london and the southeast market. So that's how we got to where we are. We built all our own technology and lawyers seem to like what we do and clients seem to like what we do.

Emma Waddingham, Legal News Wales: 3:23

So so great, so that's working really well. Running abs, running a law firm fantastic, um. And. But then going into legal tech is a different, very entrepreneurial. That obviously shines through um, but that's a different space and so you're but you. But that wasn't necessarily born out of trying to necessarily help others. That was more solving a problem within the firm, and if you could talk a little bit more about what that problem or problems were for you.

Peter Ambrose, Legalito: 3:51

From day one, we were electronic, we were paperless and the partnership and everything was done. We were control freaks, as you've got to be if you have a law firm.

Peter Ambrose, Legalito: 4:00

And everything had to be stored and everything had to be stored. So we stored everything electronically, especially around the area of due diligence, checklists and also matter allocation, Because this is where we saw the three things that were the core problems in conveyancing, which is what we specialised in. So we built our own technology and every lawyer that's ever joined us has said to us wow, this is amazing, you should sell this. And you look at the case management market, you think, oh, I really don't want to do that. That's far too difficult. But what we did do is we looked at the problems that we were solving and when you say, was it to help us? Only partly, really, it was only to. Yes, I wanted to make our life easier. But what we saw when we dealt with other firms was they were really struggling and they are really struggling with dealing with how they actually manage the process.

Emma Waddingham, Legal News Wales: 4:46

So it is, there is an element of a big element of altruism in there to be fair, okay, good, fantastic and so, specifically, always nice to know, um specifically, though, when, um, you're managing that process, what, what are the kind of the sticking blocks, what are the things that that conveyances are, uh, are reported for leaving the market? For what's what's? What's the issue?

Peter Ambrose, Legalito: 5:09

I think the big problem is and I think, if we look back over the recent experience that we've all we've had over march, uh, there was a lot of talk about how is it that people were able to get deals through during march and they can't in the rest of them? And the reason why they got them through was a there was a deadline. Obviously, that always focuses the minds, but, more importantly, they worked really hard and the only reason that we were able to get through so many deals through was because people working seven days a week, 12 hours a day I'm convinced of it, and the problem that we're looking to solve is people shouldn't be working that hard, and what lawyers, and that's one of the biggest responses, isn't it?

Peter Ambrose, Legalito: 5:44

yeah exactly.

Emma Waddingham, Legal News Wales: 5:45

The danger is that people now have set the bar so high that they'll expect to work like that all the time.

Peter Ambrose, Legalito: 5:51

I mean we've already been here, don't forget, a few years ago. I mean we've been through this, it's not our first rodeo, right? Um, and there is an argument that says, well, hang on a minute, how how can we slept? Walked into this issue anyway. The reality is, is nothing's changed in the last 10, 15, 20 years for conveyancers and you know you get all this talk about oh, there's new technology. Okay, there's precious little new technology around that people are actually using. People go on and on about onboarding. Oh, it's amazing, we can do electronic ids. Whoop, they do. Right, that's not going to change the life of it. If you say to a conveyancer what's your biggest problem, they do not say I lost you there.

Emma Waddingham, Legal News Wales: 6:25

Sorry, I lost you there.

Peter Ambrose, Legalito: 6:27

So, if you, if you start and just a little bit further back, yes, okay there's a lot of talk at the moment about, you know what, how we need to improve onboarding, because this is the biggest problem that conveyances face. They don't, and as the owner of a law firm employing, as I say, uh, nearly 50d lawyers, I know that onboarding is not the big issue. The big issue that everyone faces in what happens is the bit in the middle. It's not electronic signatures, it's not getting an ID from clients. Yes, it's a pain, yes, it's annoying.

Peter Ambrose, Legalito: 6:56

That doesn't make our lives short, that doesn't make us work till 11 o'clock at night. What makes us work at 11 o'clock at night is what the heck is going on. I always say it's like what am I doing now and what do I need to do next? This is what convincing is what am I doing now, what I have to do next? And the classic problem is the communication between lawyers. We're wasting hours of our lives trying to work out.

Peter Ambrose, Legalito: 7:22

I asked you 10 questions. You're going to be five answers, three of which were to follow and the other two were going to take plant's instructions. And in the middle of all this, the agent calls up and says what's going on? You then break off what you're doing to have to check what you're doing, and this is where the hours are being wasted. And this is the main problem as I see it in comparison today, this is the core problem. If you've got a meal, okay, the onboarding is like the hors d'oeuvre or the amuse bouche, okay, yeah, the beef wellington of the feast, all right, it's the inquiry management and no one talks about it because it's too darn difficult yeah, and they, well, they do in the.

Emma Waddingham, Legal News Wales: 7:58

So we've got the conveyancing forum wales where we bring together lots of heads of conveyancing property teams across the country and this is exactly what they spend their time talking about and actually even meeting face-to-face helps, because they know they've seen that person, they've got more of a connection, maybe they can have a better conversation. But largely they're probably not dealing with the people that were in that room anyway. And you know it's the onboarding side, the digital identification. They get it. They're just wrangling how they want to pay for that. It's almost like that market pressure. They accept that that is a movement forward, but that's not really what. As you say, pushes them to the edge of the cliff.

Peter Ambrose, Legalito: 8:37

Right, it's really not a big deal, and that's why it's so frustrating. When you see all these stories, like this shiny new government initiative that says we're going to digitize the journey, it's like yeah, but if you read it, all they talk about is upfront information. And now, unfortunately, I've got news for people here. Okay, upfront information is not the problem because, apart from anything else, the seller doesn't want to disclose as much as they can. It is still caveat emptor and all this nonsense.

Peter Ambrose, Legalito: 9:01

Do you remember all that nonsense about the ta6 form, when they said, oh goodness, we're getting rid of the principle of caveat emptor? Well then I woke up from la-la land and I realised actually, of course, that's not true. It's got nothing to do with it. Sellers don't want to disclose. Buyers need to find out what's going on. Twas ever thus and it will always be that way, and that's the problem. The buyer's got questions that the sellers need to answer and the communication from the client of the buyer the buyer's lawyer over to the seller's lawyer, to the seller's client. That is where the bottleneck is and that's where it all gets gummed up and that's where things get lost and, ironically, that's where all the claims are yeah, 100 percent um so.

Emma Waddingham, Legal News Wales: 9:39

So how does legal e-chase solve some of those issues?

Peter Ambrose, Legalito: 9:43

the way we solve it is we address the problem of hearts and minds. It's not a technology problem. You know, everyone says, oh, you know, technology is not the answer. I've got news for you Technology is the answer. But what you've got to do is you've got to deliver something whereby people can communicate with each other without having to drink the Kool-Aid with each other, without having to drink the Kool-Aid. Where it's failed in the past and it really has failed, whether it's the Law Society, whether it's Land Registry, or whether we've had a few platforms in the past, it's all been based on the premise of as long as everyone buys into it, everyone uses it, then happy days. Only, it's never going to happen, okay, and it's just nonsense. Talk, it's nonsense talk.

Emma Waddingham, Legal News Wales: 10:22

Everyone has their own way of doing things.

Peter Ambrose, Legalito: 10:24

Yeah, of course. Yeah, how arrogant can we be to say, well, if you're not using this platform, then you're a bit behind the times or you don't want to? People have got their own issues, they've got their own investment, they've got their own technology problems. Okay, what Legalito does? It says we're going to control this information. We're going to structure it. I'm going to hold it in a way, but you do you All right.

Peter Ambrose, Legalito: 10:45

However, you want to work on the other side. You carry on doing that. If you want to send me emails with questions in that, fine. You want to send me a letter with it in there, fine. What technology has to do is have to cope with that and then go. However, you give me that information, I'm going to make something smart with this. I'm going to structure it and I'm going to deal with it, not forcing people to uh, you know, to do things our way. That never works. Never works. I call it bridge building. Yeah, okay, yeah, you know you can't. You can't just say, well, in order to be better, you know you're not good enough and in order to be better, you have to change to do things the way I say yeah, it's not going to work.

Emma Waddingham, Legal News Wales: 11:23

No, we're not. And also, you know, on the kind of taking a step back and looking how struck. Obviously, law firms are structured differently. Uh, they work in different parts of the country. They've got different clients. We're more diverse than ever before, which is fantastic because it reflects the people that we're working with. So you as well, and we're humans, so we're never going to be we're not the the kind of the creatures that need to be. Tech it's the enabler. I know people say this all the time, but it is about freeing lawyers up to do more of what they're meant to do it is.

Peter Ambrose, Legalito: 11:52

And you can't do that by saying, okay, you've now got to totally change the way you do things. One of the biggest myths that we see is they say or lawyers reverse to change, all right, as if lawyers are this special breed of their own that are totally unique and unlike any other human on the planet. I'm like no, humans are averse to change. That's how we survive. Okay, I get so frustrated I can tell you all right, engineers, consultants, doctors, anyone, all right, they're all averse to change. Why? Because it's risk. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, we like as humans, we like certainty. Yeah, and so this, this, this patronizing approach that we see our lawyers, you know, they've got this idea and I see it every now and again. It just makes me just want to just look at people. And what planet are you on? Oh, you know, they need to put down their quill pens and get with the 20th century. It's not that they don't want to use it.

Peter Ambrose, Legalito: 12:43

Part of the problem is is the vendors? Yeah, the vendors have not helped, okay, uh, lawyers, okay, and that's a tricky one. The reason why they've not helped them that um, uh, lawyers is because they had didn't charge them enough. Okay, a lot of talk at the moment about all the prices of case management software and so forth. Having been in software all my life, I personally feel that people have been paying too little for their software and because of that, the vendors have not invested in new technology, and that's the problem. I blame lack of confidence in the vendors in that you should have been charging more a long time ago and, from lawyers, you need to put more value on the technology that you've got and be prepared to pay more for it, and now we're in this situation, unfortunately, where we've got an awful lot of technology that's been around for a long time. The vendors don't particularly want to support it because it's on old platforms All the original developers have left, and that is the challenge.

Emma Waddingham, Legal News Wales: 13:45

Yeah, and it's become quite stale. We've seen it, certainly when I was working in the bar. Exactly the same very small part of the market for the tech owner and there was no point in investing in that particular platform, so of course, it ended up looking like a VHS videotape in 2020. So, yeah, it was really difficult.

Peter Ambrose, Legalito: 14:04

It's a complicated, difficult problem because there is this legacy software out there and it's all very well for the technologists to say throw it out, start again. Just talking to a friend of mine who runs a reasonably large firm in the South and they've spent six months migrating to a new platform.

Emma Waddingham, Legal News Wales: 14:22

That is a commitment. This is absolutely the fear, yeah, that's the fear. And and when you then look at one, I mean it's obviously for some firms, conversing is one aspect of what they do, um, but when they're seeing that team under lots of pressure, you know they're not, they're not going to want to do that, even if it in the long term is the right thing, and they understand that. I don't think lawyers are, you know, head in sand to that extent they understand. I don't.

Peter Ambrose, Legalito: 14:48

There is a small vocal minority that have their head in the sand okay, in the commencing world, and then they are a tiny, tiny minority, okay. Uh, we've seen this over the last year where people have been very shouty, quite abusive. I've been the subject of a lot of abuse, um, and there is a tiny minority that it does not apply to the vast majority. They don't have their head in the sand. What they're doing is they're waking up every morning and going how am I going to get through the day? How am I going to get through the day with clients being since the pandemic have never been more demanding and difficult, and this is often overlooked?

Emma Waddingham, Legal News Wales: 15:20

yeah, and then you compound that with the fear, the regulatory fear, and the pressures that are particularly on the property sector. So if you're, for example, we spoke we had a firm in a forum recently that said we had great response to our sra audit. We know we do a lot of conveyancing. They've come back within two years. Why? And it was said, because you've got that high risk yeah red light in the work that you're doing and they're looking for problems it's, you know.

Peter Ambrose, Legalito: 15:49

I mean that's the thing. When it comes to convincing, these are where the claims are. 70 of all claims are against convincing. Now, okay, there's an evidence of the fact that this is the most that the public interact with lawyers mostly the divorce wills and convincing. But but, either way, these are where the risks are.

Peter Ambrose, Legalito: 16:03

And to say to someone running a busy department where it doesn't stop, I always say we're like a bank, yeah, we don't stop. You know we can't have downtime because you know, even down to the point, for example, that will say um, oh, we want to close the office early to give the guys half a day off. We can't do that because we know we'll get so much grief from our clients. And this is overlooked. And I find it incredibly frustrating in that people say well, why aren't lawyers adopting new technology? Because, frankly, they can't stop this merry-go-round and it's really, really difficult. So what you have to do, what technology providers and what we're looking at is look, let's give you a way to move across, keep doing what you're doing because you have to. You have to support that. Yeah, let's see if we can streamline some processes. We're not here to make it faster. Had someone the other day said oh, we spoke to someone that used legalito and they said actually um, it wasn't faster. And I'm like well, we're not talking about speed here, guys we're talking about risk?

Peter Ambrose, Legalito: 17:00

yeah, it's not about speed.

Peter Ambrose, Legalito: 17:02

We never talk about speed okay yeah, really important that one of the byproducts of structuring data in a way that everyone can see it in the organization and people can use it, which is what legalito is about one of the byproducts is it should make things quicker. But that's not what we're about, and one of I think one of the problems is is that because a lot of the sales messages that are coming out of vendors to lawyers going, oh, we'll make it quicker, a lawyer's going I don't want to be quicker.

Emma Waddingham, Legal News Wales: 17:30

No, hang on now, because then you'll be more.

Peter Ambrose, Legalito: 17:33

I don't want to be quicker, but what we do need to do is we need to make it more efficient, so that what people can do and confusing speed and efficiency is a common mistake People should be able to come in at nine, go but five or five thirty, yeah and do their job, and if we've learned nothing from march 2025 is they can't do that today yeah and they have to.

Peter Ambrose, Legalito: 17:59

I mean, you know what was it einstein said. You know you keep asking this, asking the same question over and over again. Hope you get an answer. First sign of madness Right, stop doing this, guys.

Emma Waddingham, Legal News Wales: 18:17

Stop saying well, all we've got to do is work harder. No, please Enough. Yeah, absolutely, and I don't think I mean you know what. Obviously, another huge issue in the sector is recruitment. That's true across all areas of law firms, and that's because actually, there's a lot of work out there. That's fantastic, um, and there's, and there's a sure, and particularly, you know, when you look at somewhere like wales, um, we're kind of cycling through a lot the same talent and trying to get people over the border. But and tech is often mooted as well this is one of the saviors of the recruitment problem, or it's going to enable people to stay in that particular area of law, and I can understand how, then, that might get misinterpreted as it will do a lot of the work for you, make it faster and easier, whereas actually what you're saying is it takes a lot of the, the constant almost replication or pressures or confusion of communication out of the process to allow you to do what you're good at and enjoy what you're doing. Is that part of it?

Peter Ambrose, Legalito: 19:11

I think if people, if lawyers, stopped and looked and saw what they actually do and they look at the amount of time they waste looking stuff up or taking phone calls from people asking them for updates, they'd be shocked. Well, they wouldn't be shocked, they know it. But I think if they actually oh, yeah, I'm sure, if they added it up and went, wow, you know, or the constant phone ringing, why is it that your phone's ringing constantly? We need to adapt that. Well, it's because people you know people always looking for updates. Well, why are they looking for? What are you not giving them? And where technology, for example, is really good is that you can automatically notify people that that will be calling you when something happens. You've got to be careful with this, because people that don't do this stuff sort of say oh it's amazing, full transparency, full transparency. Everyone should know everything. No, that's not true at all. Right, but what you should do is you should judicially let people know when something's happened that's of value to them, because then you'll stop the phone call. This is what we did.

Peter Ambrose, Legalito: 20:15

One of the most common comments when people join us and they've been there a week, I say what's different from here, in your previous place and they all say the same thing. Now, that's difficult to do, but what you've got to do if you're as an owner of a business and you owe it to your employees okay, and this is partly why we've we've written, we've developed legal into it um, you've got to stop the phones ringing. You have to, yeah, because whenever a phone rings, you don't know who's on the other end and you don't know what question they're going to ask and you don't know what file they're going to ask about and you can't have that. You know, we don't know no, it's funny, um.

Emma Waddingham, Legal News Wales: 20:50

Having communicated with property lawyers for many, many years, but also lawyers across all different areas of law firms, one thing I've noticed, a significant change and it's universal, uh, since probably around, yeah, probably just after the pandemic is, um, because it's like a marker in time now for yeah, yeah um is the responses I get from emails.

Emma Waddingham, Legal News Wales: 21:12

So if I send something about, I know, inviting them to an event, every single conveyancer will now send me an automatic reply say we've got your email, it's there, do not worry, we will get back to you. Now that is such a chase, almost like give me a minute in a really polite way, and it's universal now.

Peter Ambrose, Legalito: 21:31

That's really interesting. You say that Just for a bit of stats. We did a mailing yesterday of 7,500 to our mailing list, ok. We got 1,000 auto responses, ok. Of those, we would count them, less than a fifth were actually out of the office.

Emma Waddingham, Legal News Wales: 21:48

Yeah, yeah.

Peter Ambrose, Legalito: 21:49

Absolutely. And all of them were like you know, we're sorry, we're busy with this, that the other and so forth, and and this is the reality is that people are battling um to deal with the, the amount of attention that the clients are demanding. I was saying to people you need to kill them with the data. Yeah, and people sort of go. And I remember writing something about this a few months ago and everyone sort of ridiculed me. I said, look, you know, data is your protector and they were like oh it's information.

Peter Ambrose, Legalito: 22:21

It's information. And if you could say, for example, on our system we have a timeline, okay, which shows the different stages and how long each stage is at, ok, the reason we do that purely is so that if a client calls up or an agent calls up and starts having to go you've been sitting on this, you haven't done this. It's to give the lawyers the information so they can go. Well, I don't want to be funny about it, but you didn't return your paperwork for a month, so don't start shouting at me because you sat on it for a month.

Peter Ambrose, Legalito: 22:46

Yeah, the problem is most systems they don't capture this, or people don't capture it, or there isn't the discipline, for whatever reason. There's a multitude. But if you give your lawyers the information on the desktop and this is what the owners of businesses should be doing to protect their employees okay, if you give them the information so that, a, they're not hunting around wasting time trying to find out what's going on, but also as a defense mechanism. Yeah, we have to. I'm not saying that, you know. Oh, you know we need to make excuses, but, goodness me, give your guys a chance, you know?

Emma Waddingham, Legal News Wales: 23:18

yeah actually when everybody. You know, we all know that when someone goes through the transaction process of buying or selling a house, they're only going to do it generally speaking once every what?

Emma Waddingham, Legal News Wales: 23:35

seven years only, that's 14 that. But if that, that is a huge chunk of time to and obviously you forget as a, as a, you know, I often think I'm kind of on the outside here, I'm the consumer, so I can kind of see it, maybe with very different eyes, um, but also very much empathizing with the sector. And you know, I would forget how that process went down and, of course, you'd expect it to change and we all know that in our normal, everyday, outside professional lives, we are interfacing with tech, things that are immediate, the conversation, you know octopus, energy, let's say, a good example here but the way in which they communicate, the information you can get for yourself, how they haven't gone into conveyancing, I don't know, it's only a matter of time, surely. But you know that data's there, there's an idea, but you know, I think that, but that's what we're used to and it doesn't mean that we I think it's almost like there's an expectation, even if we don't necessarily want that information.

Peter Ambrose, Legalito: 24:35

I think this is it. I mean, for example, one thing that we did about nine years ago now. We created our own portal for our clients. The reason we did it was for security reasons, because we had someone that was defrauded out of £300,000 through an email scan. So someone that was defrauded out of £300,000 through an email scan. So I said, well, I'm not doing email because, frankly, that's for criminals, okay.

Peter Ambrose, Legalito: 24:52

What was interesting was some clients would say, oh, this is so inconvenient having to use a portal, and I'm like this is a lot of money we're talking about. Okay, but we need to control the information flow, and it was really important. And what we then did was we then took that and we said, well, look, seeing as we've got the information out there, why don't we give them more visibility as to what's going on? People talk about checklists. I know I'm a massive fan of checklists. All right, because they actually raise more questions than they answer.

Peter Ambrose, Legalito: 25:18

But what we did, for example, we put in an area with inquiries whereby if the clients had questions about the property it was in a structured place where they put a question in we could take that, process it and then pass it over to the other side, which was the idea behind legal eater, so that if we could give this to the client they could a see what's going on. They could also see how many questions we had received. So they were selling a flat. So we had one the other day selling a flat. A firm in north london raised 97 inquiries.

Peter Ambrose, Legalito: 25:44

Okay, okay then that's fine. Okay, because it's only the junior, inexperienced lawyers that raise lots of inquiries, right? Anyway, they raised all these inquiries. The clients then saw wow, they've had these many inquiries. Not only did they get to see the extent of the questions, but they also realised this is what their lawyers were dealing with.

Emma Waddingham, Legal News Wales: 26:05

Yes.

Peter Ambrose, Legalito: 26:05

And people don't do that because they like to think of lawyers as a black box. This is complicated. You wouldn't possibly understand the problem with it. Of course we then had a slight glitch. Was that we were saying people then thought when they got these questions that they had to answer them all?

Emma Waddingham, Legal News Wales: 26:20

right, okay, that was good, then they got really cross.

Peter Ambrose, Legalito: 26:23

I would think oh my gosh then they got really cross what do I pay you for your? And then? So we had to put a big red banner across saying no, we're just showing this for information. Ok, but that's why those people that don't do conveyancing think that transparency and everyone should know anything. I saw something the other day. They said it's great, wouldn't it be great? What you need to do is have a chat function with lawyers. Yeah, that was that's what consumers want. I'm like it's not gonna happen, is it, you know? And the mere fact that you're suggesting that what consumers should be given is a chat function with lawyers shows you do not understand lawyers, and that is why so many lawyers we talk about head in the sand, the reason so many lawyers go yeah, technology is not for us, it's not going to solve the problem it's because they're presented with the wrong solution, Because you're bending them into something they don't need Absolutely.

Emma Waddingham, Legal News Wales: 27:12

And actually I mean you know we say this all the time in the forum there is, especially when you speak to perhaps other players that get involved, collaborate in the market, that at the end of the day this is fixed fee work. Here there's price transparency on there. It is in conveyance's best interest to get paid and to do this work. They're not bankrolled by other, you know, and if they are, they've probably got person injury work that it's all held in whip. So you know, it's just to me it doesn't. It completely doesn't make sense as to why anyone would think a conveyancer would want to hold up the process the.

Peter Ambrose, Legalito: 27:47

The problem is, um, and we were talking about the other day why more deals went through in march. Okay, um, and we said we felt it was more pragmatism. Okay, in some, in some cases too much pragmatism, but anyway, not our problem. Okay, um, in the past it had been a case of oh, um, we can't do this, or because we got a lender, or something like that. What we believe, the reason why people do that, is because what they're trying to do is control the workflow. In other words, look, I've got these horrible problems, I've got these horrible issues. Actually, I don't want to deal with this right now. I need to buy myself some time. They don't want to delay the deal, they just need to buy time. And that makes total sense to me. We had someone that said, oh, could you send?

Emma Waddingham, Legal News Wales: 28:34

us the search.

Peter Ambrose, Legalito: 28:35

Could you send us the contract pack in the post? And we said, no, we don't do that, we insist you must do this. And I said I called them. I said why do you want it in the post? They said, honestly, because it gives us a few extra days. Okay, and you kind of get that. They're not. It's not in their interest to slow the transaction, apart from the fact is they're smart.

Emma Waddingham, Legal News Wales: 28:48

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And this obviously then affects that kind of that mindset to doing something different or to accepting something else to assist, as you say, you don't want them to kind of do something differently necessarily illegally too and that mindset and the pace of transformation and the noise around change. Do you think we're in a particularly difficult time at the moment for firms in terms of trying to get them to look at things like legalito or other types of of tech? Um, do you think it's almost holding back? And and also the conversation around AI, which I know is a podcast in itself, but you know, is there a danger that we could end up with so many people with their heads in the sand?

Peter Ambrose, Legalito: 29:37

No, I think what we are seeing now is you know, this is the third statuity holiday we've been through, okay, and what I'm starting to see now is a realisation from law firms to say we can't go on like this. You know, we've had so many tears and so many issues over the last few months and I think now people are saying and the reason I say that there is change in the air, it's got nothing to do with amazing, brilliant technology that's out there. It's just a sheer frustration from owners of law firms who are dealing. We talk about retention, we talk about staff turnover. Um, you know, there's a reason why there's a rise in consultants. You know, 4 000 consultants now. Okay, there's a reason for that. People have been thrashed and owners of law firms going. If we're going to continue doing this, we need to make a change and that's why it's happening, and there's definitely it's not. Hence, I am definitely seeing people saying we need to deal with this now. So, with legalito, this whole idea of the way they know people know when you have to drag it out of them, but they know the way they're doing stuff is really inefficient, um, and they're now saying I, I think there is a. There's a crystallization moment now and people are saying we can't keep doing this and we need technology.

Peter Ambrose, Legalito: 30:52

Ai. What it's going to do? It's going to bring benefits around quality control it's going to bring benefits around. Uh, I don't like to use the word automation, but certainly being able to do stuff in the past you couldn't do. And I'll give you an example. We've been trying to solve our mailroom problem for years 10 years. Okay, the idea that lots of post comes in. We have to scan it, sort it, categorize it Absolute pain in the neck, two people spending three hours every day doing this all right, is crazy. Okay, with AI we can do that much more quickly and we get rid of this horrible job, which is what's the case. What sort of document is it? And I think now, only in the last six months, we've now got technology which can do this stuff. It can do the stuff that it couldn't do before, and that's why we're using it. You couldn't do it before. You know you want to check whether a release is compliant with the CML handbook. You couldn't really do that before. Now you can.

Emma Waddingham, Legal News Wales: 31:50

And this is it. So the point and the principle of our roadshows, our legal tech events, is that actually, when we have our forums and you're looking to the regulators or to membership organisations say what is out there, what should we be doing with this? Actually, the best thing to do is ask other law firms and in Wales we're really lucky because we're very collaborative People share that information. That's exactly what we'll be doing at this event in Swansea, but we do that all the time in our forums as well and bringing people like yourself in to say, look, ask us. You're very open. I've seen your Hall of Fame on Eagagleto all the people that have got a couple. You know really transparent about who's using it, how many people might be using that and you know are you do. Is that something that that you also find? The more people that you're talking to.

Peter Ambrose, Legalito: 32:39

Obviously you're gathering and not a lot of mi about the frustrations across the sector and and what they might be doing next the most common bit of feedback I get from people is it's really good to talk to someone that a knows what we're going through, is involved with it because we've got the law firm, but also is happy to talk about it. And that's what people don't. And and we are unusual, without blowing our own trumpet. We are unusual in that we write software for lawyers ourselves, but we're also happy to say we like. For example, one of the things I always do is I always name firms, people never do that right.

Peter Ambrose, Legalito: 33:12

I always say look, we went to see such and such and the partner there told me this happens. And people go wow, you're being really open. I'm like, or we could just keep hiding stuff and pretending that everything's brilliant and I've got the best lawyers in the world and we've got a wonderful life. And that's what we have to do, and I'm hoping that by going out and having conversations with lawyers that are really open and frank, that they go actually look what I will tell you about. I get people saying, yeah, we're using such and such, but actually it's blooming awful. We're using such and such a product or such and such a portal and really it's a nightmare. In fact, we're stopping using it because it's really upsetting our clients. Yeah, and I think in the past there has been this keep calm and carry on kind of philosophy, and also the infallible black box. Yeah, everything's fine, and if it wasn't fine, I wouldn't tell you pacing point.

Peter Ambrose, Legalito: 34:01

Fraud no one talks about fraud. Yeah, okay, we talk about fraud. Yeah, we had someone received a spoof email before we got around portal, a spoof email to say could you send us six hundred thousand pounds? And they did. We have to talk about this stuff. So when we talk about technology solutions. You know people talk about secure email and stuff. I'm like no, you're solving the wrong problem. But we actually say to people yes, we had a client and we had to settle. We had the one I mentioned earlier. Our insurers had to pay out about 300 000 pounds.

Emma Waddingham, Legal News Wales: 34:30

That's happened to us and it's happening to everyone. You know you look at the law and it is chock full of, you know, actually not always in the client interest breaches, but you know, anyway they are. They're breach, breach, breach and it's property, property, property and it's aml, aml. We know that, um, and so you're right and I think by sharing, you know, I again, I was chatting to a firm the other day and they said look, you know, there's enough work for everybody.

Emma Waddingham, Legal News Wales: 34:57

The fact that we can talk and share and support and be really honest about what we're doing and what we like, what we don't like, that's not going to cut any of the market out for us. It's not going to give someone a competitive advantage. And in fact, you know, one of the ladies, helen barry, who's joining us from robertson, said what they've done a lot, their automation processes, all the different things they're doing to enable them to do a lot more. She said you know we spoke to another firm and they told us we did a quid pro quo and information okay, so they're getting something back. Fantastic, and that you know that has to be the way forward and actually maybe Wales has a bit of an advantage there and it's very generous nature and culture of working across, I think, all professional services. Maybe that could give us a bit of an edge here, to kind of move forwards.

Peter Ambrose, Legalito: 35:41

I think what people have to recognize is that we're in a collaborative environment. Okay, in other words, if I see someone on the other side, okay, I can't go. Well, I'm not going to work with you, I can't, right, I have to. If I see a law firm, I go oh, we've got people out there. We go. Oh, you see them, you go and your heart sinks. You go, you're going to be just horrible and shouty and rude and patronizing and misogynistic. You know all the usual stuff. Yeah, um, and you go, oh god, but you can't go. Well, I not going to act. So therefore, it is in your interest and part of the legalism philosophy is very much like it's in your interest to share this.

Peter Ambrose, Legalito: 36:13

One of the questions I had the other week was oh, would you be happy to share your precedence with your inquiries? Well, okay, let me think about this for a moment. Okay, I'm going to send you a set of questions that you're going to answer. I'm doing it by default. Why wouldn't I share it? You know what I mean, but, oh, you know. Or people say to me oh, if I see a good inquiry or a good question, I steal it. Well, of course you do, because you see it. Of course you would. No one owns it. Oh my days. Oh, we own this ip. You don't own this ip because you share it with other people by dint of what you do.

Emma Waddingham, Legal News Wales: 36:49

Right, it's this ridiculous notion that says, well, I created that, therefore I shouldn't share it, but you are sharing it but I think that's the maturity of the legal sector anyway, that we no longer, you know, the law is out there, the precedents are out there, it's how we do it, what we do, how we take that, that specialist advice that I, the client care, all of those things wrapped in that that actually helps to solve problem solving.

Peter Ambrose, Legalito: 37:13

It's not about the law and I think generally people understand that, but it's still a cultural shift it is a cultural shift and the way I look at it is we've got to help people be more successful, because if they mess up and the claims go up, who ends up paying? Well, we do, yeah, I mean we do. You know, it is not in our interest to have negligent lawyers. It really isn't why. Because my insurance, we're going through our insurance renewal. In fact, we submitted it yesterday, okay, and we're sitting there. We're now crossing our fingers as to how much it will be. Last year it was £350,000. Is it going up? Is it going down? I don't know. We've got jeopardy going on right now. We don't know.

Emma Waddingham, Legal News Wales: 37:52

How are we supposed to go down, Peter?

Peter Ambrose, Legalito: 37:53

So let's see, it did go down last year. It did go down, which is great, ok. Does that mean that we're doing less risky work? Probably. Yeah. There's a whole segment of work that people say I won't give details of it but well, self-funded bills okay. Self-funded bills okay. People have gone. That's really dodgy, we shouldn't do that. Okay, so we don't do it. Great advice, yeah, yeah, you know, it's like come on, it's not our interest to go. Ha ha, we've got one over on the other side. Look, we've made them look stupid. Oh great, well done. Now we're actually paying the price for it yeah 100.

Emma Waddingham, Legal News Wales: 38:27

Well, I mean, it sounds like a. There is this. Then this optimism. I'm very optimistic. Um, I'm very much a big believer in don't put your head in the sand. Reach out, see what other people are doing. Um, yes, we don't have guidance on a lot of areas, particularly around things like ai, but actually it doesn't mean that you can kind of stall in what you're doing. And also this, um, as you think you could be toxic, actually around the conveyancing world online, and so be mindful of that, that there's actually a lot going on underneath and particularly in real life, getting to meet people.

Peter Ambrose, Legalito: 39:00

I think I do think one of the most depressing things I hear when I talk to lawyers is they say oh, I don't go on LinkedIn now because it's too toxic. I'm like that is a terrible, terrible indictment, and anyone out there that thinks it's okay to be toxic online needs to have a long, hard look in the mirror, because if you're discouraging people from using what is fundamentally a communication platform for sharing ideas and you're actively discouraging them by your vile, misogynistic you know, bullying approach, you need to have a look in the mirror and say what are you, what are you trying to do here?

Emma Waddingham, Legal News Wales: 39:34

um, I, I get, actually it's not the same in other areas of law. You know that that it's only one channel and I think when you've got a bit, you know I'm lucky that I've got a bit of a global eye on things and and so and that impression there, just within that one channel, that intersection of the sector is is very difficult watching sometimes and I think that then can breed this mindset and for those that can't get to the events and those that can't get to the conferences and see and have the water cooler moments in real life, that's when it gets quite dangerous and that's what could potentially hold back some firms.

Peter Ambrose, Legalito: 40:08

It should do what I would also say on that point about heading in the sand. I do get very frustrated when people won't take 10 minutes. Yeah, take 10 minutes. I had someone the other day where a lawyer that was using Legalito sent an invitation to the other side, a firm in Bristol, a small firm, and they came back and they said terrible product, absolutely awful. No wonder no one's using it. And you can tell the software developer that.

Peter Ambrose, Legalito: 40:35

So of course the lawyer's using it sent it to me and I sent him an email going and I looked he'd never used it and I'm like, I get it, but I'm not going to point score here, okay, because there's no point, but I did say, just out of curiosity what are you basing this, what are you basing your opinion on? And there was nothing more frustrating than people saying yes, I've seen technology and I heard someone describe it as this new whiz-bang technology. I'm like don't do that, wow, don't do that. And they do that. And it's like hold on a minute.

Peter Ambrose, Legalito: 41:07

If you're going to hold yourself up to be this paragon of I'm a lawyer, then use facts and form opinion on those facts, because all you're doing by not doing that is discrediting the role which is oh all lawyers. Well, you're full of it anyway. You think you're holier than thou, and that's all you're doing is you're reinforcing that horrible stereotype. So please, please, please, do not get trapped into this. Oh all technology, and it never helped us before. You know, things are taking twice as long as they did before and we've got all this new technology. Well, maybe there's something wrong with the technology and the application of it.

Emma Waddingham, Legal News Wales: 41:45

Absolutely, or you're not utilising it and, as you say you, you know, I speak to a lot of different vendors. They can see when you're on a pilot. They can see what you're doing on there. That's the whole point, because they can respond, they can look, so they know if you are using it, how you're using it. Uh, go back to say are we doing things?

Emma Waddingham, Legal News Wales: 41:55

well, there are so many decent consultants out there and fractional advisors wherever they want to call themselves, who have that bird's eye view, who see other law firms all the time, who understand how some of this tech works, and I think that I mean there's a whole other conversation around actually the plugging something in and you don't even know what the problem is, that you're trying to overcome or admitting what that problem is and therefore it's never going to work because those two things aren't aligned I, I have to say we do see an awful lot of problems looking for solutions.

Peter Ambrose, Legalito: 42:28

Yeah, okay, excuse me, solutions looking for problems, apologies, um, and it doesn't frustrates me, you know. I think I think one of the best lines we the conveyancing business has been sold in recent years has been blockchain. You must use blockchain because that's your problem. I'm like now. The last time I looked, I was sending lots of emails back to another. That was my problem. It wasn't anything to do with blockchain, okay blockchain blockchain is quite useful for registering properties.

Peter Ambrose, Legalito: 42:52

I think even that I'm not even sure about okay, um anything else, certainly in my world. No, it's totally irrelevant it's like people trying to sell me um contract management tools. Yeah, well, you deal with contracts. You must have a lot of changes on contracts. No, we don't. We send them a contract, they make a few changes, we sign it, that's it. Um, and I think that there is this uh show shoehorning of solutions. Um, well, it's shiny.

Emma Waddingham, Legal News Wales: 43:18

It's shiny things and I started writing about from the business of law, you know long before, but blockchain, let's say what 10 kind of 15 years ago? And it was every head and I was pushing back on some of these headlines, so I don't want to write this. I don't get what blockchain is, but I get what that does and it uses blockchain. So let's talk about this. No, it has to be all about blockchain. We might as well be talking about a wheel. All about blockchain. I don't. We might as well be talking about a wheel. Uh, this is a wheel. Everyone talk about wheels, car wheels uh well, why don't you talk about?

Peter Ambrose, Legalito: 43:49

the car like and we're seeing, interestingly, so we're now seeing this with ai. Okay, this is the same problem where, um, any software vendor now has ai in it. Okay, now we use ai in legalito for really boring stuff reading documents and extracting the words out of documents. It's really dull, okay. But you know what, if you get sent a pdf and you're sitting there going, you get a lease, for example, in pdf format, that you can't edit or you can't copy, okay, that's a pain in the neck.

Peter Ambrose, Legalito: 44:18

Well, good news for you guys, ai can solve that. Yeah, so we can do that. We put something live in a few weeks ago which basically says if you've got a scanned, so we can do that. We put something live in legalita a few weeks ago which basically says if you've got a scanned document, we can read it. Well, happy days, because the problem is like one of my lawyers said. Yeah, I used to have to take ages um rekeying covenants within leases because we couldn't read them. I'm like that's a waste of time, isn't it? So with this stuff, now it's amazing, I don't need to do that anymore.

Emma Waddingham, Legal News Wales: 44:44

Good, that's the key and this is the stuff that people shouldn't be doing after five in absolute. This is not why you go and study law and pay all that money absolutely not. Who would do that?

Peter Ambrose, Legalito: 45:01

I did. I did a webinar a few weeks ago was I didn't study all that all those years to learn how to copy and paste? It's true, right, I mean, this is it. We don't do copy and paste.

Emma Waddingham, Legal News Wales: 45:11

You know, it's not a good thing listen, I don't, and I you know I've got ai running right now. This is transcribing our conversation. There are things I go and use it for. It's never going to replace me, um, but, and I certainly have the eye to look over what things are doing. But you know even simple things. Like you know, I've written a few bullet points. Put me a social media post together and then I'll add my personality. It's just saving time on things that are really simple and obvious. To do that I went. I didn't. You know, I trained to be a journalist, not to do the admin side of things.

Peter Ambrose, Legalito: 45:43

Yeah, it is interesting, we um. So, for example, one of the things I have to do, we want to. There are times I want to move something out of an inbox for various reasons and then move it back again. Okay, you needed a macro to do it. Whatever, chat, gpt, how do we do this? One minute later it was done, problem solved. In the past that would have been I need an engineer, can you write that? And so forth. It would have been a couple of hours work, waste of time for the engineer for a one-off project that only I needed it for. Okay, that's what it's really good at. It's really good operational stuff. You know fixing stuff in excel. I wanted to find out yesterday. I wanted to find out what was the highest average day, uh, the highest day that we had with legally, to a number of inquiries, a number of matters in a day. Okay, chat gpt, this is what you do. Put it in the spreadsheet.

Emma Waddingham, Legal News Wales: 46:27

Got my answer yeah, and you're not giving away any secure information, you're not giving away anything like that, it's just simple. Uh, so yeah, and and that, and that. I think it breaking that down again, that's showing, telling people how it can be used, whether it's closed to ai, which means it's your own, within your own circuit, as it were, or that open, which is the chat, gbt, um, and obviously being mindful and mature about it. But that is the stuff that I don't think. I don't even want to pay a lawyer to do that. Actually, I want the lawyer's brain on this and their expertise and I would hope very much.

Emma Waddingham, Legal News Wales: 47:04

Actually, when you're just going back earlier to talking about that transparency and seeing what lawyers are maybe doing and the matters that, the questions that are being asked, you know there might be the responsible um client thinking, wow, I'm getting quite good value here because I'm paying them that and they're dealing with all this. Yeah, um, that's probably few and far between in the middle of a house move, but actually, you know, it suddenly starts to kind of, yeah, show that value of the individual and the and the family you're working with as well. Um, brilliant, so when we're we're going to do a lot more, we're going to have lots of. I think you'll bring a showcase with you to the event as well, are you? I know you're bringing some shiny things for us to go and have a look at, I think, what we've got to do.

Peter Ambrose, Legalito: 47:47

I think one of the one of the challenges is that, um, people need to see stuff. I don't know about you, but you know when you have these events and you go to them and you have these people, they have all this dance, they never show anything no, apart from like brochures yeah, okay I'm like who wants to go in the bin, guys?

Peter Ambrose, Legalito: 48:03

sorry it's like who wants to see brochures? I'm like you want to have sensible conversations and see what, see what you can do with stuff, and I think there needs to be a change. And I'm really excited about the um. And this is the first time we've done this where we've actually gone out and said look, we're going to show. We've never shown in public before. Oh, okay, um, and. And the idea is, and the reason why we wanted to do this was I'm not saying the problem is you, you've got to bring people with you on a journey and in order to do that, they've got to see, they've got to see what this stuff does, and I don't want to signing ndas. I don't want them saying, okay, you've got to pay me, I've got to sign a contract. You know, legalito, it's free to use. Okay, legalito, it's like log in, have a look, have a play. You don't even have to create the account because we use microsoft office. All right, have a look at it. Yeah, I said to this guy the other week log in, have a play.

Peter Ambrose, Legalito: 48:53

And he said to me if I want to play, I've got a granddaughter for that she's nice okay, thanks, passive, aggressive, but nice yeah you know, I was like that's fine, you do you. But that's the point and that's why we're really excited about getting getting stuff in front of people where they can actually use it, and that's what we always say. What vendors should be doing is like have a look at it, have a play.

Emma Waddingham, Legal News Wales: 49:15

If people can't use software without going on a five-day residential course, yeah, something's wrong with it one of the and I think, the fact that it's born out of your work through the partnership, as you say, you really want to make and see this change. It's not a one kind of mission which is around legal tech. It's born out of practice and experience.

Peter Ambrose, Legalito: 49:37

And real frustration, genuine frustration, and that's what we're trying to do, and what I need is I need people to go. You know what you're right it is frustrating and we do trying to do, and what I need is I need people to go. You know what you're right it is frustrating and we do need to do something about it. And don't care whether you use us, whether you use legalito or whatever, I don't care but for goodness sake, please get to the point where you go. We've got a really we're having a really tough time and we need to do something about it okay.

Emma Waddingham, Legal News Wales: 50:00

thank you, peter. It has been, as ever, such a pleasure to speak to you. I'm really looking forward to seeing you in person and welcoming you to Swansea at the end of the month. I'll obviously will be sharing this before, but if you hear this, after the event, there'll be lots of chatter and lots of updates on Legal News World, so follow the conversation there. It's been a pleasure and I hope that you have lovely, lovely rest of the couple of weeks until we meet again absolutely.