Monthly Musings Edition #2

Hello everyone,?

For my second‘Monthly Musings’ edition, I’d like to shine a spotlight on some of the insights that were shared in the recently launched 2021 Global Legal Tech Report (GLTR).

Commissioned by the Australian Legal Technology Association (#ALTA), produced by Eric Chin from Alpha Creates and project managed by Stevie Ghiassi , I was lucky enough to be invited to host the launch of the report on the 27th?April 2022.???

During the session, to understand how legal tech is transforming the legal profession and why it matters, Eric took a step back and discussed the broader historical context of the adoption of technology in the legal industry.??Eric then moved onto providing us a snapshot of the current state of global legal technology today, followed by an interactive and engaging panel discussion with the President of ALTA, Julian Uebergang , and Global Director of Innovation Programs at Dentons, Tanja Podinic .

I’ve shared a summary of my learnings from the 2021 GLTR launch below.??If you would like to download a copy of the 2021 GLTR, head to?https://www.globallegaltechreport.com/report/global-report-2021/

Enjoy!

A brief history of Legal Technology?

The first legal technology company can be traced back to 1982.??By the 1990s, word processing was being taken up by the legal profession in a big way, mainly in the form of document management software which then evolved to centralised databases of documents that kept track of changes and amendments.??

However, many law firms were initially very resistant to using technology and the internet, but client demand to use email encouraged most law firms to take this up as a mode of communication from 1995 onwards.??It was also during this time that law firms started to create websites, however, there was much skepticism around whether clients would use a website to find a lawyer!

Interestingly, the legal industry’s uptake of technology wasn’t interrupted by the dotcom bust of 2001, primarily because of the legal industry’s resistance and lack of appetite for ‘new’ technology, and so by the early 2000s most law firms had comparable systems to their corporate clients.???

2010 saw the rise of the ‘New Law’ firm and this signaled a major increase in small to medium sized firms using legal technology to deliver legal services more efficiently and conveniently to clients.??

As more law firms around the globe started to move away from the traditional billable hour model, lawyers’ interest in legal technology grew, and in 2015, 73% of the 148 legal tech companies that were surveyed in the 2020 Global Legal Tech Report were founded in this year, with the biggest number of legal tech companies being launched in 2019.

COVID, whilst tragic, was a great motivator for the last frontline of law firms who were resistant to adopting legal technology, and now you will be hard pressed to find an Australian law firm who doesn’t use several types of legal tech today.??Interestingly, stats Eric shared from the 2021 GLTR revealed that the net effect on the legal industry from Covid had been positive, both financially and culturally, for law firms.

The current state of legal technology today

Eric outlined that there are 35 Legal Tech product categories in the global legal technology market today.??

The top 3 categories are document automation (44%), legal operations (36%) and task management (30%).

The fastest rising categories of legal technology are collaboration platforms (29%) and online legal service platforms (28%).

New emerging categories of legal technology that have arisen since 2020 include online dispute resolution platforms (7%) and pricing platforms (3%).??

My Conclusions

Overall, I’m pleased to say that lawyers have (finally) largely moved away from being frightened of technology to a view that technology improves their efficiency, enables them to provide better legal services and have more trusted relationships with their clients.

Whilst women in legal technology are still grossly disproportionate to the number of women in law (53%), I’m so proud to say that Australia is leading the way globally in female-founded legal tech companies, with a jump from 21% in the 2020 GLTR to 29% in the 2021 GLTR.??As the Committee Chair of the Women of Australian Legal Technology Association (#WALTA) that makes me very happy, although we still have much work to do!

If you would like to support or sponsor WALTA and help us in our mission to increase the funding, visibility, and voice of women in legal technology in Australia, please head to?www.alta.law/walta/ ??

If you would like to come and experience live demos of some of the best Aussie legal tech in the market, head here to register to attend ALTA's Expo Afternoon on Wednesday June 15th from 4-7pm at Collins House in Melbourne CBD - https://alta.law/events/expoarvomeljune2022/ . (I have a few free tickets to giveaway, so if you leave a comment on my post, I'll send you a comp code to attend!).

Thanks for reading my ‘Monthly Musings’ for June!??I look forward to sharing more of my insights and learnings about legal technology and progressive legal service delivery next month.??