According to statista report, the global legal tech market stood somewhere around 18.4 billion US dollars in 2021 alone. The legal industry is dynamic and keeping this figure in mind, current technology trends over shadowing manual work, it’s hard to predict what your next move will be.
An array of technology is being deployed in the legal sector with thousands of vendors in the legal industry standing in line. The current workflow of the legal industry is holistic and to shape your business more efficiently it’s crucial to deploy the right technology and work with current trends.
Here are top five legal tech predictions that would lead upcoming years:
1. Human-in-the-Loop
Solutions that combine staffing and software will comprise 30% of all new legal tech automation offerings. Though it’s not new to the legal industry, there would be a significant decrease in human intervention.
The magic of artifical knowledge & automation will bring human interference in work down by as much as 70%.
For example, 5 years ago a lawyer needed to draft a contract, frame the content and send it to his clients. However, in the next two years, many of the most promising AI opportunities for corporate legal teams remain unhampered by human intervention in terms of design, model training, and exception handling.
2. Expanding Legal Tech Category
Currently, a law firm on average uses around two software to streamline the workflow. According to the Gartner legal prediction report, by 2025, large organizations will require relationships with 4+ legal tech vendors.
Despite significant M&A activity, new entrants continue to emerge in legal tech markets. No single vendor provides all the legal software most organizations need, much less on anything like a single platform.
Rather than waiting for a vendor to place all functionalities in one, law firms and big law will choose various legal tech vendors to accommodate their needs.
3. AI and Lawyers: A Collective Team
For now, Artificial intelligence is neither entering the courtrooms nor attending trials, but this will not stay the same after five years. The quandary of AI & current court workflow system is ever growing.
Some say, AI can never overtake lawyers in court, but do you think this is going to stay forever? AI is advancing four-fold It’s not far from today when we’ll see bots assisting lawyers in court and trials.
The debate about the arrival of AI in courtrooms and trials includes the question about whether lawyers can be replaced by AI. The answer is crystal clear. Even after 10 years, artificial intelligence cannot automate the process of creativity and emotional intelligence.
4. Cybersecurity Security as an Opportunity
It’s no surprise that continuous use of technologies and software on such a large scale would bring CyberSecurity as a rising challenge.
In an ABA survey for previous years, 29% of lawyers reported that their firms experienced at least one type of security breach, such as a lost or stolen computer or smartphone, a hack, break-in, or exploited website.
When cybersecurity is taken as a vital element in a law firm practice, the flexibility in working for employers increases and the exchange of data while remote working. If there’s a security breach at a law firm it gets crucial for them to adapt smart solutions and insurance offering high security and compensation.
5. The Impact of ChatGPT
Open AI has developed chatGPT bringing marvelous changes in how legal practitioners will work in the coming years. According to a report from a trusted partner, it took ChatGPT 21 seconds to draft a contract which usually takes two hours plus.
At such an early stage, tech vendors are looking forward to integrating ChatGPT into their system to enable legal tech solutions to help practitioners with legal writing, document drafting, and reviewing.
In the coming years, ChatGPT will play a crucial role in shaping a more tech-friendly legal industry, watch out for being a more tech-savvy lawyer.
Conclusion
Time will only tell if these predictions will make you sail or drown. A philanthropist once quoted, “a genius is one, who knows when to stop”. It’s your take on how you are going to build your practice with all legal tech trends in the loop.