admin Legal departments that are in house have resisted automation and technological advancements for a long time. However, the effects of the pandemic have forced several legal firms to change gears in 2020 and pursue — or at least proactively think about — more extensive automation of many such legal activities, especially those around major corporate transactions. The main concern now is to decide which technologies they need to embrace to grow real business outcomes.
Zack Hutto, Director, Advisory, Gartner stated that the covid 19 pandemic has acted as a catalyst for this immense transformation. The industry that once kept a safe distance from technology is now in a race to adapt it at the earliest. “Legal teams have rarely been the vanguard to adopt such technological advancements like atomizing, modernising and digitisation. But the pandemic has induced a reduction in staffing and consequently increased workloads. In such a scenario, adopting new technological trends is a no brainer.”
1) Legal Chatbots
Chatbots are taking industries by the storm. Almost all areas of work has some form of chatbot implemented. And the same applies to the Legal Industry System.
Legal chatbots are an efficient and great way of optimising any kind of work process to save the time and money of lawyers.
There are many reasons behind it, but the first and foremost is that a chatbot does not need a time off or vacation. It is available 24/7 to provide customers with legal help whenever they need it. At the same time, it is much more beneficial and agile than any human lawyer consultation.
If you are a lawyer, you may wonder that legal chatbots are going to replace you one day. However, that is not true. Imagine bots are like little helpers. They do the routine amd otherwise mundane tasks in your stead . This allows you to free up your schedule for work that need your attention the most. They are also perfect for creating documents. A bot “talks” with a client and understands their requirements. It uses this information to gather the required data and then creates his document in minutes instead of you. It also helps clarify any question the client may have during the document creation process.
Another task that chatbots excel in is conducting due diligence. Chatbots automate and speed up this process, leaving you time to do more meaningful tasks. Chatbots carry out a broad investigation that includes reviewing tons of documents and asking plenty of questions to uncover background information and create a full report for you.
2) Online Dispute Resolution
Online dispute resolution (ODR) is a branch of dispute resolution which utilises technology that assist with the resolution of disputes between conflicting parties. Its primary purpose involves negotiation, mediation or arbitration, or a combination of all three.
The advancement in technology has created an avenue for it to creep into the domain of alternative dispute resolution. There is now online mediation, online arbitration, and even arbitration utilising the same blockchain technology as cryptocurrencies: blockchain arbitration. These forms of alternative dispute resolution, known as “online dispute resolution”, are increasingly marking their presence in the legal communities.
This new process may include a third party that acts as a facilitator in the dispute resolution. Alternatively, the online dispute resolution software may take on the role of the facilitator, with the help of artificial intelligence. This removes the need for human resources in the process. This also removes the unnecessary overhead of travelling and staying in remote places. You can save time and money and unwanted delays which would result from travelling for such dispute resolutions.
3) Legal teams taking proactive approach to combat cyber attacks
Cyber criminals are real, and cyber-attacks are becoming more and more frequent. Government agencies themselves are prone to attacks, and top leading tech companies also have been a target of several cyber-attacks, most of being successful. In such cases, legal firms are prime target for such criminal activities. And they have a lot to lose as well.
No firm would want their client’s data leaked out into the public domain. Legal matters are of utmost importance, and they need to be top secret. If a firm cannot guarantee its security, they not only lose business but could also be sued.
As a result, legal firms are now adopting safe measures understably dubbed as cyber hygiene. These include enabling multi factor authentication, restricting physical and online access to critical databases and systems to the staff on a “need to know” basis (known as the “principle of least-privilege”), applying required security patches promptly, etc.
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