8 Reasons to Digitalize your Law Practice and Increase Profitability

Introduction

The integration of #legal #technology in the #lawpractice in India is more than two decades old with the emergence of websites which offered a search of case laws and legislations online. Imagine the relief it must have for the law practitioners then!

With time, legal technology raided various legal domains such as contract management and automation, document automation, e-billing software, legal analytics etc. making ‘digitalization’ no more a buzzword for law practitioners. Now, the size of the Indian #legaltech market is $380 millions (as estimated by Omidyar Network India). And as per a report by Gartner, the spend on legal tech by Indian law firms will increase threefold by 2025. — Yes! We are talking this about one of the oldest profession of India

Last year, when the Hon’ble Supreme Court of India digitized one crore and five lakh pages of civil appeal and the government launched an Integrated Case Management System (ICMS), aiming at the digitization of services being provided to the Indian judiciary, there is no hesitation in accepting the fact now that the emergence of technology in the Indian legal sector is way faster than anyone ever estimated. The experts foresee this market to grow at an explosive rate of 35% annually over the next few years.

No doubt that in Covid-19 pandemic era, technology, however, saw an all-time high dependency once the world came to a halt, and for the first time, law firms had to fall back on technology and adopt an altogether new way of conducting their operations, with technology playing an integral part of this makeover. E-signatures, online contracts, virtual courts, online meetings and e-billing software solutions ensured that the legal services continue seamlessly even during the pandemic times. While traditionally, law firms are able to leverage their goodwill to continue to attract clients, they realized that lack of technology could severely hamper them permanently, pushing them out of service.

Following the bubbling integration of technology, a host of innovative legal-tech companies have entered the market of legal service providers, presently challenging the lawyers’ monopoly over the practice of the law and, ultimately, altering the mode of production in the legal field.

Reasons to adopt a tech-based approach in your law practice‍

This clearly gives you all the reasons to adopt a tech-based approach in your law practice. Although, we have survived the time when technology was just a ‘luxury’, now the time is about its ‘necessity’. The transition from the traditional to a tech-savvy approach is important:

• To keep your practice sustaining in the long run: Now it should not be a doubt that for very law practitioner to sustain for a long term in the upcoming times, where the working patters are disruptively evolving, adoption of technology is a mandate for delivering their services efficiently.
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• For better utilization of your time: There are multiple cost-efficient options available in the market for document automation, proofreading, due diligence, legal research and e-discovery, better client relationship management allowing you more time to practice law and work on matters that require your core legal expertise.
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• For better and quality service delivery: Adoption of the technology will help you enhance your delivery rate with improved quality, further enhancing the value proposition of your services. It will also help you in reducing your turnaround time significantly. Imagine finishing a two-day delivery in two hours! Well, this era demands a ‘quick service delivery’ not just for a pizza or groceries, but to be applicable universally!
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• Easy client connection: CLOC’s recent report estimates that 54-57% of Indian companies intend to automate their legal processes. Without a doubt, such companies will be inclined more towards someone with a similar mind set and approach to business. Hence, being a complete tech oriented law firm will give you an edge over others.
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• For ease of operations: The principal factor that drives the legal sector to automation is it helps cuts down on repetitive and sometimes monotonous work. Today, #legaltech solutions offers a wide variety of tools for law firm automation in India. It is not just about virtual courts, paperless offices, a seamless work-from-home environment, and the use of software to streamline the operations, but it has captured the functioning of a law firms touching every aspect of its practice, starting with the very initial stage of finding out the potential clients till making the final delivery and closing the case.
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• To attract better resources: Younger professionals, who are more tech-savvy, are attracted towards working in a more technologically sound environment, triggering the need to scale up the firms’ digital capabilities in order to give them a more workable environment. Therefore, to attract and retain top talent and to grow, law firms now need to enhance their processes to leverage the industry's best practices.
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• To play on a global level: The Deccan Chronicle in their recent article talked the requirement of a framework for lawyers that promises efficiency in every process. The reason given was the entry of foreign players in the Indian legal sector by way of partnerships and mergers. This naturally paves the way for the adoption of global practices, which are more automated and heavy on digital solutions. They early you adopt, the early you will be in the race!‍
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• To cater volumes: Investing in the right digital technologies for efficient working will help the help you deal with the voluminous information more efficiently and gain the required insights fast. Start with a #CRM and then a law firm management software if you are a small or a mid-sized law firm. These will help automate required work flows with required resources without burdening your pocket.

Conclusion

We all will agree to the point that the need of the hour for the legal sector is to maximize returns while making the business processes more efficient and world-class. Streamlining of the whole practice with the help of digitalization comes as an answer to this by boosting overall efficiencies, and growth.

We have talked of all the good-goods of digitalizing your law practice, but what about the packaged challenges. Unlike most foreign law firms, we are still in the transition phase of the adoption of technology in our law practice and coping up in our own ways. The process of digitalization of your law practice in India revolves around three major restrictions, - 1. Cost; 2. Security & Privacy; and 3. Easy Adoption.

In my upcoming part 2 of this article, I’ll be highlighting the ways to deal with these restrictions, recommending available adaptable software in the market to easily digitalizing your law practice without burdening your pockets. Stay tuned!

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