When economic downturns hit, businesses and legal professionals need to be agile in how they work. They need to find ways to reduce costs and create efficiencies – quickly. Traditional models of legal service delivery can be slow to adapt, but technology can help speed up the process. Here is how Legal Tech can help.
How Legal Tech Can Help
In a recent survey by contract management company Lexion, an overwhelming majority of respondents (72%) agreed that legal technology can be leveraged to create greater efficiencies during economic downturns.
- The leading obstacles to job performance identified by respondents were inadequate personnel and resources (38.37%), arduous, low-priority tasks (36.9%) and lost time caused by document disorganization (34.9%).
- With the continuing economic uncertainty, two thirds of respondents expressed concern about its effects. Due to cost-saving measures, such as cuts in outside counsel consultation and hiring freezes or layoffs, 69% anticipated a reduction in spending – consequently leading to no growth potential for their respective departments.
- Even with the possibility of job losses and recruitment halts, 44% of those surveyed are looking to invest in tech as a way to bolster productivity.
- As surveyed, respondents stated that the three foremost technology purchases over the next six months are all related to contracting: e-signature software (31.3%), a contract repository (29.4%), and contract review/redlining software (27.6%).
Other high-priority areas of legal tech, according to the survey, include contract creation software, contract analytics/reporting, legal task management, discovery, spend management, file folder storage, and general project management.
Undoubtedly, Legal tech can help businesses and legal professionals to work faster, smarter and more cost-effectively. By reducing manual processes and automating tasks, legal staff can focus on higher-value activities that require human judgment. Legal tech solutions can be deployed quickly, enabling organizations and law firms to rapidly respond to changing market conditions.
Technology is also helping to re-imagine traditional legal services. Solutions like AI-powered document automation, online dispute resolution and blockchain smart contracts are transforming how businesses access and use legal services. These solutions can help reduce costs for both clients and law firms, by streamlining processes and eliminating manual tasks.
Let’s look at several in-depth use cases for legal technology in an economic downturn.
- Document automation is one application of legal tech that can be used to help streamline the delivery of legal services. Automating document assembly and contract review can reduce the time taken to produce documents, helping to free up lawyers’ time for more high-value activities. AI-powered contract analysis solutions can help to quickly identify potential risk factors in a contract, reducing the need for costly manual review.
- Online dispute resolution is another area where legal tech can be employed to great effect. By automating processes, businesses and law firms can provide more affordable and efficient dispute resolution services than traditional methods. AI-powered tools can also help to accurately assess the strength of a case, helping to eliminate costly and time-consuming litigation.
- Blockchain smart contracts are one way that businesses can reduce the cost and complexity of their legal services. By using blockchain technology to create digital contracts, businesses can eliminate manual processes and reduce the time taken to execute transactions. Smart contracts also provide an added layer of security, as they are stored on a distributed ledger that is tamper-proof and immutable.
In summary, the use of legal tech can help businesses and law firms to reduce costs and increase efficiency during times of economic uncertainty. LEGID is an AI-powered, legal market network that helps to make the legal marketplace more efficient, accessible and transparent.
Investing in solutions like LEGID can help organizations to weather the storm of an economic downturn, and pay dividends in the future by reducing costs and increasing efficiency. By automating processes, businesses can also reduce their legal spend and focus on more high-value activities.