Technology companies – such as Google, Apple, and Amazon – have enjoyed unprecedented levels of growth in recent years and their influence has had a clear impact on the legal industry. A wide range of emerging technologies and innovative processes have caused disruptive changes and the digital revolution in the market for legal services. Aimed at reducing costs and improving the efficiency and delivery of legal services to clients, LegalTech has played an increasingly important role in assisting legal professionals in their core functions.
As much as this presents new opportunities for the legal industry, concerns have been raised about the impact it will have on jobs. But first, here are a few examples of how technology is being used in the legal profession.
Contract review
Technology has been deployed to make the process of contract review, production, negotiation, and signing more efficient. Some examples of this software Uhura, Luminance, and Summarize.
Case Analysis
Technology has also been used to assess the chances of a claim being successful. This replaces the need for an individual to review the paperwork and reach a decision, improves efficiency, and reduces the number of ‘wrong’ decisions. The artificial intelligence used learns from existing claims data. This gives lawyers an insight into litigation cases and matches elements of the case with past cases to give them an understanding of how others dealt with a similar case. Some examples include Sibyl AI and Litigate.
Case management systems
Electronic case management systems have intuitive interfaces that improve compliance, coordination, and communication. They can be used to track cases and matters across a law firm and provide up-to-date information to its lawyers.
eDiscovery
During the preliminary fact-finding stage of litigation, technology has been deployed to reduce the time spent looking at evidence in large data sets. eDiscovery or electronic disclosure uses technology to identify, review and manage documents as part of the litigation process. eDiscovery systems can be used to review electronic documents and categorize them, make redactions where appropriate, and create the disclosure list, saving the lawyer’s time and the client’s legal fees.
Smart contracts/Blockchain
The use of smart contracts and blockchain technology have changed how parties to an agreement manage their legal obligations. With technology, the terms of a contract can be written as computer code. An example would be ensuring the automatic payment of funds (i.e., as wages or loan repayment) upon certain objectively verifiable triggering events, imposing financial penalties if certain objective triggering conditions are not satisfied. This reduces the chance of a payment deadline or completion stage being missed. Many commercial smart contracts rely on blockchain technology which is a distributed, tamper-proof digital ledger in which transactions are recorded transparently, irrevocably, and chronologically. The Accord Project provides open-sourced software for creating smart contracts.
The law firms currently rely on an army of paralegals, legal secretaries, and legal researchers to discover, index, and process information. However, a report by the Institute for Employment Studies predicted a fall in employment of such support staff roles due to the high uptake of LegalTech.
Some fear that LegalTech is set to replace certain roles in the legal profession. However, many argue that roles that perform practice group and client-specific human touch’ services cannot be easily automated but can only be complemented with technology. For example, LegalTech lack the following:
- empathetic skills (essential for dealing with sensitive matters, addressing jurors, etc)
- professional judgment and skills which a lawyer possesses (such as critical thinking)
- ability to perform human functions (such as attend court hearings, retrieve witness statements, etc)
Additionally, there has also been an influx of new job titles such as ‘Legal Technologist’ to accommodate the growing need for new talent. Technical skills are also now highly demanded by private practice law firms, in-house legal teams, and individual solicitors. For example, Clifford Chance has a distinct IGNITE Training Contract for graduates with STEM or technology experience.
Final thoughts
At the moment, there is no consensus as to how LegalTech will ultimately change the legal profession, but it will certainly transform the way lawyers work and create a host of precedent for the legal industry.
For future lawyers, it is important to understand the principle behind algorithms and AI well enough and to be comfortable enough with these new technologies, as you are highly likely to use them in your future career.
To keep up with the latest legal news, click on legal to get your daily dose.
Donate & Support