I've always been a bit suspicious of superheroes. Even as a ten-year-old they all left me cold – Superman, Wonder Woman, Spider-Man, Batman. Their unlikely outfits and even less likely skills-of-the-future. I liked stuff that was a bit more grounded in my world – comic book heroes with more useful day-to-day skills like Dennis the Menace and The Bash Street Kids.

It would be easy to blame my lack of imagination, a pedantry about what is possible ("maybe this boy should become a lawyer when he grows up"). In retrospect I'd like to cling on to the hope that I was a bit more enlightened than that – realising that the most useful things were those just a few steps on from what was already real. Like those new trainers that make you feel like you can run faster and bounce higher.

And so what's this got to do with the latest report from Jordan Furlong? Well, as ever, Jordan has given us a little glimpse of a future that we are already half into. There are no magic skills required here – no need to fly, to scale tall buildings or to wear red underpants and calf-high boots over your suit. Instead, what we present here is grounded in the reality of the legal profession today.

For those who have sat through sessions on 'the future of law' the list may even initially seem rather mundane. However, with his usual wit and style, Jordan has managed to encapsulate a 21st century set of skills – what we look for in our LOD lawyers and what we feel are increasingly the skills expected of all us. For some it will come naturally and, for a new generation of lawyers, it will perhaps be baked-in from the start. For me, just being aware of the list makes me think differently and pushes me to make opportunities to learn and practise this stuff.

Even if there's just one thing in this report that strikes a chord with you or your team, we'll take that as a success. Unless it involves getting changed in a phone booth.

Simon Harper is a Berwin Leighton Paisner (BLP) consultant and co-founder of LOD. This article, which originally appeared on the LOD website, has been republished for the Turning Points hub, an online career development resource from Legal Week in association with BLP.