2021 #legaltech and legal industry trends & predictions, South Africa.

Much like most predictions, these below are just a collection of thoughts and quiet observations of both the legal and legal tech industry in South Africa and the Year that 2020 has been.

Increased remote work.

COVID19 and the lockdown that came with it forced lawyers to start rethinking how they perform legal tasks. The legal framework and how lawyers use and interface with technology has changed.

This is signified by the emergence of platforms such as Lawyers Working from home. A platform that facilitates a law marketplace for lawyers and clients and a place where lawyers can collaborate and connect with each other.

We've seen this even in litigation matters, where matters are conducted over Zoom.

We will continue to see this and perhaps a dedicated platform. Personally, I'd like to see court management software like Caselines integrate a Video API functionality, this will make following each case much easier, with the case workflow centralized from start to finish.

Emerging Technologies

With the increase of globalization, there's a trend in other jurisdictions of emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence and machine learning that are replacing manual tasks in legal enterprises. These tasks involve assorting the paperwork, carrying out legal research, documentation, citation, and ensuring litigation support to the contract. Moreover, instead of storing the client’s information in a hard disk, most law firms are looking at cloud services to store confidential information.

Solutions that move towards Artificial intelligence seem to be at the forefront, such as Doc Insight, an Artificially Intelligent Document Review software that allows for you to sift through your legal documents intelligently, sift through data more efficiently, and efectively to help you and your clients.

We see more use of Artificial Intelligence in the legal tech Startup world, such as LUMA Law, an AI chatbot that uses Machine learning and Natural Language Processing to help users navigate their legal issues.

With the fast-changing world, increased globalization, and accelerated adoption of technologies the legal framework is getting redefined. The legal firms are looking at various options to expand their services.

The integration of technology is just the beginning of redefining the legal framework. The legal workforce thus has a positive outlook in the future. I see more of this happening in 2021 and beyond.

Cloud Computing and its Adoption.

It is natural that with increased remote work, that cloud computing and its adoption shall increase. For better security and safety of legal work that lawyers will be performing remotely.

Data security and privacy.

It follows that with moving legal work to the cloud which by its nature is sensitive, more protection and security will be required. There will be an increased need for security and protection.

Micro-niches

Micro-niches and demand for specialized legal services will likely increase in 2021. While most small law firms have focused on general legal work, there is a push from clients for specialization, they want more focus on their specific needs. This will force lawyers to start rethinking how they position themselves.

Micro-niche markets are good for focus and marketing strategies, better insights, and greater ability to help clients through specialization.

Client-centric and transparency

Though difficult to imagine, what COVID19 has done is to push clients to be more pocket conscious and require transparency in Legal fees. They've had access to and more time to sift the internet seeking legal services on their own terms and often require a talk on legal fees that they are required to pay. This means lawyers will be pushed to cater not only to their legal needs but to look beyond and see their clients holistically.

As stated, these are just observations, and much like we could not predict a pandemic this year, a lot can happen to change the above.

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Yours in Legal Tech and Innovation,

Leah Molatseli