“While there are some companies that talk about robot-lawyers, at Thomson Reuters we believe that technology has an essential place in helping lawyers achieve the best outcomes for their clients,” Mr Jarvis said.

“It’s not about replacing a lawyer with a robot. It’s about providing the lawyer with technology that enables them to make better decisions and see insights more clearly or faster than they would without it.

“Our goal is to continue to be a very important part of the legal profession by providing lawyers with the means of getting the information they need, and identifying what’s going to matter to their clients, enabling them to bring the right answers to the table. So if you think about technology in that context there are many aspects. Technology just helps improve the quality of what we do as professionals, and that’s really where Thomson Reuters is playing.”

Going forward, Mr Jarvis said it’s important for providers like Thomson Reuters to respond to what’s happening in the market. He noted the group’s goal is not to take away valuable work but to enhance the role of its legal clients and create greater efficiencies across the board.

“We follow a design thinking approach. At the heart of that is simply that what we look to do with technology starts with an understanding of the lawyers and their goals, and priorities and the challenges they have,” he explained.

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“A lawyer doing work today can likely identify problem areas in that work, or places where they think they could be more efficient. Those challenges become opportunities for us to say, ‘How can we enhance that workflow with a new technology solution?’.

“So, our strategy is to work with the lawyers to identify the problems they need to solve, and then find the best technology to actually solve that problem. There isn’t one technology solution – the problems are diverse so it’s about working out what the best solution is for the particular problem the lawyers need to solve.”