Legal tech is more popular and relevant than ever – the market for legal tech startups is booming and more and more new and smart technologies and solutions are being developed. Legal Tech is creating new opportunities to streamline and restructure the legal industry. But how exactly does legal tech work, and how do the solutions and technologies emerging from legal tech contribute to this restructuring and efficiency? Read on to learn more about Legal Tech and how some of the technologies in the industry work.
Legal Tech is made up of “Legal Services” and “Technology” and is a term for the technologies and software used in the legal industry. Legal tech is helping to increasingly automate both individual work processes and entire legal services in order to increase efficiency and quality while saving costs. These are solutions both for the legal industry itself and for consumers.
In general, Legal Tech makes work easier for lawyers and others working in the legal industry, for example, by automating workflows or parts of them that would normally require many man-hours. This could be, for example, analytical work and contract management. There is also Legal Tech that allows consumers to connect with lawyers much more easily through online portals (marketplaces). As well as software that, in some cases, allows consumers to not even have to consult with an attorney. Read on to learn how some of these technologies work.
Read on to learn how some of these technologies work.
The different functions of Legal Tech
Chatbots
Chatbots are used in many different industries to engage with customers both during and outside of normal working hours. A chatbot is a computer program that simulates a human conversation via voice or text – or both. A chatbot uses pre-programmed phrases or artificial intelligence algorithms to read customers’ messages and respond to them via live chat. Chatbots can provide quick answers to questions and gather information about a customer’s needs. In the legal industry, chatbots make it possible to record facts and automatically create legal documents, evaluate the legal situation, trigger further automated steps, and make recommendations for specific actions. In addition, chatbots can also help with paperwork management. So by using chatbots, companies and especially lawyers and law firms can streamline processes and make work more efficient.
Digital contracts and contract software
Digital contracts and contract software are solutions from the Legal Tech industry that have really taken off. The contract software solution provides huge time and cost savings to the legal industry and especially to lawyers and law firms. Digital contracts and contract software allow all contracts to be brought together online so that they are available on all devices, to all relevant staff and at all times of the day.
One of the great advantages of digital contracts is that you don’t have to deal with physical contracts that take up a lot of space and are unhandy. At the same time, digital contracts and contract software also let you create new contracts quickly and easily. For example, by using easily customizable templates, you can create new contracts that all have the same look and feel. Auto-completion makes filling out the contract fast, and with a simple electronic signature, you can quickly complete the work on the contract. So everything can be done online, and there’s no need to mail contracts and wait unnecessarily long for signatures. Instead, everything can be done quickly and efficiently, leaving more time for more important tasks.
Online platforms
Legal tech has also opened up solutions for consumers, as mentioned earlier. One of the solutions is online portals or marketplaces where consumers can quickly and easily find a lawyer that meets their needs. In addition, there are also marketplaces where lawyers answer consumers’ questions. For this, the lawyers charge a pre-agreed fee. These marketplaces make it easier to answer simple legal questions and are also cost-effective as well as time-saving. This is a particularly popular solution for individuals who need quick help with simple problems. Solutions like these can also help reach new clients who otherwise wouldn’t seek legal advice.
Will Legal Tech make lawyers redundant?
With so many smart solutions in the Legal Tech space, the question is whether digitization could make some lawyers obsolete. On the one hand, these new technologies can offer low-cost legal products and smart solutions with artificial intelligence. This will transform the legal industry by taking over some legal services. On the other hand, there are also technologies that will make much of the hands-on work redundant and allow lawyers to focus more on the client and provide better service. The two trends are running in parallel, and artificial intelligence has yet to take all the work away from lawyers. In fact, legal tech has improved the work of those lawyers and law firms that have embraced it. Lawyers and law firms should therefore not hesitate to position themselves digitally to remain marketable in the future.