The arrival of new technology is rapidly changing the face of just about every industry. The legal world is no different from any other sector in this respect, but what are the main changes you need to know about, and how are they changing legal education needs and processes?
What tech is changing the law world?
The term ‘lawtech’ is often used to describe the cutting-edge technology being introduced into legal businesses. Like most other industries, artificial intelligence (AI) is one of the most talked-about areas. By using powerful AI engines, it’s possible to create many different types of legal texts almost instantly. In this way, we can make legal contracts, write letters, or research cases far more quickly.
Data analytics has also been making waves in the legal industry in the last few years. It’s easy to find various ways that this tech is going to prove increasingly useful for law experts. For a start, it can be used to pull together and analyze all the relevant information from even the most complex cases. Analysis can then be carried out very quickly to show the likely outcome of the court case, taking into account all the details. Augmented data analytics adds AI to make the data more accessible to casual users.
The blockchain is another area that could be set to bring big changes to the law industry. The transparency and immutability of the blockchain make it ideal for recording transactions and information that needs to be shown publicly and fully trusted. The ability to create smart contracts in this way could make the process of agreeing on new contracts easier and a lot smoother.
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How will this change the way that we carry out legal work?
The first thing we’re likely to notice is that legal firms are freed up from many of the repetitive and sometimes tedious tasks that currently take up a lot of their time. However, it would be wrong to think that this is going to mean that all their work is going to be replaced by computers and robots. Instead, this tech will be used to complement the human workforce.
We’re still going to need legal experts who know what information to put into these systems and how to interpret the results that come back. It could mean some interesting changes to the way that law firms work, as they put a greater focus on sharing information and using all the available tools as effectively as possible.
Legal clients should also find that they’re offered a variety of ways of getting help. While speaking to a human expert is always going to be necessary in some cases, more straightforward queries could be handled via online platforms with chatbots and virtual tools. This will streamline many of the processes that currently take up a lot of time, freeing up this time for other tasks instead. Just as automated address verification and other advances have become widely accepted, clients will soon realize the benefits of this way of working.
The need for law education and tech knowledge
This leads us to the question of how the educational needs of new and existing members of the law profession are changing. The first main point to cover here is that there is still going to be a need for a solid basis in law. All of the new tech we’ve been looking at isn’t going to replace the knowledge gained over the years from listening to learned professors and reading the right books.
We can see the type of specialist subjects that will remain relevant by looking at the profile of Samuel L Bray. As the John N. Matthews Professor of Law at the University of Notre Dame, he focuses on areas such as the law of remedies and the law of equity. As an elected member of the American Law Institute, he has years of knowledge on legal subjects that can be passed on to the next generations of experts to help them use technology wisely.
However, this legal advice now needs to be combined with an understanding of how the new tech works. While we can expect many of the new tools to have interfaces that are easy to use, the people who rely on them to carry out their jobs and make the right decisions still need to have a degree of understanding of how they work.
What happens next?
The new technology that’s being introduced into legal firms is still at an early stage, meaning that we can expect to see changes and innovations coming along that introduce new elements or take us in new directions. The future of lawtech is becoming clearer all the time, but there is still a long way to go before it can be classed as a fully established part of our working lives.
