Strategic Legal Futures and Foresight (SLFF) is the application of strategic foresight in the legal sector for the purpose of possible or probable futures in the legal industry. Strategic foresight is an organizational, social, and personal practice that allows us to create functional and operational views of alternative futures and possibilities. Futures studies (colloquially called "futures") is the formal and systematic study of possible, probable, and preferable futures, and of methods of foresight development for individuals, groups, and human society.

Futures thinking is one of the most critical skill sets for organizational leadership today. We depend a lot on hindsight to run our businesses, economies and countries. In our rapidly changing world, this can no longer be our practice. Our leaders must develop the skill of identifying emerging issues, building alternative scenarios, and creating transformational futures.

The SLFF program is a first step to developing foresight skills for legal professionals, especially strategic legal thinkers. Robust legal foresight can be utilised to enhance the quality of strategic decision making in the lawyering ecosystem, especially in complex industrial revolution 4.0 operating environments. This course will enable lawyers to implement legal foresight programs that would improve their organisation’s capacity to realise the opportunities and manage both strategic and operational legal risks in this era of disruptive technological, economic and social change.

Key Takeaways

At the end of the course, participants will be able to:

• Understand and apply strategic legal trends in both the qualitative and quantitative aspects and to understand the drivers behind legal analytical techniques
• Apply a range of legal technology horizon scanning and assessment techniques
• Use blended approaches to the sense-making and communication of foresight findings in the legal context
• Analyse the strategic implications of legal foresight findings for the organisation or project
• Use the findings of legal foresight to guide priority-setting, legal risk management, action planning in the lawyering process, and legal strategy design and development
• Influence the future by communicating vision and managing change in both legal practice as well as in in-house legal departments
• Implement a practical, long term, and flexible strategic legal foresight programme in the organisation

Who Should Attend

This programme has been designed for both lawyers as well as non lawyers who sit in Board of Directors, C-Suite Executives, Executive Leadership teams, Strategic/Transformation teams. Senior Management, and their teams who work on the development of strategic futures and foresight perspectives for their organisations will find this programme highly relevant.

The course is particularly relevant for those engaged in:

• Technology management
• Strategic management
• Innovation
• Business development
• Operations development

This executive program is relevant to both public and private sectors. Corporate runs can be customised to incorporate the topics and issues of specific interest to participants in industry.

Topics covered:

• Political, Economic, Social, Technology, Legal & Environmental (PESTLE) trends and driver analysis
• Strategic and tactical legal trends and drivers analysis
• Horizon scanning and technology assessment in the legal context
• Legal sense-making techniques aiding understanding and communication
• Legal implications analysis, prioritisation of legal liability risk exposures and legal risk management
• Legal action planning and legal strategy development
• Leadership and management of change in the legal industry (industry and government)
• Practical implementation of strategic legal foresight and futures programmes

These topics will be covered in a 2-day, 16-hour programme blending theory, case study and practical workshop exercises that can be applied directly in the workplace.

It can be customised to accommodate the specific projects, topics or issues relevant to course participants. In this case, the workshop will focus on a set foresight project or challenge highlighted by participants.