Businesses are going through significant transformative effects of advanced technology, the legal community also has had a predictable action-packed 2019 – seeing developments in processes, regulation, and collaboration right away results of new business technologies.
Similar to businesses of any nature and professionals across sectors, general counsels & lawyers have had to adapt so as to survive in their new surroundings. The good news is that the largest technological advancements can help general counsels to be more efficient, tech-savvy and give businesses faster solutions
Based on our understanding and what we are working on to give legal fraternity better technology solutions, we believe in coming time, below are the most significant technological transformations of the legal profession.
Artificial Intelligence
Artificial Intelligence (AI) has been redefining the legal industry immensely and can be by far the largest technology transformation you may see in 2020. Artificial intelligence will include data science, auto trained models with rich data, machine learning, and chat-bots. We are already seeing the adoption of computer programs capable of taking away many of the routine, mundane tasks that lawyers once had to spend valuable time performing, for example reviewing terms and conditions, or the tedious analysis of discovery documents. AI can sort and analyze enormous amounts of data at an unprecedented speed, leading to faster discovery. AI can also make valid predictions of actions following a thorough analysis of data. We anticipate that this trend will expand enormously in 2020, with those who have already made the move beginning to see huge improvements in productivity and long-term results.
Data Mining, Data Analysis & Decision Science
Legal Contracts were always part of physical storage and never ever used its content for business decisions. In the next year and beyond, the ways that data is processed, stored, and used in the legal profession is going to dramatically shift. With the easy availability of cloud, mobility, and internet (wifi), its no more required to sit in the office to work. The concept has changed to anywhere working, hot-desking and coffee shop working. While a few years ago, cloud server & storage were seen as a security risk by CIOs & CTOs, within the last year cloud server & storage have achieved widespread recognition as the most advanced, effective, and secure method of storage and organization, with any reservations quickly disappearing. This is really a welcome move for a technology revolution in the legal industry. With all legal contracts being part of the software, general counsels and legal professionals using technologies and helping business owners in data-backed decision making with regard to customer contracts and vendor contracts.
Contract Management
General Counsels & Contract Managers at every level are responsible for the drafting, management, negotiation, finalization, and tracking of legal contracts, all of which is going through a tremendous transformation and will see more evolution for the better from 2020 onward with increased adoption of these newer methods of data storage and securitization. Online, purpose-built contract tools will become more prevalent than ever. Many practitioners have already begun to leverage e-signing software such as DocuSign, Adobe, Digital Signature (DSC), but 2020 will likely see even more of these solutions rising in the markets with wider ranges of ability. Contract management systems can now be utilized for the entire life cycle of legal documents, from requesting to negotiating and authoring to approval, representing the next stage in evolution. Stemming from this will also be the upcoming adoption of template management systems. Authoring contracts manually can be inefficient for creating consistent, standardized practices across a law firm, for example. It can also be time exhaustive and lacking in version control. Advanced template management software ensures best practices are employed, facilitating document building on clean templates, and sharing and storing them securely.
Blockchain and Security
With significantly rising issues and awareness regarding cybersecurity, blockchain technology becoming more and more favorite for CIOs & CTOs. Even in the legal fraternity, general counsels and chief legal officers are looking to integrate blockchain to their business to protect businesses from security threats and make business operations, supply chains, payment systems inter-connected. The biggest advantage of blockchain is that all the information on the blockchain platform is completely traceable and impossible to hack. This is due to the mere premise of blockchain technology where every piece of data on the blockchain exists on a chain of nodes, each one verifying the other, and any hacker would have to alter all of the nodes simultaneously in order to achieve any kind of fraudulent activity – which is virtually impossible. Beyond security, this advancement will be pivotal for general counsels & lawyers for other reasons too, including it’s creating of ‘smart contracts’, in which legal documents will be verified and stored with authenticated, traced signatures and chains of custody.
Looking into 2020, the legal profession is on the brink of evolution. We’ve come this far with legal technology and seen many proving points and path-breaking possibilities. The next year will be defined by the mainstream early movers and everyday legal practitioners who will transform their daily tasks, making them easier, faster, and more efficient. 2019 was the year of innovation, but 2020 will be a year of application, agency, and advancement.
Based on above we think that digitization, automation, use of smart technology will drive the transformation technology change in the legal industry.
Volody is leading legal tech companies with solutions like Contract LifeCycle Management Software (Volody CLM) & Litigation Management Software helping general counsels, Legal Heads & practicing legal professionals to digitize, automate and use the latest technology to work efficiently. Trusted by global corporates, Volody is at the forefront in redefining technology products for legal professionals. With an implementation time of fewer than 7 days, Volody can make you up & run and achieving your performance goal of implementing the strategic solutions.
