The new technologies are already driving essential changes in the legal fields. Legaltech is presented as one of the emerging sectors in digital entrepreneurship and as a tool that will define the lawyers of the future and free them and their clients from paperwork and hours procedures.
What are the keys fields Legaltech, and what tools are already working? Find out everything here!
What Is Legaltech?
When we talk about the Legaltech term, we mean the union of the concepts Legal and Technology; In other words, the Legaltech definition is connected to the incorporation of technology into the legal field. How? Through the use of ICT to provide legal solutions, a new step in the concept of digital transformation.
Like everything related to the concept of digital transformation, Legaltech represents a change of mentality in our way of understanding the legal field. New technologies have brought new, until now, unknown, legal situations (which is under the digital law denomination) and also represent an opportunity for entrepreneurship within a sector, the legal one, which is also changing both doors inside, as in its relationship with the citizen.
What Does Legaltech Deal With?
We are talking about a term of which, at the moment, there are very few references, but that can become one of the recommendations of the digital transformation because who does not need a lawyer or legal advice? What change with Legaltech is how we will access or solve many of our legitimate issues, thanks to the emergence of APP and services such as Terms and Conditions:
- They solve or automate the consultation on legal issues and processes that, thanks to the appropriate software, the citizen can perform without the physical intermediation of a lawyer.
- They solve or automate the daily work of lawyers through applications or software that streamline procedures in which hours are usually spent that, in this way, are reduced.
- Relations between client and lawyer change through systems and applications or online consultation services that already work in many law firm websites or that offer services and solutions to online legal consultations, we are talking about digital lawyers.
Like all processes related to digital transformation, Legaltech puts the client at the center of the entire strategy and offers customized solutions to facilitate, in this case, the resolution of quickly and easy procedures.
Legaltech, an Opportunity for Entrepreneurship
The technology’s incorporation into the legal field is also an opportunity for entrepreneurs to develop these types of solutions that, in a short time, will change our vision of the lawyer. From the citizen’s point of view, there are already applications that manage and resolve procedures such as fines or that even expedite divorce proceedings or set the guidelines that must be followed for the formalization of contracts or patents.
This fact has not gone unnoticed by large law firms that already boost accelerators for the search and development of Legaltech Startups in different countries.
Legaltech Map in EU and America
What is the status of Legaltech in the EU and America? As in the rest of the world, Legaltech has become one of the main trends in the ICT sector, and, in recent years, the startup ecosystem linked to this sector has not stopped growing.
Currently, more than a hundred initiatives are already part of this entrepreneurial ecosystem. The eight major development sectors of Legaltech startups are:
- Online legal services.
- Professional marketplaces for law firms and lawyers.
- Solutions related to digital evidence.
- Management software specialized in professional offices.
- Solutions to generate legal documents and contracts.
- Platforms for solving legal questions online.
- Judicial crowdfunding for the financing of lawsuits.
- Data analysis platforms (Machine Learning).
What Will The Lawyers Of The Future Be Like?
This revolution in the legal world will also mean a change in the profiles and skills that, from law firms and companies, will require future rights professionals who will have to adapt to a new reality in which the ICT sector will be increasingly present and will require:
- Extensive knowledge of everything related to the world of digital law and not as a separate discipline, but for any matter related to its clients since within a tiny part of the issues and litigation will occur or have an impact on the digital field, especially in the area of Cybersecurity.
- Programming knowledge to find solutions or assessment tools that speed up your daily work. Likewise, managing terms related to programming will be essential for many of the cases and clients that are coming.
- Advanced management of Legaltech tools that, from your position, will serve to streamline processes that currently require hours and exclusive dedication.
- Knowledge and communication tools to offer and sell their services through portals or social networks, something that is already beginning to be seen and that soon will be a constant as it happens to many other professionals in other fields.
- Knowledge of digital marketing tools and techniques to develop specialized Legaltech products and establish contacts with potential investors to help to improve them.
Conclusion
Legaltech companies that provide legal services respond to this ease of access to citizen’s advice and defense: it is no longer necessary to make an appointment or detach from the documentation for a lawyer to study the viability of the case in a more or less long time.
Through the use of technology and in many cases applying artificial intelligence, the future client will be able to send his inquiry and his documents and will immediately be answered about the viability of his claim, or the contract that will be drafted accurately.
If it is necessary to assume their defense, technological resources will shorten the maximum working time, increase the level of information to the client, and all this without detracting from the quality of legal services, because behind all digital innovation, in the end, always there is a team of lawyers specially trained to legally resolve the issues. Still, they will not waste hours in the search for sentences, nor in the examination or selection of the necessary documents, because with their experience they will have implemented “learning” to the programs and systems that take care of it.
