As expected, innovation has reached the legal market to bring solutions to improve the daily life of the operators of law. But this leads to the following question: “How to innovate in the legal market, which is so conservative and traditional”?
Regardless of the economic sector, it is necessary for the person in charge of the project to have an innovative mindset, that is, an open mind for changes, choosing to transform and break any existing barriers in their area of operation, instead of rejecting them or making their role illegitimate.
Moreover, when it comes to innovation, the idea should not be restricted to creating new technologies, but also to thinking about improving existing procedures, and perfecting models that are already being used.
The legal market is known for being traditional and having specific ways, standards and procedures and well-defined rules of ethics. This makes innovation even more challenging in this market, which leads us to find a solution that reconciles both traditionalism and innovation as services are provided.
Returning to the main point of this article, one may conclude that there is no exact answer, given that innovation in the legal market is not about breaking with conservatism and tradition, but about the need to adjust them to new paradigms – innovation.
For innovation to take place successfully in the legal market, the standards that are being adopted must be analyzed in order to be improved.
What can be noticed is the emergence of several Lawtechs/Legaltechs in the last years, which are mostly startups that develop technologies focused on the optimization of public and private legal work.
Specifically in the Brazilian legal market, a growth of three hundred percent (300%) has been registered in the segment of Lawtechs/Legaltechs[1] in the last two (2) years alone. This means that Brazil currently has more than one hundred and fifty (150) companies in this category, operating in several areas of law.
The Lawtechs/Legaltechs offer technological solutions for both law firms and the legal teams at companies, and it is essential that these clients identify the most appropriate solution for their legal activity, based on criteria such as the type of demand they receive and the procedures taken to deliver it, in order to guarantee efficiency.
There are also law firms and/or legal teams at companies that decide to develop their own legal solution – a scenario of intrapreneurship, in which the employees develop the innovation they aim internally.
Despite the statement above, there is still resistance from some of the operators of law to innovation in the legal market, with the fear of being, somehow, replaced by new technologies.
At this point, it should be borne in mind that innovation is a necessary and essential element for all market sectors, and there is no way to avoid or fight its arrival. Specifically with regard to the legal market, innovation is growing exponentially, but not with the aim of replacing the role of the operators of law, but otherwise to be a tool to help their work, allowing them to have more time to focus on solving complex issues to the best of their ability.
It remains clear that innovation in the legal market is happening at a global level and in a way that attempts to reconcile the traditionalism of the sector with the need for innovation that, at times, could even prove to be antagonistic in content, but that continues to show its day-to-day benefits to the operator of law.
[1] Available at <https://www.ab2l.org.br/ec ecosystemma-brasileiro-de-tecnologia-juridica-cresce-300-em-dois-anos/>. Accessed on 05/12/2020 at 8:00 p.m.
This piece was contributed as part of the 2019 Harvard Legal Technology Symposium organized by the Harvard Law & Technology Society. The Symposium was the largest student organized legal technology event in the world. It brought together an interdisciplinary and international community to think deeply about how technology can improve and shape the law.