No-Code / Low-Code: Zooming In on the Legal Industry

The increased investment in legal technology is taking many forms. A different approach is needed, and I’m seeing many law firms leading the way by for example employing digital specialists to work alongside law professionals. Similarly, I’ve seen the introduction of the 'innovation hour', which grants law professionals the time to innovate, something the traditional billable hour model fails to do.

Though a little late to the party, the legal sector is now moving towards cloud-based computing and reaping the benefits of improved security, collaboration, and accessibility.

Legal professionals are highly skilled, and their time is valuable. By automating processes, these professionals can focus on providing the best possible services to clients, instead of spending hours on simple, repetitive tasks.

Why no-code over traditional coding for app development in legal?

No-code makes it easy to align legal- and IT professionals. Legal professionals are best positioned to know how to serve their clients. Now they can be involved in the development process, through a drag-and-drop interface. This leads to products that lower costs and better fulfill client needs.

Besides that, we hear from our customers that modern employees want to do more themselves when it comes to creating solutions, and expect the right tools from their employer.

Last but not least, no-code offers you the opportunity to develop at light speed to beat your competition. Increased competition means a fast time-to-market is critical. Pre-built components enable rapid development and changes are deployed instantly. Updates are fully automated and instant across all platforms.

Six tips that help you implement new technology into your law firm

I can imagine that implementing new software into your (legal) organization is exciting since your software has an impact on almost every process. Learning something new is never easy—especially when it comes to technology. But holding back on implementing new technology at your law firm hinders its growth for sure.?

Here are six ways to successfully implement new technology into your organization:

1. Start with the basics. Focus on tools that improve communication, documents, workflow management, and practice management.

2. Make sure everyone is on the same page. Create an environment where open dialogue is encouraged to ensure your team is comfortable with technology.?

3. Stay focused on your goals. It can be easy to get distracted by all the different legal-tech options—stay focused by ensuring each tool helps achieve overall firm goals.?

4. Review and improve processes. Include key stakeholders in conversations about what tech is working and areas where it can be improved.?

5. Outsource implementation. Allow legal professionals to focus on practicing law by outsourcing the implementation and execution of new technology.??

6. Create an implementation process. Create an evaluation and implementation process when reviewing new technologies to ensure they’re in line with firm goals.?

The legal tech movement should not be about centralizing power and maximizing profits for the traditional legal industry. It should be about making legal work better, faster, and easier in order to serve the end-user.

Three companies that successfully implemented new technologies

Below are three companies from the legal industry, each of which has implemented new technologies in its own way.

1. Norton Rose Fulbright (NRF)

Leading international law firm Norton Rose Fulbright (NRF) has created a fusion team that built 27+ proven business applications with the Betty Blocks no-code platform. With this achievement, NRF became a leader in legal technology.?

With those applications, the British-American multinational law firm, for example, reduced its document generating process from 30 hours to 30 minutes and decreased time-to-market and maintenance by five to ten times.?

By implementing fusion teams and no-code, NRF is now able to:

● Exceed client expectations on timing and deliver

● Easily onboard new developers

● Leverage other technologies to create a unified client experience

● Integrate all applications with main business applications

● Use API integrations to seamlessly connect to other systems

Meanwhile, rapid application development enables the company to respond quickly to market changes, client needs, and internal issues.

2. Clifford Chance

Among the UK-based law firms that make up the Magic Circle – five of the most prestigious law firms in the world – is Clifford Chance. The end goal of the partnership between Clifford Chance and Betty Blocks is to empower lawyers to bring more value to clients through using their extensive skills and knowledge, rather than spending their time on repetitive admin tasks.

Strategically implementing no-code is how organizations can derive maximum value from no-code and realize their long-term software development goals. The benefits include:

● Far fewer resources spent on maintenance;

● Automatic updates across all applications;

● Less reliance on third-party vendors and off-the-shelf products;

● Business-side employees are empowered to bring value to the development process, leading to a closer alignment between business and IT, better products, and increased client satisfaction.

Clifford Chance intends to build on their success by focusing on smaller use cases and bringing more of the development in-house. This is the first step in the transition from single-app solutions to strategic implementation.

3. Mazars

Mazars is an internationally integrated partnership, specializing in audit, accountancy, advisory, tax, and legal services. In just three months, led by the Digital Solutions team and partnered with Betty Blocks, Mazars in Germany has implemented citizen development: creating a bespoke low-code/no-code (LCNC) foundation for business users to build applications, governed and supported by the Digital Solutions team.

The Digital Solutions team at Mazars in Germany sought a solution for their complex and short-term problems and found citizen development. Through application development by business users, the application development process is IT-sanctioned and done in collaboration with or led by the relevant subject matter experts. Thus, those experiencing the problems are quickly building and implementing their solutions. This offers a huge competitive advantage.

Wrapping up?

No-code / low-code is influencing a lot of different industries, including the legal industry. A different approach is needed and companies are very creative with ways to do this.?Holding back on implementing new technology at your law firm hinders its growth. The movement of legal tech is all about making legal work better, faster, and easier in order to serve the end-user.??

I’m excited to see what the no-code / low-code movement will bring us in the near future. It has so much more potential than many people recognize. According to Gartner, legal technology spending will be threefold by 2025. These predictions only make me more excited about the future of no-code / low-code and citizen development.?

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