An Introduction to Mapping and Classifying LegalTech
The LegalTech Book: The Legal Technology Handbook for Investors, Entrepreneurs and FinTech Visionaries
MK: I needed to know how to properly approach this area, so decided to read a book excerpt.
What does it do?
LegalTech introduces changes in the ways legal teams work —> affects the way legal knowledge is assessed, acquired, processed and delivered.
Legal Research
Quite clear, various databases (paid or free).
Matter Management
Automation of reporting, standardization of workflows, collaboration facilitation, faster search, maintenance of precedents, recording approvals, etc.
May include process management that can exist as standalone solutions.
Subtopics
Billing / legal spend management. Allows demonstration of the ROI to stakeholders – analyze the line items in invoices and reject the ones that don’t look good.
Knowledge management and expertise automation. Team’s know-how, need to keep within the firm and make easily accessible. [MK: lots of tools doing this and not calling themselves LegalTech, too]
Contracts
A huge battleground for LegalTech innovation. See below for examples.
Drafting aids
Automate the creation of new contracts.
Can be straightforward filling in of boilerplates or using question-response sequences to create a contract.
Contract Review + Due Diligence
Automate the review of existing contracts and other agreements.
Simplest way: compare against a template/boilerplate.
More complex: tag certain sections for human review. Learn which bits are likely to deviate from the median. Use case: review of multiple contracts during due diligence.
Can be used for risk management – review of historical contracts.
Useful to identify cases like UK being part of EU and applying EU legislation broadly.
Management
Contract repository, obligation mapping and tracking, task management, [MK: expiration date management and renewal], etc.
Analytics
Extraction and monitoring of data related to the organization’s contracting obligations, trends, efficiency, etc.
Digital Signature
No need to explain why (simple, provable, time-stamped, etc.)
Increased use of signing on mobile devices.
Positive Consequences
Governance – the right signatory every time.
Contract retention.
Speed – system chases signatories and nudges them when they’re late.
Future-proofing – integration with matter management and contracts systems.
E-Discovery
Managing the identification, collection and analysis of electronically stored info.
Intellectual Property Rights
Automation of tracking of patents, trademarks and other IPRs.
Others
Privacy and compliance management (GDPR, anyone?)
[MK: KYC and AML assistance tools]
Online dispute resolution tools – facilitate faster and cheaper resolution of potential and actual litigation.
Litigation prediction – based on past track record predict an outcome of a case based on the court’s (or even individual judge’s) past track records —> choose the right strategy and tactics.