Legal Tech

Legal tech (legal technology) is an umbrella used to describe technology and software that is used within the legal industry. The term encompasses both digital products created for the industry as well as solutions directed at clients. Some legal tech products help and support the attorney while others provide the client with automated solutions and thus compete with the attorney or render them superfluous.

Legal tech refers to several types of technology, such as blockchain, artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning, and SaaS platforms such as Contractbook which enables you to create contracts, digitally sign them and store your documents in the cloud. Legal tech also refers to web sites on which you can find good and cheap lawyers in your area.

‍In recent, the legal tech field has seen great progress, as it can help to lower the cost of some legal practices as well as streamlining the daily work of attorneys. Since the early 2000’s, most industries have become restructured as a result of digitization, with some of the most prominent examples being the travel and taxi industries.

The accountant and bookkeeping industries, which are more comparable with the legal industry, have also been deeply impacted by recent digitization. As the legal industry still contains more manual work than many other industries, it is expected to undergo the same change as these other mentioned industries.

This change does not pose as clear a threat as some critics have stated. Several trends point to the contrary, i.e. that digitization of the legal industry will lead to optimization and financial gain. The market for legal tech is estimated to be worth $16,000,000,000 by July 2018.

What is legal tech?

Legal tech originally referred to software which helps attorneys and law firms in their legal practice. In recent years, the meaning of the term has shifted to also encompass new technology and software which disrupts the legal profession and reduces or perhaps even removes the need for lawyers.

Examples of legal tech are marketplaces that connect clients with lawyers, tools for data analysis, artificial intelligence which scans legal documents, chatbots capable of answering simple legal questions, and robots which more quickly can reach verdicts.

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Legal tech encompasses everything from AI to Contractbook

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Dangers of legal tech?

Whether or not lawyers can be replaced by technology has been a lively debate in recent years. Proponents argue that, in some cases, robots and algorithms are capable of making more correct rulings. For example, an American study has shown that the behavior of judges is influenced by how tired and hungry they are.

On the other hand, the robots have also displayed some vulnerabilities and flaws. In the American judicial system, there have been examples of racist robots which were more likely to grant parole to white inmates than to black inmates.

‍Furthermore, there have been concern about whether digitization will render attorneys superfluous or will aid them in their work. On the one hand, these new technologies provide cheap legal products and innovative solutions with artificial intelligence which is or can become more intelligent than human lawyers.

‍On the other hand, some technologies make a lot of practical work redundant, which will liberate lawyers and allow them to give their clients a better experience. Both trends evolve simultaneously, but one thing is for certain: human lawyers will not be fully replaced anytime soon.

Contractbook as legal tech

Contractbook is a legal tech solution which provides legal documents, enabling companies that otherwise could not afford a lawyer to manage their contracts. Examples could be an entrepreneurial limited company (in Denmark: IVS) without large funds or a small company that wants to manage their personal information. Contractbook offers a GDPR-compliant SaaS platform on which users can create, sign and store their legal documents.

‍Contractbook also offers the advanced version of their contract management platform – Contractbook Suits – which is a digital platform for the legal profession. Here, lawyers can monitor and manage their clients’ legal documents and thereby become more client-oriented. It also enables the lawyer to provide a better client experience, to save time, and to become more proactive with their clients.

‍Contractbook Suits is a tool that helps lawyers by reducing their amount of laborious paper work and enabling them to instead spend time on their true expertise: legal counselling.