What is LegalTech? Understanding its Different Aspects

Quick Go-Through: These ever-changing technologies are influencing every industry in different ways. So, there’s no way that the legal industry will lag! However, there are always two sides to the story – and to take care of the negative side – there comes legal tech. Legal technology supports the legal industry in every feasible way. And to know more about legal tech, I suggest you read the blog. Happy reading!

Rapid technological advancements impact every industrial sector, from how we work to how we interact with other people, and even how we acquire information. And the legal industry is no exception. Software development in legal industries is taking them to another level. It’s a known fact that law organizations are one of the world’s greatest and most precious firms. As per a Statista report, it is expected that the legal services market will value more than USD 900 Billion by 2025. Remarkable, right?

So, gone are the days of in-person meetings and paper-based files - as digital transformation in the legal industry has successfully changed and modernized conventional law practices. However, with advancements, there come some disruptions too. So, it's not at all surprising that the law industry has also become an important, yet not-so-easy target for unwanted chaos, with several tech-efficient organizations looking to grab a moment and capitalize on this opportunity. But no problem comes without a solution. So, we do have a solution for all these disruptions.

And here enters our hero - legal technology.

Legal technology helps support the legal industry and delivers digitized legal services. Simply stated, developing legal software systems helps lawyers worldwide to practice law. All in all, it's a gem for law firms.

Curious to know more about legal technology?

Read on the blog to learn about what is legal technology, what is legal software, its types, benefits of legal technology, challenges, and many more. For heads up - it's gonna be a long, yet exciting ride.

Let’s dive in!

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What is Legal Technology?

Legal technology, also referred to as legal tech or LegalTech, is the use of modern technologies such as Machine Learning, Big Data, Artificial Intelligence, Blockchain, and many more budding technologies that help automate legal work. It also helps to follow an efficient software development approach and provide solutions that provide the utmost assistance and support to the legal industry. LegalTech also helps make legal services more competent, affordable, and productive for lawyers and clients.

In simple words, legal technology helps, automate, and enhance the work of law firms, lawyers, their clients, and even the government. Therefore, it's the use of modern technology to conquer all the challenges and pain points the legal industry struggles with. Some examples of legal software built with this legal technology include legal accounting software, practice management software, case management software, legal billing software, legal management software, legal document management software, and many more.

What is a Legal Software System?

A legal software system is a set of programs that assist law organizations in managing and supporting their day-to-day functioning and operations. It is quite different from on-premises hardware systems and helps legal experts to get more things in more efficient ways, serve clients in better ways, and go home on time (enjoy the little joys in life).

These legal software systems are built keeping in mind the different Legaltech trends and custom software development trends. These systems are the best of both worlds.

Let's understand this with a few examples of legal software systems:

• Enables you to sign documents with e-signatures instead of printing and signing everything by hand (helps save paper too, quite sustainable).
• Legal account software helps accountants keep track of the firm’s finances and assets.
• Practice management software to help lawyers practice.
• Case management software to help streamline case-related aspects for a firm.
• Legal document management software for document automation and storage.

These were only a few of the best examples of legal software.

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Who is a Legal Technology Professional?

A legal technology professional, also known as a legal technologist, is a person who enables organizations to use legal technology to deliver the best legal services.

These individuals don't need to come from a law background or be legal professionals, yet legal technologists have complete know-how to help organizations identify problem areas or pain points and solve them with the help of legal technology.

Hence, legal technologists help in diverse ways, including:

• Deploying practice management software built by Radixweb.
• Setting up your law firm's website.
• Delivering bookkeeping services and online accounting.

At any huge law organization, legal technologists are primarily an important part of their IT (Information Technology) team that assists them to manage all the hardware and software systems that the firm’s workforce use. However, this may not be the case with smaller law firms (as it will not make that much sense).

Therefore, it is more practical to opt for a legal software development company depending on your firm size. Moreover, these legal technologists also have a complete know-how of different legal tech trends and tools.

Now, coming to an important part of our ‘What is legal technology?’ blog, in the following section we’ll learn about several types of legal software. Believe me, it’s quite an interesting topic because here you’ll learn about the greatest impact of technology on the legal profession.

Various Types of Legal Software Systems Law Firms Use

No matter how big or small your law firm is, technology is always a crunch point. There are several types of legal software systems available that help you manage the ever-growing demands and requirements of your law firm.

Some of these legal software systems deliver a single service, some multiple, and others offer a complete package deal. So, let's go through these several types of legal software systems.

• Case Management Software - The case management software system helps manage every aspect of your law organization. These legal software systems also provide a single, cloud-based source of truth where organizations can save, access, and handle all the key client data.

• Practice Management Software - Practice management software assists the law firm in storing and finding any client's contact information easily. This legal software system provides organizations with a central database for contact details. Practice management software delivers a ready-to-use database for easy searching and even promotes the proper management of documents as per contact.

• Legal Billing Software - With the help of legal billing software, you can simplify the whole billing process. It helps to optimize cash flow management by automating the billing process, also integrating debit, credit, EFT/ACH, and different payment gateways. Moreover, you can easily customize the billing software system with Radixweb, as here we adhere to different legal tech trends.

• Legal Document Management Software - The legal document management software enables law firms to automate creating documents with the help of different intelligent templates, saving your precious time and resources.

• Law Firm Management Software - With the help of law firm management software, you can handle all the necessary client details, track the case progress, and organize documents more feasibly. You can also enjoy features and functionalities like lawyer or attorney software, case management, and a virtual law office for practice management.

• Online Payment Processing Software - Incorporating a legal software system for payment processing makes it seamless to pay and get paid. And specifically for law firms, using a generic payment processor like Square or Stripe, it should be compliant with trust accounting rules.

• Cloud-Based Legal Software - With the help of cloud-based legal software, you can store, arrange, and access important legal information from any device and from anywhere. Developing cloud-based legal software is like developing reliable software as it helps with central data storage, collaborative features, and secure file sharing to simplify workflows.

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Benefits of Legal Technology

The following are the significant benefits of legal tech:

• Great Time Saver - Legal software systems help slash processing time and systemize operations. Wondering how? As one can automatically trigger the ideal follow-up activities with just a few clicks. In fact, custom software systems that use artificial intelligence and machine learning can easily support lawyers in their legal assessments. They not only examine the time any individual takes to perform a task, but they also help non-lawyers with the legal technology tools to make any legal assessments.

• Better Access to Legal Know-How - LegalTech is a gateway to greater productivity and efficiency for companies. There was a time when contracts between organizations and their clients were only reviewed and understood by the legal department. However, this is not the case today because the use of modern technologies speeds up the whole contract review process and allows the departmental workforce to review contracts on their own.

• Quality Improvement - Technology never retires. And legal technology is one of the most efficient approaches to guarantee quality. There's no chance of missing deadlines, you can adhere to all the formalities, and there are no tiny chances of careless mistakes in legal reviews. And while individuals work for years (quite a long time) to build their legal judgment, a trained AI (Artificial Intelligence) system, for instance, can make rapid high-quality assessments.

That was all about the benefits of legal technology. Now, let’s look at some challenges too.

Challenges of Legal Technology

The following are some challenges of legal technology:

• Insecurities Penetrating AI - Integrating AI technology into legal workflows is advantageous to law firms to a greater extent. As part of a resolution, while handling the AI complications in the practice of law, The American Bar Association recognized some prime use cases of AI in the law (and they were quite good). Still, a few law firms are a bit stiff when it comes to integrating AI with their legal software systems.

• Privacy and Security - Data security and privacy issues are the main challenges in the legal tech industry. As lawyers are always trained to anticipate the worst-case scenario, privacy concerns and data security are something that always makes them more worried (as it can turn into a nightmare within a fraction of a second). This is one of the key factors for the slow adoption of legal software systems.

• The Black Box Challenge - So, the Black Box Challenge is simply the lack of information on how any technology works and comes with results. Not only legal, but unfortunately all industries are struggling with this specific issue. However, considering the high stakes at play, the legal industry can fall prey to significant issues.

Let’s now go through an exciting subject – the best Legaltech trends.

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Top Advancements in Legal Technology

Most of the advantages – and few challenges! – driving legaltech trends across the whole industry.

To be honest, if you are not using legal software systems integrated with legal tech for your firm, umm, you are most likely to lag eventually.

So, coming back to legal technology, wondering what have been the most impactful legal tech trends and development in recent years, and which are constantly powering the legal industry’s evolution today? Read on the following!

• Constant Evolution of Legal Design - Legal design is one of the most important legaltech trends that will grow and become more different even in the years ahead. Therefore, it is undoubtedly the case of future advancements in legal design that comes at the same speed as other legal tech trends.

• Major Focus on End-User - In recent times, it's important to give priority to customer and client experience. Every legal tech firm worth following is obsessed with this point (and wants everything in their favor). However, the most noteworthy thing is that this legal tech trend is evolving within itself. Therefore, shortly, the best legaltech platforms will understand all the different and specific needs of the clients and how to successfully fulfill them.

• Culture Change - In any business, it's important to have your culture in place first before you adopt modern technologies or move towards digitization. On an exciting note, legal tech is working in the contrary direction. Several platforms set cultural workflows and standards that lawyers are directly opting for, rather than law firms opting for culture evolution, and then searching for the right legaltech tools to facilitate this.

• Remote Work and Collaboration - Believe me, remote working is one of COVID-19's long-term legacies (a good one, though), even if companies, and governments worldwide are pushing to bring employees back into offices as much as possible. Through the pandemic, legal technology has taught us that while working remotely, we have never been better connected in different respects. So, this is also true for collaboration in legal industries and access to data and it is likely to get even more refined to better set an equilibrium for in-person and remote working.

These were only a few legaltech trends, however, there are many more you can expect in this tech-fast time. Coming to yet another crucial topic – why is legal technology important?

I have your answer!

Why is Legal Technology Important?

So, wondering – why is legal technology important? The legal industry is highly vulnerable in every aspect. Moreover, they also take time to adopt innovative technologies. You can imagine, a decade ago, there were zero to few legaltech companies. However, currently there’s a good increase in these legaltech companies, also knowing when and how to find a software development company for building their legal software systems. This is important too!

Innovation and next-gen technologies helped in increased productivity and efficiency of legal workers – all hail legal tech. Hence, let’s now see the importance of legal software.

• Better Transparency - Legaltech now provides good transparency to the approach in which every industry traditionally functioned. Clients can now get a crystal-clear idea of their case progress, fees, and other valuable information. This client-centric methodology proves best for the legal industry.

• Enhanced Geographical Reach - Legal technology is helping law firms to spread their wings throughout the world. The commercialization of some legal services is making it possible for firms to deliver their services across borders. For instance, where contract law is the same across the authorities, a client can opt for the location from a drop-down menu, read and download the most basic contract.

• Time Management and Faster Processing - When utilized properly, legal tech is quick and more effective than manual work. AI and ML (Machine Learning) legal software systems can provide rapid research results and examine important documents in milliseconds. So, what a few years back took days and even weeks to complete can now be finished in minutes.

• Better Utilization of Resources - With legal tech at hand, redeploy human resources tasks that have a good influence on learning and nurturing client relationships.

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The Future of Legal Technology

It's no wonder that the legal industry is blooming like a flower with various innovations in recent years. LegalTech startups as well as old organizations are promising to help lawyers and law firms to work more efficiently, deliver the best services, and most importantly, save money, time, and resources. As the legal industry grows, fresh players will rise in their market with their software development services and innovative products for law people. These legal software systems and products will prove advantageous to both law firms and their clients.

Moreover, not only law firms but clients today also prefer using innovative technologies for their legal matters. Therefore, in the years ahead, legal technology will become an important part of law organizations, making them highly efficient, and delivering better services to their clients.

So, all in all, the legal tech’s future is bright!

Final ThoughtsLegal software development integrated with modern technologies provide a wonderful opportunity for the law industry to redefine and evolve, as is obvious in every other industrial sector. While some legal technology aspects are mellow and well accomplished, still get ready for more to come. So, the more advanced your legal tech software, the more perks you can enjoy!Ready to embrace legal technology? Let Radixweb help.Being a popular software development company, Radixweb also helps unlock the potential of legal software development. We help transform the way legal professionals work with a focus on usability, scalability, and data security. At Radixweb, we are committed to being at the forefront of technological developments in the legal space. The major reason, why 98% of our clients highly recommend us!Contact us today to know more about legal technology and services related to it.