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13 I L T A N E T . O R G T here's tremendous variability in how the legal industry approaches innovation and technology initiatives, and that range is greater still when you expand the scope to different jurisdictions and regions worldwide. Through a series of interviews with innovation leaders and a review of published materials, we've explored the factors that influence innovation levels across different regions. Namely, this article focuses on the UK, Africa, Australia, and India. We found many interrelated factors are at play: regional regulations, the maturity of the legal services industry, competitive pressures, and willingness to make financial investments in innovation and technology initiatives. Of course, there are significant variations across firms within the same region, influenced mainly by their business culture. Before we consider those factors in depth, though, we must define what we mean by innovation and evaluate the goals underlying innovative actions. The Spectrum of Innovation Innovation is not a monolith. It runs along a spectrum from the minuscule to the majestic and encompasses technology, process, or both. At one end are incremental changes to existing methods and processes. These efficiency drivers are often small initially, yet over time they can produce marked results. On the other side of the spectrum are seismic disruptions, which may involve doing something in an entirely novel way or done something that no one has done before. The disruption reinvents how a firm completes a task or follows a process. Innovation is, therefore, a process of both incremental changes and seismic shifts. It may affect technology and process, as each will have different primary challenges. With technological innovation, adoption is often the biggest challenge. How do you get users engaged and active with the technology, so business yields a positive return on its investment? Process changes may or may not involve technology. In these instances, often change management is the obstacle to overcome. How do you introduce the change and convince legal professionals to embrace it? This begs another question—why innovate at all? What's The Purpose Behind Innovation? Before a firm embarks on the transformation journey, the business needs to establish what it is looking to accomplish. There are regional factors that introduce a difference in approach, but also common ground to be found. As Caryn Sandler, Partner & Chief Knowledge and Innovation Officer at leading Australian firm Gilbert + Tobin, explains, "There is a large variation within and between geographies, with some firms engaging and pushing the boundaries of what can be done in this space, and others only starting their transformation journey. There is now a general recognition in legal of the imperative for innovation and transformation globally, and we're seeing different ways of achieving that goal play out within law firms and in house." These regional variations impact the type of initiative that a firm may undertake. In new and emerging legal markets, it is harder to justify spending money on technology where the business need has yet to be proven. Instead, we find that these areas may readily embrace new processes—as they don't have the inertia of established methods to overcome. On the other hand, in mature and highly competitive legal markets, law firms and legal service providers can add value for their clients by making

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