New horizons

The annual Private Client Section conference was rounded off with a talk on the future of legal technology in a private client context. I was delighted to join the panel for this session, alongside the Law Society Gazette’s IT columnist, Joanna Goodman, and managing director of Digital Law, Peter Wright. Below are some of the key takeaways and further thoughts on how technology will continue to affect legal services.

Which technologies have gained wider adoption as a result of the pandemic?

E-signing has gained significant traction, allowing signings and completions to proceed without significant disruption. While there remain legal and practical limitations around the use of e-signing, these are reducing. Having proved its value, it’s likely that e-signing will continue to be relied upon significantly post-lockdown. Zoom and Microsoft Teams have also established themselves as a mainstay.

Private clients have become more interested in collaborative technologies, particularly as lockdowns have dispersed teams and made accessing the organisation’s ‘institutional memory’ more challenging. Solutions which offer online document storage, exchange and access, which support workflows, task allocation and management have come to the fore.

More generally, use of artificial intelligence (AI) systems continues to increase, particularly for document review in the context of legal and regulatory change. When combined with data analytics and data visualisation, AI can bring efficiency to projects involving volume and complexity. Use of expert and logic-based systems is also increasing, particularly to support clients in understanding compliance obligations under increasingly complex legal and regulatory regimes – for example, environmental, social and governance – to undertake risk analysis, monitor ongoing compliance and support audit.

What can hold back technology adoption?

Lack of understanding is a big inhibitor. Hype can create a misleading impression of what technologies actually offer and it can be difficult to understand exactly how technologies can be applied in a practical sense to the services lawyers provide to clients. Technology is a terrific enabler, but it is not a replacement for a lawyer’s expertise and judgement.

Lack of time holds things back too. Lawyers are time-poor, busy and often work under significant time pressure. While technology can often help, [working under pressure] is the worst possible time to be trying something out for the first time. Tremendous strides forward have been made in recent years and appetite for exploration has increased significantly, but firms need to invest in continuous education and more widespread adoption.

What questions should we ask tech providers?

Information security is paramount in a private client context, so ensuring that technologies have robust information security protections, and best-in-class industry certifications, is a priority. Given that the technologies used are increasingly cloud-based, ensuring a clear understanding of where the data is held – where the tech provider’s servers are located – is important.

Connectivity and interoperability are increasingly important too. Ensuring that the technologies being used can connect well with each other and exchange data seamlessly is critical, so we should be asking questions around current and planned integrations. That goes for client systems, as well as firms’ internal systems.

What impact does tech have on a lawyer’s skill set?

While lawyers certainly don’t need to learn how to code, tech skills and general digital literacy will become more important. This will need to be factored into legal education at the outset, as well as in continuous professional development.

Hybrid roles, which combine legal and technological expertise, will become much more common within the profession, allowing firms to drive forward tech enablement and offer clients a range of services which go beyond traditional legal practice.

Where will we be in five years?

Automation of drafting and processes will become commonplace, guiding lawyers through workflows and improving visibility. Online delivery of advice and documents, and online document collaboration and negotiation will also become more firmly embedded, giving clients greater flexibility and more transparency. Technology will put knowledge and information at lawyers’ and clients’ fingertips.

AI will be used much more frequently, likely becoming the default starting point for tasks like document review. More sophisticated uses of those technologies, to gain better insight into what’s been agreed previously and to detect anomalies, will become more commonplace.

Technologies will help guide clients through the increasingly complex law and regulation governing their affairs and businesses, allowing them to more quickly understand those areas that affect them, conduct risk assessments to identify areas for focus, and to monitor and audit compliance.

Overall, technologies will connect better. This will allow technologies to be used in combination more seamlessly. Allowing information to pass between systems more easily and having that information accessible in a more consistent and structured format will allow lawyers to better tap into that data.