The need for innovation in the legal sector

By Silvana Stochetti

In the legal market, both caused by environmental factors, and most of the respondents are either 1) trying to resist or 2) adapting and evolving; as well as by increasing opportunities for “positive evolution” created by technological advances.

The era of technological disruption we live in, which is currently responsible for influencing other sectors or industries by changing the way people interact, offers us solutions and tools that we didn’t have years ago. Therefore, continuing to operate as we have traditionally means turning our backs on the wide range of management, automation or monitoring solutions digital tools offer us, connecting ourselves to the past and not evolving with the new times. Request new customer profiles.

The Anglo-Saxon term LegalTech is still very common to most lawyers and those who know it are still not clear whether it is a requirement, an option or just a fad.

This word refers to the legal and technological sector and refers to different categories of digital technology with different purposes such as legal case management, digital signature, lawyer marketplaces, infrastructure.

Beyond being a trend, these technologies are revolutionizing the way professionals perform their duties, and using them has become a necessity, not a fashion, as law firms that do not implement such tools will remain unrivaled. land of the moderns.

Technological evolution allows our tasks to be performed and managed according to innovative methodologies within the customary practices in the industry. The standardization and systematization of problems and tasks, their automation and professional visibility reach other dimensions thanks to technology.

While this process has already taken place in other sectors, such as industry, where mechanization allows the automation of manual tasks that lead to chain production, now new technologies allow the mechanization and automation of tasks with cognitive or intellectual content. And many of our tasks that are obviously of a cognitive nature, but often performed mechanically and in the same way, can be automated.

For example, filing and processing of judicial notifications, issuing procedural documents and submitting them to the lawyer for submission by e-mail, submission of letters and requests through judicial platforms, checking judicial referral accounts, generating reports and repetitive reports, issuing invoices and serving the sentence. customer orientation first…

All this is possible if we have an adequate management environment. There is a wide variety of management software currently on the market that includes features that allow you to automate such tasks.

Incorporating these tools into any professional’s daily tasks helps them work from anywhere, securely share files of any size, streamline compliance and ensure security, and most importantly, improve customer service.

Although the adoption of these technologies makes all processes more efficient and safer, it is very slow, not only allowing digital monitoring, but also cooperating with the expansion of the client portfolio and preventing legal fraud. This slowness is due to the fact that all traditional legal processes cannot be changed quickly, on the one hand, and on the other hand, some professionals continue to be skeptical of the use of these technological tools for reasons such as cost and cyber security. they think that they can be replaced by advanced technology, which is a kind of robotization of the profession.

The digital revolution is also creating a significant change in customer behavior and needs. They are increasingly demanding efficiency, effectiveness and transparency from law firms. A modern client no longer tolerates his lawyer being slow in their process, ineffective in their results, not knowing how to manage their cases online, or failing to provide transparent information about their case.

It is this new modern clientele that pushes traditional lawyers to leverage technology and even increase their portfolios through marketplace-type platforms in order not to lose them and thrive.

Historically, technology has always promoted transparency, accessibility, predictability and democratization of legal practice; However, changes do not happen overnight and require evolution to happen throughout the legal ecosystem of legal innovation and thus even in the legal market as a whole. .

An independent lawyer who knows how to leverage the LegalTech solutions already available will be able to hone their skills, increase productivity and gain a competitive advantage over their peers without fear of being replaced by a “robot”. The practice of law requires a human-specific set of capacities that can hardly be achieved with a machine, so joining the modernization caravan of LegalTech is key to making the practice of the profession more efficient and competitive. Meanwhile, we expect the Justice Administration to catch up with technological trends that contribute to efficiency, security, transparency and equal access to justice.

As for the professionals: we should not be afraid of progress: the machine will do what the machine does better, and we will continue to do what lawyers do better.