The chief innovation officer position has varying duties based on a company's or law firm's needs, but CIOs say one of the position's biggest roles is ensuring lawyers aren't left behind in a technologically advancing and diversifying world.

Two current CIOs and a legal technology manager are scheduled to speak during "Innovative Law Departments: New Roles Highlight the Importance of Innovation in Law Departments," a Legalweek panel Jan. 30. The trio will discuss what their individual duties are and how they measure their role's success in the hype-filled realm of "innovation."

The speakers include: Marsh & McLennan Cos. Inc. chief legal innovation counsel Farrah Pepper; Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe chief legal innovation officer Wendy Curtis; and Amy Hinzmann, Consilio LLC client experience officer.

As the CIO position is relatively new in the in-house legal department and outside counsel world, their duties vary. For instance, some CIOs focus on generating revenue, while others do not.

To Pepper, the nascent role commonly entails, among other things, keeping or setting the pace of transformation in the legal industry; creating innovation incubators; implementing technology, especially artificial intelligence; and using AI to inform business decisions. Pepper added that CIOs launch innovative processes and implement and evaluate their effectiveness.

"[The chief legal innovation counsel's] acronym is 'CLIC,' so when people ask what I do, I make things click," Pepper explained. "The CLIC has to move the needle. … The CLIC matches up with what the law firms are doing, establishing R&D incubators, jump-starting cultural change [and] designing and aligning change to corporate structure."

While innovation and AI may be seen as empty words by some, for Pepper, such innovation must lead to tangible results.

"If it's not driving value or happiness or monetary outcomes, you have to revisit why are we doing it this way," she added.

Innovation has also lead to an increase of non-lawyer hiring in legal, as lawyers use alternative measures to leverage their trove of data for clients.

"When you go to tackle a problem, the more experience and talent you bring the better the outcome," said Curtis.

Likewise, e-discovery has been a springboard for innovative and diverse non-lawyer skill sets, the CIOs noted.

"E-discovery has really been the innovation hub or lab for a lot of these technologies that we see applied in a lot of legal work," Curtis said. "I think the e-discovery workflow will drive change and be an example of how this [innovation] could work."

To Hinzmann, e-discovery is constantly advancing because of the amount of data it entails and making it cost-effective for clients is paramount. "If we aren't innovating in e-discovery you are dying," she said.

For the panel speakers, innovation isn't just hype. Instead, it represents a proactive stance in a transforming legal industry.

"This culture shift is an unstoppable wave at this point," Pepper explained. "For folks that may be retiring in the next year, maybe they can get by with doing what they have already done, but everyone else better grab their surfboards."