Top 10 Technology Trends in Legal Industry

Top 10 Technology Trends in Legal Industry It is just wondering to know that the investment record point for technology in the Legal industries had reached to $1bn in the year 2019. Looking at this fact, we can imagine how consistently technology is growing in the Legal sector. Technology adoption in the law firms would impeccably improve the working strategies and help in accuracy with fewer efforts. Over time, we are constantly facing the latest technology trends in this digital world and these trends have the calibre to challenge the complexities of Legal businesses with the assistance of legal software development companies. These can help in daily work activities like financial management solutions, billing, etc. by making them automated. Simplify cumbersome manual tasks “Given my experience building Native alongside top lawyers and law firms, we can see an obvious trend emerging in the legal industry for the application of technology and machine learning, which is being used to simplify cumbersome manual tasks typically required of law providers like record keeping, document filing/ preparation, as well as contract reviewing. At Native that is exactly what we do - simplify processes for lawyers and law firms while simultaneously democratizing the ability for anybody to afford legal counsel. These automation improvements will pave the path for the legal industry to be more affordable, as well as a more consumer friendly experience available to a larger percentage of the population.” -Tom Treadway, Founder of Technologies, LLC Use of smart contracts “While blockchain has dropped out of the news, it is still a viable technology, and one of the most compelling use cases is the use of smart contracts. These are contracts that will release funds when certain conditions are met. Once more layers are put in place, it will be relatively easy to automate many kinds of transactions, storing how the conditions were met, taking verified signatures and storing them in the blockchain record. As bitcoin has become just a volatile store of data, other chains they provide more use cases are growing, including Ripple and Blockstack. Blockstack is a multi-layered protocol that would enable using different aspects of blockchain into other non-blockchain apps. Definitely something to watch.” -Drew Falkman, Director at Create, Inc Read More: Top 10 Technology Trends In Finance Industry Legal analytics “Many businesses, including law firms, are restructuring and analyzing business performance in light of the changing market conditions and client needs. By using Legal Analytics, firms can make data-driven decisions for long term and short term planning. Our client, Lex Machina, has outlined 6 ways that firms can use Legal Analytics to win cases: Identify new clients & demonstrate expertise with instant insights into their case Learn your client’s preferred strategy Search track records of specific attorneys, teams and judges Demonstrate past performance before a judge Back up claims with instant data insights One-click data sharing with clients, business partners, and colleagues According to the 2020 ALM Legal Analytics Survey infographic, 70% of firms are already using legal analytics, 90% of users say Legal Analytics make them a better, more informed, more efficient and effective lawyer and 98% of users say Legal Analytics have improved their law firm’s performance.” -Candice Stokes, PR Coordinator at Venture PR Virtual environment to communicate with the clients “As the world is ever-evolving, so is the legal industry. There are a lot of upcoming technologies out there that will take the legal industry into the future. As for my law firm, we are already switching to virtual environments in communicating with our clients. We want to cater to all of our clients’ needs without them having to travel to go to our office. Below are two trends that we see happening in the legal industry. 1. Virtual Court and Legal Proceedings: Judges, attorneys, plaintiffs, and defendants no longer need to be in the courtroom. They can just go into a virtual courtroom where they have avatars as a way to interact with the people in the virtual courtroom. 2. Mobile Billing: Invoice will be sent through your client’s smartphones and in turn, they would also use their smartphones to pay lawyers. Bitcoins may also be used as a form of payment.” -Jacob J. Sapochnick, Founder of h1b.biz Ability to use zoom or video tech apps “The legal industry has traditionally been one of the slowest to adopt new technology. That has recently shifted due to both necessities related to Covid-19 and the availability of trusted technology. The biggest change we have experienced as a personal injury law firm is the ability to use zoom or like video tech to do depositions, mediations and even Court hearings while working from home. Lawyers and judges who were set in their ways, have been forced to adapt or face an enormous backlog of cases which would have a horrific chilling effect on justice as we know it. Through trying times, we have had to adapt as lawyers, the abilities to use tech to keep our industry moving has been an absolute blessing. We see the shift to using tech effectively allowing for better work-life balance to be the norm going forward -Ted Kaplun, Founding Partner at KaplunMarx Paperless is the new norm for law firms “I believe going paperless is going to be the new norm for law firms moving forward. Paper files can grow unwieldy in more extensive cases and become difficult to move or organize. Often paralegals or case managers (who do the majority of the groundwork on a case) organize the files differently, so trying to find a particular document varies from file to file. Scanning all documents and pleadings into .pdf format and uploading them to the cloud allows for uniform files and the ability to access the documents from anywhere. This also allows you to share the file with experts or other consultants without the added expense of copying and mailing the entire file. Given the current global health concerns, being able to share and access a file seamlessly from anywhere is becoming more and more necessary. The courts have already begun to transition to e-filing, further reducing the need for traditional paper files. E-filing saves attorneys, and therefore their clients, time and money and will likely become the norm in the coming years.” -Jordan W Peagler, Esq., Partner at MKP Law Group Searching for Reliable Custom Software Development Company? Contact Now See here Digital contracts are on a high “The biggest tech change in the Legal industry that I’ve seen is digital contracts! As more and more apps and providers force us to agree to their online terms and conditions, we as consumers get de-sensitized to the contracts—we’re less likely to read them or even think about them as binding or real contracts. It’s crazy to me how long these contracts are getting, on average they’re far longer than encyclopedias! If a person were presented with these contracts, printed out, many of them would have over a foot of printed papers! The consumer would probably call a lawyer to review it before signing it, if they considered signing it at all. These online contracts are just as binding on everyone as it would be with an in-hand wet signature. It’s changing the industry because any business owner that hires an attorney can literally write the rules of the game, for their business, and their long contract will very likely get signed, even though it’s verbose!” -Jonathan Sparks, Founder of Sparks Law Social Media Social media is not just known for viral videos, funny memes, Newsfeed but also for doing business and marketing. In fact, it is a legitimate tool for growing business and explore the potential of it. Social media helps in recognizing the ethical issues, happening of injustice, frauds, etc. which could help in deriving the conclusion. Social media plays a vital role in gathering the evidence and can save many lives from being spoiled with wrong judgments. Millennials Currently, we are experiencing the latest generational shift in the Law sector. You can find so many Millennials getting graduated from Law schools and joining the workforce. As they belong to the technological generation, they bring ways of utilizing technologies in the Legal sector,possibly enhancing work accuracy with saving time. They can change the structure of the working environment by indulging latest technology trends in the work frame. Remote Work In the upcoming years, working remotely would become a craze because of the mobile devices which have becomecommon these days. Gone are the days where the Lawyers have to stick in the offices even for a small work purpose.Despite being in any situation, now they can just connect their enterprise system with RDC and finish their work flawlessly. Conclusion Technology trendsin Legal Sector would play an impeccable role and help in automating plenty of crucial activities.Utilizing proper tools with these technologies can change the vision of the Legal industry.These could help lawyers in many ways like flagging the errors in the Case related files, faster case research, etc., and notify them how to be prepared. Hence taking the next step for adopting technology is highly recommended for the Legal industry.

Kapil Panchal

A passionate Technical writer and an SEO freak working as a Content Development Manager at iFour Technolab, USA. With extensive experience in IT, Services, and Product sectors, I relish writing about technology and love sharing exceptional insights on various platforms. I believe in constant learning and am passionate about being better every day.