admin As the world grapples with dealing with the pandemic long-term, and the accompanying consequences for industries worldwide, it’s now more crucial than ever to stay up to date with legal technology trends.
According to you, what will be the most important legal technology trend for lawyers and legal professionals to follow in 2023?
Adoption of Digital Platform
Ben Patterson, Strategic Partnerships at Google states that, “We are seeing an acceleration of consumer behaviour to digital. Businesses that are best suited to thrive in this new reality are those who are embracing digital and meeting clients where they are searching. This would mean ensuring that you are discoverable and reachable on the tools (such as Google my Business) in which potential clients are using for their research. Therefore, making sure that your information is up to date and accurate is vital.”
When a company facilitates the widespread use of new technology by its employees or customers during an implementation phase, the company develops. For legal practices, the documentation work is loaded, thus filing them digitally not only widens space for future use, but with one click it’s easier to find the document needed.
Expanded Focus on Client’s Experience
Joseph Jenkins, Head of Legal Growth, Podium, states that, “Any technology that makes the client experience more convenient, seamless, and transparent will increase both the quantity and quality of cases for law firms.”
As this industry revolves around customers, legal practice cannot flourish without adopting a customer-centric approach or achieving optimum client satisfaction. When customers associate with their lawyers, they expect their work to be handled with the utmost expertise.
Communication- to Set a Higher Bar
“I think it’s pretty clear that the status quo for how we meet and communicate has changed permanently. If lawyers haven’t already pivoted to find new ways to engage with current and prospective clients, they need to do that. Focus on new, seamless communication and collaboration channels for every part of the client engagement—from sales through to invoicing.” Nicole Bradick, Founder and CEO, Theory and Principle.
Lawyers must understand how to effectively convey a message while ensuring the recipient understands the intention and the purpose behind the message. Effective communication saves the lawyer (and clients) time and money and improves client relationships. If the Lawyer is an effective communicator, the risk of misunderstandings, both within your practice and with your clients and with your colleagues is low. Misunderstandings can be costly and sometimes expensive to solve – something the lawyer and clients would want to avoid. Effective communication ensures everyone is aware of what is expected of them and what action they need to take.
The Automation of Administrative Work
“While AI and blockchain, the legal industry remains bogged down by work performed by people that is better handled by good technology. Any technology that changes the one-to-one model of lawyers to allow lawyers to serve a much larger market will be a game changer.” Lori Gonzalez, CEO of RayNa Corp.
Unfortunately, non-billable hours, like administrative tasks, are a fact of life for any law firm and can take up a significant amount of time per day. And this is where legal workflow automation can help. Non-billables are such a problem that, according to the 2022 Legal Trends Report, the average lawyer in the United States bills only 2.6 hours of billable work each day.
With today’s advancements in law office automation and technology, it’s possible to reduce your firm’s time on non-billable work. It all comes down to having a mix of priority-based planning, advanced technology/cloud-based apps, and ongoing watchful management.
Supporting Subscription Law Services Technology
Kimberly Y. Bennett, Founder at K Bennett Law states that, “The trend will be towards a suite of tech tools to support subscription-focused law firms and the elimination of hourly billing.”
Legal processes can benefit more from technology-driven software products like automatic case reference searches, intelligence on opposing experts, AI-based timesheets, etc. A technology product that makes legal processes more efficient, profitable, compliant, and secure when installed for legal practices, the practice is further developed and prepared for any problems with maximum number of solutions.
The most important trend will be learning to use the tools we already have. Because of the pandemic, most firms will be struggling to recover economically for a year or two. So, firms will look for ways to do more with less—but rather than turning to new tools and new expenses, firms will finally learn to get more value from the tools they have. I hope that what will start as a belt-tightening response will prompt an overall interest in learning and training in your everyday tech, like case management systems and Microsoft Word.
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