Let’s Talk Legal Tech:
As always, we’re a busy bunch at Cosmonauts, with 5 own brand events coming up from now until the end of the year, 4 capital raising projects, 3 office dogs chewing our ear off about the latest toys, 2 new interns and one week of holiday for the boss, we’ve got a lot of activity going on! So let’s get to it and kick off Legal Talk Legal Tech 8.0! Don’t forget! Let’s Talk Legal Tech is a blog series that’s constantly providing you with the most pressing legal world update. Check out our other editions here!
Changing Roles for Lawyers?
Stefan Schwarz, Chief Legal Operations Officer at Linklaters, states, “In recent years, innovation in law has largely consisted of incremental improvements to make life easier for lawyers and clients. While this is set to continue, we’re now also looking at more fundamental changes in how legal advice is delivered, driven partly by exciting developments in legal tech and rising expectations in the role that lawyers play.” We at Legal Innovators share the same view with Schwarz. Thus, staying up to date with the latest developments and trends in legal technology is imperative.
If you have not heard the latest news in the legal sector, here’s your chance to catch up on the latest.
Are Legal Ops Professionals and ALSPs Spearheading the Future of the Legal Industry?
With the news that DWF have hired a new global head of legal ops, tech and consulting, it is clear that structural changes are being made in the industry due to the fact that “client needs are evolving at a rapid pace which is reflected in an increasing focus on technology and consulting.”
Rachita Maker has over 20 years of legal experience. She has also worked in telecommunication, banking, finance and healthcare. As she begins a new chapter, she is “pleased to join DWF and look forward to working with the Mindcrest team to expand our legal operations, technology and consulting expertise.”
Maker believes that the legal market is transforming, and their client’s needs are growing rapidly. She is joining the company intending to establish a working connection between the general counsel and the heads of legal operations, aiming to develop ways to process contracts and support litigation management and compliance.
To continue reading about this, click here.
EU prepares for legal action against new digital rules from Big Tech
The big names of the digital sector – Google, Amazon, Meta, Apple and Microsoft – are imposing new digital rules, and the Digital Markets Act (DMA) has gathered a team of lawyers to tame the big companies.
The EU’s historic effort to control the digital giants is being sabotaged by attorneys in Brussels competing for multimillion-dollar contracts with Big Tech. The laws will soon be imposed in the EU’s rulebooks which is why attorneys are already perfecting their strategies.
The DMA has been eager to show that unfair business practices in the industry will be closely examined and shall not be neglected.
To learn more about this matter, click here.
Johnny Dep’s law firm Brown Rudnick plans on expanding in London, UK.
This summer, Johnny Depp’s trial against his ex-wife, Amber Heard, had taken over the internet. However, with that, Brown Rudnick also made a name for themselves. They are the 146th most prominent law firm in the US, and now they are planning a London expansion.
The firm’s new chief executive Vincent Guglielmotti tells Financial News, “London is the real focal point for our international expansion. Growing the office there, organically and through lateral hires, is our focus,”.
The law firm is not worried about Brexit and the competition. They are optimistic that London is still a “financial powerhouse” based on the development in the tech, life sciences and capital markets.
To continue learning more, click here.
The Legal Tech Speakeasy
LexisNexis and Artificial Lawyer are launching a one-of-a-kind get-together for legal innovators and tech professionals – The Legal Tech SpeakEasy.
The event is taking place in London on the 8th of September. There is no fee. The conference aims to present the opportunity to people that work from home to make new friends, meet peers, share similar understandings and points of view and expand their network connections. The food and the drinks are included.
The collaboration between these two fantastic companies offers a unique experience.
To learn more and register, click here.
Legal Innovators UK 3.0 is just three months away!
Besides the latest legal news, legal tech still plays a massive part in law practice.
The usage of innovation and technology has become the industry’s best helper and friend. So rather than going through work burnout, why not exceed the expectations of our clients and out-deliver with the help of technology?
If you haven’t already heard, Legal Innovators UK is back! After two successful Legal Innovators UK shows and one in San Francisco, California, Cosmonauts are over the moon to bring you the third iteration of Legal Innovators UK will be held in November!
Legal Innovators UK is an event covering all topics and trends in legal tech. The event has prepared a variety of issues and panels that will discuss matters such as Is Legal Tech the Answer for Work/Life Balance? The Evolution of Legal Ops, Leading Innovation, An Evolving Role, and many more. So be there to learn and broaden your legal horizon and connections.
Legal Innovators UK 3.0 will keep you updated with the latest legal technologies and innovations. So secure your ticket today, and don’t miss out on the fantastic event!
Why are Investors Pouring money into legal technology?
Launched in 2014, Ironclad is a contract management automation software, and in its creation, Co-Founder and CEO, Jason Boehmig, notes that technology with the right design might alter how lawyers approach contracting. He also states, “Technologists, when they made software for lawyers, didn’t get it — and lawyers didn’t use technology because it wasn’t what they wanted,”
Ironclad has made a huge impact on the working style of the legal industry and due to the excellent success, venture capital money has been pouring into legal tech start-ups. External investors are starting to see the exceeding potential around legal tech, whether signature tools or software, to draft and review contracts that make a lawyer’s life easier. According to Crunchbase, legal tech companies had topped $1bn in venture capital investments in the nine months to September 2021, beating the previous high of $989mn in 2019.
Additionally, it has been claimed that LawtechUK, a government-sponsored programme to modernise legal services, discovered that legal document management and regulatory compliance attracted the most cash. It calculated that increased adoption of digital technology by legal service providers might result in yearly productivity advantages of up to £1.7 billion.
To continue reading, click here.
Various ways that law firms and in-house legal teams are utilising technology to increase the speed and transparency of business processes.
Relativity, a software development company consistently invests in new technology to maintain its lead in fields like AI. Its most recent acquisition of Text IQ, a provider of text analysis tools, can now ascertain whether a document is legally privileged and can be kept from a third party. Additionally, Relativity is investing in trend analysis, a type of AI that scans documents for context and emotive language. By analysing the content in emails and online conversations, for example, this technology enables the organisation to branch out into new areas of research, like spotting and looking into bias and harassment in workplaces.
DISCO is another software development firm that creates technology that powers the legal sector. WilmerHale, a US law firm, uses DISCO’s software to analyse the content in emails and online conversations. This technology enables the organisation to branch out into new research areas, like spotting and looking into bias and harassment in workplaces. A feature for lawyers is how the artificial intelligence tags documents. The AI can apply what it has learned to other papers in the same case by studying how a lawyer has tagged them – as a result, speeding up the process of organising evidence.
LEGATICS is a transaction management platform that several global law firms use. The web-based platform allows lawyers and other parties participating in a deal to view the status of each document at any time during the transaction process. This platform eliminates the typically required time-consuming email exchanges. Lawyers at law firm Dentons believe that because everyone could see what needed to be done, they were able to close an acquisition financing in a matter of hours rather than days.
The Importance of Legal Tech Roadmap
A legal technology roadmap is a plan that identifies how technology can support the legal business strategy and priorities over time, typically a three-year look.
Law department leaders usually go through three steps to build this type of roadmap:
- They align their legal department goals to those of the business.
- They create process maps to understand the current people, processes, and systems in place to do the legal department’s work.
- They plan for the implementation of new or enhanced solutions.
They usually start by focusing on their highest priority responsibility and filling in the technology gaps for those processes.
According to the 2021 Thomson Reuters Legal Department Operations report, the two biggest trends among corporate legal departments were the continued growth in the volume of work — based on the number of legal matters that departments are facing — and departments’ continued embrace of technology to improve their work efficiency and save costs. One hundred per cent of respondents reported their use of technology increasing or staying the same — no one expected to use technology less. That means law department leaders are looking at their technology roadmaps to measure progress and determine which solution to implement next.
Evaluating the following steps on your legal tech roadmap
By asking these four questions, you can limit your department’s risk of ending up with the wrong solution at the wrong time.
- What has changed with the business?
- Did the final solution we implemented have any unexpected benefits or drawbacks?
- Has technology changed?
- What’s our capacity to take on new technology or change management initiatives over the next six to 12 months?
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Nowadays, the usage of technology has become the worker’s best helper and friend. So rather than going through work burnout, why not exceed the expectations of our clients and out-deliver with the help of technology? Legal Innovators UK will be covering all topics and trends in legal tech. So make sure to be there to learn and broaden your legal horizon. Secure your ticket by clicking the button below.
Categorised in: Legal Tech, Staff Blog