Year-long study by legal technology body identifies future challenges
Artificial intelligence (AI) and big data analytics will play a game-changing role within the legal sector as law firms emerge from a decade where they began to understand the power of technology, and to recognise they now have to put it at the heart of their business.
These are key findings of the Legal Technology Future Horizons study, a report into how global advances in technology could impact the legal industry over the next decade. Commissioned by the International Legal Technology Association (ILTA), the report is based on research conducted between January and November 2013 and was released last month.
‘You’re seeing firms like Allen & Overy and Dentons really start a different conversation now about how technology fits into their business and how they want to see it not just as being a back-office service, but as a front-office value creator,’ said Rohit Talwar, chief executive of Fast Future Research, who authored the report. ‘Firms are now thinking about how they can bring technology and the technology function into the opening conversations with their clients. This is why 77% of respondents think we’ll increasingly see IT firms enter into the legal space.’
The research identified a number of findings on the application and impact of IT on the legal industry, not least that 73% of respondents agreed that the capacity for rapid IT-enabled innovation will be a critical differentiator for law firms in the future, while 91% expect that the transparency of legal process will increase as a result of client demands.
AI, in particular big data analytics, is one area that is seen as a potential long-term game changer for the sector, with 88% agreeing that AI advisers and ‘helper apps’ will in future structure legal documents and check the content generated by lawyers.
‘The smarter firms are going to experiment with AI before the client asks and they’re really going to push it out there,’ said Talwar. ‘In many cases it’s going to reduce revenues, because a firm may, for example, decide not to take a case to court as a result of the analysis of case history using AI. But it’s better firms do that and have their clients wanting to use their AI tools across all the firms in their panel than to find another law firm’s eaten their lunch.’
To see the ILTA report in full, go to www.iltanet.org/ltfh. See our report on the deployment of legal process outsourcing by clients, ‘Here be monsters’.