It can’t be denied – the Information Age has had a profound effect on virtually every industry and profession around the world. Some corners of the workforce have flourished (we’re looking at you, Silicon Valley); some industries have undergone major transformations (if you’ve bought a record from a retail store in the last five years, you’re one of a noble few); and a long list of professions, from travel agents to insurance salesmen, have taken a serious beating. However, for legal practitioners both old and new, the question remains: how has the evolution of technology affected the legal profession?
According to Lachlan McKnight, technology and the legal profession have endured a love-hate relationship. McKnight is co-founder and CEO of LegalVision, a legal service provider which aims to assist individuals and SMEs with all of their business needs. Founded in 2012, LegalVision provides its services directly to its clients via a web platform in an effort to challenge the conventional methods of the legal profession.
“Over the last decade many industries have been disrupted by the growth of online providers,” said McKnight.
“The legal profession is perhaps one of the last big industries to not yet have been radically transformed by the online revolution. Advances in technology now allow lawyers to acquire customers online, service them online, and do so more quickly and at a higher quality than a traditional lawyer. The industry is at the cusp of massive disruption.”
ConnectLaw owner Fabian Horton agrees that technological advancements have yielded many benefits for legal practitioners.
“The largest benefit technology has had for lawyers is the one that is taken the most for granted: faster access to knowledge bases – whether that be in terms of legislation, case law or internal firm knowledge,” Horton said.
“Websites and knowledge management systems incorporate micro-categorisation and hyperlinking of knowledge. This has transformed the way that the lawyer obtains and interacts with the core components of their work. These technologies have become so ingrained in today’s law firm that many lawyers do not realise what a huge leap forward this is in legal knowledge management. With the access to this knowledge now becoming mobile, the true skills of the lawyer can now come to the forefront. ”
However, continued technological developments are also posing a number of challenges to existing operators within the legal profession.
“As with any disruptive force, the tech revolution in law will negatively affect revenues and profits for existing incumbents, whilst nimble start-ups are likely to capture market share,” said McKnight.
“Simple legal tasks which many sole practitioners have derived much of their revenue from will become more and more commoditised. Law firms will either have to choose to provide high-volume commoditised services, or highly bespoke services. Law firms stuck in the middle will be in trouble.”
Horton added that easy access to information is posing an increasing challenge to lawyers.
“Law at its core is information and the application of that information,” he said. As information becomes increasingly commoditised the lawyer will find themselves being more at the mercy of the factors that affect commodities such as price, scarcity and perceived value. Lawyers are quickly losing a large part of their former business being the dissemination of legal information. New business models will be required to take account of the way information is now consumed by people. And while many lawyers will believe that their practice area is immune from this, their clients won’t necessarily agree.”
Even so, while the role of the lawyer is undergoing a shift, Horton believes there are areas in which the services of a lawyer cannot be trumped by technology.
“Where technology is still a long way off is in the efficient application of legal knowledge directly to legal problems,” he said.
“To my mind this means that the lawyer is now seen (and operates) more as a risk manager – someone who knows the intricacies of the information and the processes, and from that level guides the client through the legal knowledge maze to an appropriate set of solutions.”