Head of Global Legal Technology at Facebook

Legal firms are responsible for several jobs on a daily basis, which involves making contracts, data developments, and case analysis, among the many others. They deal with a humungous amount of data work that takes up most of their time. With the changing times, although these job roles have remained constant, the approach to doing them has evolved. With digitalization, an influx of several technologies like artificial intelligence (AI), blockchain, and robotic process automation (RPA) have made life easier for many. For instance, today, AI is one of the fastest-growing technologies in the legal space. It can sort and analyze the case files at an unparalleled speed, saving the lawyers from spending long hours on the monotonous administrative tasks. The proliferation of technology such as these has brought sophistication into the legal services by making them effective, traceable, and transparent. Therefore, technology is here to stay and become even more all-encompassing in our lives.

Embracing the Digital Transformation

In the past decade, digitalization has disrupted many industries, and legal services too have embraced the digital transformation to its fullest. As an industry, we have collectively embarked on the journey of digitalization, where we are making efforts to adopt automation to increase efficiency and drive down costs. We are witnessing the adoption of computer software and solutions that are helping leaders spend more time weighing the intricacies of a case by automating redundant jobs like case documentations. This is to help firms improve efficiency and expand their services by creating new products and services for their clients. We are also seeing some new emerging cloud-based vendors foray into the legal tech space. Amazon, Google, and Microsoft are becoming legal tech competitors as they continue to launch new features that enhance their platforms.

Another important driving factor or change in this decade is the rising awareness about data security among the law firms. With the mounting numbers of data breaches last year, the organizations are placing higher importance on software infrastructure and network security to prevent data breaches in the law firms, permanently. Technologies like blockchain have primarily been instrumental in bringing the change in security management. Besides, multiple mergers and acquisitions can be seen as larger companies are now investing in smaller or medium-sized and accumulating technology to form stronger enterprises.

Technology along with Human Resources

The primary motive behind adopting technology is to incorporate innovations into our business process; it is not a substitute for human resources. In an enterprise, when human labor is coupled with technology, the results are smarter and more intelligent, along with adding values to the core competencies of the business.

 ​In the coming future, technology is meant to become more pervasive, and to leverage that favorable time, the business model of legal firms has to change 

In the coming future, technology is meant to become more pervasive, and to leverage that favorable time, the business model of legal firms has to change. The business models employed for a tech-driven business is different from a traditional one. Consequently, enterprises imitating the traditional business model in a technologically powered world tend to experience more challenges and inefficiencies.

That said, the challenge is change management. The journey of moving from a legacy system-based operation to a digitally supported one is often difficult for companies to complete. One needs a robust change management system, and the executive leaders of a company need to be very careful and outsource the task to the right vendor who can be trusted.

Technology and Process: A Match Made in Heaven

Working in the various law firms for years has helped me realize that technology and process are two critical parts of an organization that goes hand in hand. The aspiring leaders in the sector must focus equally on both and strike a balance between those elements.

The coming times will have a heightened awareness of technology and its utilization in the legal tech domain. More vendors will make use of technologies like AI and RPA to bring efficiency into the business. Several tools that are not specific for legal tech will also be explored to assess their effectiveness. In law firms, the legal tech will become a core piece of their business models and a differentiator for the firms that are ahead of the curve in integrating technology creatively into their service delivery. This will propel innovations in this sector, and yet we have only scratched the surface. Moreover, as companies continue to move to cloud-based solutions, there will be more emphasis on integration and automation between disparate systems. This will save companies from having to procure new turnkey systems. For example, instead of purchasing a new IP system that has advanced features like the e-billing module, an integration pipeline can be built between their existing IP and e-billing systems and enable relevant data to flow between these disparate systems. This will save the company’s capital investments on buying new systems, professional services and training costs. All in all, the year has exciting new pages that will unfold with time and flourish every entity working to improve the space.