4 Considerations for Implementing New Technologies in Legal Departments

The pace of the technological revolution of the 21st century is much faster than the industrial revolution of the 20th century. And the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic further fuels this pace. The technological changes that we adapted to wade through the work-from-home wave are here to stay. Technology touches all work: big and small, mundane and technical, skilled and unskilled. 

Digital Transformation and the Legal Industry 

Legal services are a $1 trillion industry globally. This makes it one of the largest industries in the world. While its scale is huge, it remains seriously under digitized. The legal industry is notoriously slow in adopting new technologies. 

However, this is changing rapidly. Law firms and legal departments across the world are adopting newer technologies. Why? Because the legal industry is particularly conducive to AI and machine learning applications and adoption. AI and law operate on a similar principle. Both look at historical examples as precedents to infer rules to apply to current cases. This logical approach is exactly the type of activity algorithms can apply successfully. 

In 2019, the legal tech market generated over 17 billion USD worldwide, with the legal tech market projected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 27.82% by 2025. With the implementation of new legal technology continuing to grow, utilizing the latest innovations will not only impact internal legal operations but will also allow consumers the chance to change how they interact with legal processes. 

The effect of digital transformation increasingly covers every area of the consumer experience, from AI to GDPR. Park IP provides further insights into How Digital Transformation Impacts the Legal Industry. 

The sheer amount of data generated today makes it essential for law firms to shift to newer technologies. While law firms must adapt to legal tech, they must also give serious thought to their requirements before implementing new technologies. 

This article provides helpful advice to law firms and legal departments that may be considering onboarding legal tech solutions to their workflow. 

Adapt Job Roles to Include Technological Management Skills 

Certain law jobs are more susceptible to legal tech and AI than others. Advanced algorithms and AI won’t replace lawyers because there will always be a job that requires an abundance of human touch. However, legal practitioners who don’t use AI and other forms of legal tech will be replaced by lawyers who do. This is because AI adds value to the brand as it improves the quality of services offered, speeds processes, and streamlines tasks. 

Introducing AI and technological solutions to the patent process ensures patent attorneys can retrieve and understand all documents worldwide. Discover further insights into Leveraging Data and Technology in the Legal Industry. 

Junior attorneys have a unique opportunity to adapt, accept, and enhance technological changes. Increased use of AI and predictive coding translates into decreased custom-made work consisting of drafting simple contracts and reviewing documents that were previously undertaken by junior lawyers. Therefore, the work that was traditionally a junior lawyers’ responsibility is rapidly automating.   

However, this doesn’t mean entry-level legal professionals will lose their jobs, but instead they are provided with new responsibilities. A decade or so ago, a junior lawyer’s primary task was document review. Today, that person’s task is to manage the process of document review with a third-party provider. A junior lawyer further reviews the documents flagged by the external reviewer. 

This means management skills and an understanding of technology are now desired skills within law firm job roles.  

Install Effective Security Measures 

Law firms are moving their operations to the cloud across the globe. This means sensitive client data now lives on servers that aren’t on the premises. Law firms have access to a lot of private data. This makes them a prime target for cybercrimes. According to a 2019 report published by the American Bar Association, 26% of law firms in the US have experienced some kind of data breach. 

While cybercrime and data breaches at law firms are more common than expected, firms don’t want their businesses to be a part of these statistics. To negate this risk, it’s a must to install multiple layers of security to safeguard their data. 

Regarding e-discovery, security and protection measures are essential due to the highly confidential and centralized data collected through this process. Although, complicating these measures further is that many security tools can cause significant challenges on the performance and stability of e-discovery due to the large amounts of data transmission.  

Despite a significant emphasis being placed on data security, cybercriminals are constantly finding new ways to gain access to valuable corporate data. 52% of legal and compliance leaders are concerned about third-party cyber risks due to remote work since COVID-19. Legal firms must be aware of the consequences of potential data breaches and leaks, especially if they want to mitigate risk and defend against cyber-attacks. 

Corporate compliance covers internal policies and procedures to ensure violations of rules and regulations are detected and prevented. The impact of language barriers on an organization’s document or data set collection can significantly impact compliance and risk, especially if a foreign language is included. 

It is therefore of paramount importance to install security management programs that ensure the integrity and performance of client environments. 

Technology and Law Firms Can Work Collaboratively  

Although there are significant advances in legal tech and automation tools, human intervention is here to stay. Technology may take over jobs like legal research, but clients will always need lawyers to understand and interpret their cases. 

In addition to adapting to the efficiencies enabled by AI, lawyers need to thoroughly understand their clients’ businesses and the industries their clients are functioning within. This understanding helps them provide efficient services. On the other hand, junior lawyers need to hone their understanding of technology and make the most of it to advance in their roles. 

We can conclude that technology is the future of law across the world. Multilingual automation is where law firms must head if they want to work with global audiences. Law firms are looking at huge technological investments. To capitalize on their investment, law firms must analyze their need before making the decision. 

Legal Tech: The Future of Law Is Here 

Virtual teams are the reality. Multilingual employees and clientele are what law firms are dealing with right now. This means law firms need tech that can handle remote work, as well as technology that can handle multilingual teams and streamline the process of translating legal documents. 

AI is the future of law, and to make the most of this, law firms need tools that guarantee data security, trustworthy technologies, and impeccable translation to lead to an increased brand value. Park IP, a Welocalize company, is ISO/IEC 27001:2013 certified, which provides guidance on a systematic approach to ensuring the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of sensitive company and customer information.  

Adds Aaron Heber, Vice President of Global IT at Welocalize, “ISO/IEC 27001 addresses the entire scope of information security. Certification of Welocalize ISMS means our clients can expect systematic and ongoing management of information security risks that can affect the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of corporate and personal information.” 

Connect with us to discover more about our quality-certified processes and technology solutions for legal language services.