Artificial Lawyer Mag writes…
There is no shortage of empirical evidence highlighting how a diverse workforce has an outsized, positive impact on a team, company and/or industry. There is likewise a similar body of research drawing a causal nexus between successful technology adoption and a company or industry’s performance. We set out to see if there was a positive feedback loop between both diversity and technology adoption in the legal industry and whether it could drive a ‘sum is greater than its parts’ impact for law firms.
An increasing number of firms are implementing legal tech and diversity is slowly improving across the profession. But, it is up to the lawyers working within law firms to understand if and how they are linked and why these are both important factors for the future success of the industry.
The crux of the matter is that the creation of a stronger law firm relies, partly, on the hiring of a diverse workforce. It just so happens that one of the easiest ways to enable this is through the use of legal tech.
The adoption rate of legal tech is growing
The rise of legal tech has been frequently and clearly documented over the past few years. Since the height of the pandemic, it has greatly increased the number of ways a client can access a law firm. Not only do we see the adoption of legal tech growing, but the budgets available for those already implementing it have too.
For example, Gartner predicted that by 2025, legal tech spending will have increased to around 12% of in-house budgets, based on the increase from 2.6% in 2017 to 3.9% in 2020. Data from Statista also shows that the worldwide legal tech market is set to generate $35.6 billion in revenue in 2027, up from $27.6 billion in 2021.
Diverse teams are needed for future success
Diversity in law has seen slow improvements over the past few years. They are there, but they aren’t happening at a rate comparable to the wider workforce. This obviously needs to change, not only because law should be representative of the communities and environment in which they operate but also because studies have shown how a diverse team tends to make better decisions, but also because some clients are now choosing law firms based on how diverse they are.
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