Sent a couple of tweets earlier this week suggesting that the whole #legaltech thing in E&W was overly focused on solving problems in law firms and was ignoring the fact that, in contrast to our friends elsewhere in the common law world, we have a *split* professional.

Having spent the day at the @thebarcouncil’s annual conference I’m even more convinced that barristers are being left behind in this wave of innovation sweeping across the legal sector at the moment.

There is something really quite worrying about this. Yes, the money is undoubtedly in the law firm space and the requirements of barristers are harder to squeeze into business models that only really make sense in jurisdictions with fused professions.

But, transplanting current #legaltech thinking into the paradigm of an adjacent industry — health — we’re basically heaping all of our thinking into primary care and secondary care (invasive surgery) is being completely ignored.

Like it or not, the practice of law in E&W is split across two professions that have meaningful distinctions in training, rights of audience, skills and business models.

And it isn’t as if barristers have some minimal role in the administration of justice in E&W. They’re fewer in number, but they’re definitely not “fringe”.

My best guess as to why barristers are not featuring in UK #legaltech thinking is that the ten-a-penny mentality so rife in law firm “innovation” has met its match where the work of the Bar is concerned. The problem space is simply too hard and too scary.