Here’s the introduction to their piece….
When it comes to new tech, the legal industry tends to move at tectonic speeds: slow build-ups of tension and time, then a sudden lurch that shakes the filing cabinets. We’ve already seen this last year, when Forbes reported a 713% spike in LegalTech investment, now up to $1.63 billion. Musty, traditionalist firms have been resistant to change for a long time, but increased competition and rising client expectations are shaking them out of complacency.
“While the use of technology to automate legal processes probably started as an efficiency and cost cutting drive, the focus seems to have evolved in the last few years,” says Joni Pirovich from independent firm, Hall & Wilcox. “Our clients are experimenting with emerging technologies, and they expect us to understand those technologies, so we can get straight onto the business of advising and managing legal risk.”
So what are the next big LegalTech trends? And how fast is tech adoption moving in legal circles?
A shift to the Cloud
It’s fair to say the legal industry came late to the Cloud, but that was largely driven by (pretty legitimate) security concerns. This year we should see more widespread adoption and migration to cloud-based platforms, which are generally cheaper and more flexible. Firms no longer have to build their own resource-heavy, IT infrastructure, and they can access files remotely from anywhere. According to the ABA 2018 TechReport, mobile data access is a big driver behind legal cloud adoption, not to mention the obvious advantages with disaster recovery. Data security and sensitive client information are still a big concern, of course, which is why we should see a bigger focus on education and training: upskilling lawyers in data best practice, cyber hygiene and emerging digital privacy regulations (like the new NDB Scheme).
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