Law firms' dependence on hourly billing is holding them back from devising new, more efficient ways of working, according to Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer chief legal innovation officer Isabel Parker.

Parker told attendees at Legal Week's Strategic Technology Forum 2018 – which took place in Italy last week – that "billable hours do not help innovation".

She argued that firms need to move away from hourly billing in order to encourage their partners to adopt more innovative ways of working and speed up client service. She said: "If partners in any firm think it's still acceptable to charge clients for that firm's inefficiencies, it's not; and clients welcome a move towards more fixed pricing."

Her remarks came during the second day of the annual event at Lake Maggiore, in a session entitled 'Maximising AI: What are the opportunities for law firms?' Sitting alongside Parker on the panel were Alphaserve Technologies chief executive officer Arup Das, Davies information technology director Ivaylo Nikolov and LCA innovation officer Marco Imperiale.

Parker added that she is "occasionally still met with blank faces" from partners when trying to push for change. Instead, she is encouraged by associates at Freshfields who are moving the narrative forward to "embed cultural change" across the firm.

Meanwhile, during another panel discussion on how law firms are adapting to new challenges, firms were encouraged to collaborate with third parties to provide better client service.

KPMG partner and head of digital disruption Shamus Rae said some firms are "embarrassed" to admit to clients that they are partnering with outside organisations, and that some are "not prepared to accept some services can do a better job providing services than the ones they already have".

He was joined on the panel (pictured above) by Fulcrum Global Technologies senior vice-president and EMEA chief Martin Telfer, LOD co-founder Jonathan Brenner, Axiom Europe managing director Sandra Devine, Baker McKenzie executive director James Richards and Riverview Law non-executive director Adam Shutkever.

Richards, who leads Bakers' Belfast global services legal centre, said that developments in automated tech mean day-to-day work is not always "valuable enough to be done by expensive human beings". He added that in the future, lawyers need expertise in these new ways of working and should be "the gatekeepers of new technology".

Cybersecurity also featured on the agenda, with last year's dramatic cyberattack at DLA Piper mentioned within the opening remarks from co-chair Derek Southall, head of innovation and digital at Gowling WLG.

The session examined law firms' adoption of cloud-based services, with panel member and Mimecast senior vice-president and chief trust officer Marc French stating that law firms' number one concern when choosing a cloud provider is security assurance.

He said: "If a customer comes back and says, 'I'm uncomfortable', we show them what we can do to increase their comfort level – we employ independent security assessors, we work directly with your incident response teams and we show them the size of our security teams."

He also encouraged firms not to think of the services as an efficiency measure, highlighting that businesses will more often pay more for cloud services, because "they are buying innovation or resources they are unable to staff themselves".