Digitization goes beyond digitization. It`s about rethinking legal products and services from creation to delivery, based on an understanding of what modern technology can enable in addition to what customers actually need and want. Instead of delivering existing products and services through new channels and automating decades-old processes, digitalization means creating services from scratch to create optimized, frictionless experiences. In this environment, you need to be able to show what you can offer that these services cannot. There is still, and perhaps still, a compelling reason to hire a certified law firm against a legal service provider, but your clients won`t want to hear it unless you can offer a comparable client experience. At a very basic level, it`s about digitizing your basic records and processes – for example, signing a contract. This alone will result in significant savings in time and money. However, the scope of automation goes far beyond that. Basic legal automation solutions can now reduce the need for manual entry in the following areas: I am the CEO of Legal Mosaic, a legal management consulting firm. I am the Executive Chairman of Digital Legal Exchange, a global non-profit organization founded to ensure digitization across the legal ecosystem. Organizations such as the Corporate Legal Operations Consortium (CLOC) and the Legal Operations of the Association of Corporate Counsel (ACC) focus on legal transactions.
In this way, it highlights the transition from legal practice (what lawyers do) to legal delivery (how, by whom, using what resources and at what cost) they are delivered. The CLOC definition of “legal transactions” speaks of a holistic approach that is found in a postal code very different from the traditional paradigm of law firms. This is a model for how digitized suppliers will provide business solutions that address legal issues. Legal Operations is a multidisciplinary function that optimizes the delivery of legal services to a company or government entity by focusing on twelve core competencies: strategic planning, financial management, supplier management, data analysis, technology support, legal support models, knowledge management, professional development and team building, communication, global data governance / case management, litigation support and cross-functional alignment. “How many of these twelve areas of expertise can traditional law firms tick off? Lawyers are always looking for the perfect fit. Although legal teams are so diverse: sizes, areas of expertise, jurisdictions, teams, internal processes, it is impossible to develop a universal tool to satisfy everyone. There are tools better suited to legal research, such as ROSS Intelligence or LexisNexis, and other tools better suited to automating workflows and templates, such as Avokaado. Legal contract automation tools are very different – some of them are good for contract management, others are good for compiling documents, depending on who performs the tasks to be performed that they help solve. The only thing that matters is the work you want to do now and which tool is good enough for that specific request. Consider the success of online and mobile banking.
While the mass market was initially skeptical, it is quickly becoming the norm thanks to large-scale digitalization in the financial sector – by 2021, app-based banking services will become more popular than visiting your local branch. Well managed, the digitization of legal processes offers these decisive immediate benefits: the legal industry is digitized. What does that mean? Digitization is a common term without a uniform definition. It is often used to describe a number of computing resources: network servers, software, cloud, and other tools. While IT is an essential element, digitization is much more than the transition from paper to electronic communication. It is the process – enhanced by technology – of rethinking the delivery of goods and services and creating new business models and structures from which they can be managed. Digitization is the interaction of tools, tasks, resources – human and technological – processes and models designed to better serve customers and provide 24/7, 365-day-a-year connectivity between supplier and customer. When people begin to explain how technology can be used to modernize the delivery of legal services, their language is immediately tainted with acronyms, buzzwords and idioms that often make little sense to those who practice law. I am the CEO of Legal Mosaic, a legal management consulting firm. I am the Executive Chairman of Digital Legal Exchange, a global non-profit organization founded to teach, apply and scale digital principles for legal functioning. I also work as the Singapore Academy of Law LIFTED Catalyst-in-Residence. I speak around the world and have held Distinguished Fellow and Distinguished Lecturer positions at Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law and Georgetown Law, as well as at many foreign law schools, including IE (Spain), Bucerius (Germany) and the College of Law (Australia).
Digitalization is also taking place in the “retail trade” of the legal industry. LegalZoom, Rocket Lawyer and other providers provide technical, easily accessible, user-friendly and cost-effective access to legal documents (simple wills, NDAs, contracts, etc.). When needed and for a small subscription fee, clients have online access to a panel of legal advisors to answer questions. LegalZoom also organizes discounted rates with a team of approved lawyers for clients who need an additional level of lawyer involvement. The “different levels of legal contact” offered by LegalZoom are a paradigm applicable to more complex corporate law issues. For this reason, several legal departments – including in the areas of regulation and compliance – are transformed into products. Bloomberg Law, for example, recently launched a compliance product with the support of US Steel`s in-house legal team. It provides a self-help compliance guide that is especially useful for companies that aren`t big enough to support internal teams. This is one example – among many – of technology and a “good corporate citizen” participant who uses knowledge for wider well-being. Law firms have sold billions of dollars in “legal” work to suppliers – and that includes corporate legal services – that are going digital.
A legion of legal investigations, including Georgetown and CitiBank, show that demand for services to law firms has flattened (and recently declined), while overall legal demand has steadily increased. The delta is expanding. What for? Most law firms have failed to embrace digitalization, let alone implement it.
