Today’s legal environment is being streamlined with new automation technologies to help streamline many legal and back-office processes. This automation will eventually pay dividends for both the legal entity implementing them and their clients. Among the technologies leading the way in automation for the legal field are automation, AI (artificial intelligence), SaaS (software as a service), cloud solutions, cybersecurity, and data protection, among many others. The legal industry is evolving, and the firms that embrace technology may separate themselves from the rest of the pack in a competitive legal landscape. These areas within the legal profession will benefit from these new technologies.
Billing Software
One practical area for using new technology is legal billing software. Using billing software enables law firms to become more profitable. Streamlining the payment process helps to reduce manual payment reconciliation and associated accuracy, which in turn leads forms to accept multiple forms of payment.
By accepting payments electronically, the law firms’ cash flow is accelerated to ensure a more accurate and timely accounting of funds. Also, billing software can help manage a bail bond service with automation of billing and invoicing, saving time and reducing errors. The correct billing technology helps with tracking payments and includes detailed reporting.
Also, payment processing allows clients more options for paying for services such as accepting debit and credit cards and other online payment services such as financing legal fees. Law firms using billing software can be assured the technology employs robust security measures and the latest encryption technologies. Also, deploying secure payment gateways that comply with respected industry standards protects law firms and their clients.
Cybersecurity Technology
Those in the legal profession deal daily with sensitive and confidential information that cybercriminals work to hack. Legal entities can exploit many venues, including security regulators, compliance, legal ethics, business operations, and, most importantly, client trust. Cybersecurity can affect three legal practice areas in many ways, including:
Regulatory Compliance:
The legal profession has many regulations and laws that govern its profession, including privacy, security, and data protection. Considerable regulations include the California Consumer Privacy Act, the General Data Protection Regulation, and the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act. There could be possible penalties or lawsuits for non-compliance due to cybersecurity breaches.
Legal Ethics – The self-imposed duty of legal professionals to protect their client’s information and to preserve their records. Keeping abreast of data protection ramifications, they must stay current on technological compliance. Breaches due to cybersecurity assaults could compromise ethical obligations and expose lawyers to malpractice or corruption charges.
- Business Operations – Ensuring the continuity and efficiency of the legal practical area may rely on technology for collaborating, communicating, managing, and researching cases. The threat of cybersecurity breaches can lead to disruption and paralysis of the normal legal professional functioning of law firms and lawyers, causing financial losses, declining productivity, or complete operational failures.
Virtual Court Hearings
Court proceedings that proceed remotely via video conferencing or phone calls are virtual court hearings and have become more common since the COVID-19 pandemic. As the technology improves, this process will become more streamlined. There are several ways the legal profession is affected by technology with the capacity to deliver virtual court hearings, including:
Requiring internet connections that are secure and reliable, connection devices, and software platforms for all participants. Considerations for privacy, security, and secure access will have to be given to all parties involved. There may be unattended implications for the effectiveness and fairness of trials due to virtual court hearings. This can be due to the changed dynamics as a consequence of remote communications, persuasion among the parties, interactions, and interrupting the behavior and perception of the jurors.
On the positive side, technology provides innovation and efficiency for the legal profession. This innovation can include greater access to justice, reduced travel costs, remote consulting with a bondsman on a case, and collaborating across states and borders. This new application of technology for virtual court hearings may have lasting impacts on the legal system and, ultimately, society. Along the way, special considerations will have to be made to the technology’s regulation, evaluation, and adaptation to maintain the principles and standards of justice.
Streamlined Case Management
Another practical area for implementing technology in the legal profession is streamlined case management. Legal technology can affect in a positive way streamlined case management. This is the use of digital platforms and management tools for better case management efficiency, in the following ways:
Secure Centralized Location:
Case information is accessed from a secure, centralized location for immediate availability to qualified parties at all times. Automated case tracking allows for case-related tasks like deadlines, responsibilities, and progress to be tracked automatically for easy accountability of all concerned members.
- Paperwork reduction allows for improved document management with technologies like document scanning, indexing, and retrieval. This leads to paperwork reduction and increased accuracy. Enhanced collaboration lets team members collaborate to enhance communications by sharing documents, notes, and real-time feedback and decision-making. By utilizing streamlined case management, legal professionals are better able to deliver legal services for clients, optimize time and resources, and increase productivity and efficiency. So, the next time a requirement calls for fast bail bonds, it is fulfilled quickly and efficiently.
Fast Communication
One benefit of technology for the legal profession is providing a framework for fast communications. Another practical area for leveraging technology is providing short communications within legal practice. For example, this can help when there is a need to quickly bring a bankruptcy agency up to speed concerning a case.
The automation of repetitive tasks saves lawyers and clients time and resources by automating document reviews, contract creation, and e-discovery tasks. AI allows for the data analysis of huge amounts of data to discover insights and predictions based on markers like previous case outcomes, client preferences, and legal precedents. Virtual legal assistants leverage virtual legal assistant technology for mundane tasks like billing, scheduling, and client communications, freeing lawyers to focus on more strategic matters.
Chatbots and Virtual Assistants
Another practical area where technology can help the legal industry is the deployment of chatbots and virtual assistants. These are AI-powered tools for enhancing legal services in varying ways, including document assistance, case updates, interactions with clients, and overall information provisions. They also provide an avenue for obtaining justice by providing legal guidance and referrals that would only be open to those who can afford a human lawyer. For example, perhaps you need a criminal defense lawyer but cannot afford to retain one; the chatbot and virtual assistance technology may be able to point you in the right direction for relief based upon some key questions or assistance.
Automated client support helps to automate the process of providing legal information, case updates, scheduling appointments, and answering FAQs. Enhanced access enhances the justice process by providing referrals and legal guidance to those who cannot afford an actual lawyer. Increased efficiency streamlines tasks by answering questions, performing routine tasks, and reducing communication errors resulting in significant costs and time savings for lawyers and clients. However, it should be noted chatbots and virtual assistants are continuing to evolve, and there may be ethical and legal challenges in the future regarding liability, regulations, and data privacy.
Cloud Storage
The practice of storing and managing data from remote servers rather than local servers is a service known as cloud storage. There are many benefits legal practices can attribute to cloud storage, including affordable scalability, collaboration, and time and labor savings. For example, personal accident attorneys can easily collaborate with real-time data and information, saving countless hours while working through the legal process. The following are key metrics to consider when evaluating cloud storage services:
- Cloud Storage Security – Providers of cloud storage services should adhere to best practices, including employing sophisticated data encryption, authentication, and data backup methodologies. Their services also should include protection from unauthorized access, data corruption, or data loss. In addition, legal practice should retain the right to access, modify, or delete your data at all hours.
- Data Jurisdiction:
Since cloud storage providers may store data on servers in many disparate areas and countries, different laws and regulations could exist regarding your data protection, access, transfer, or retention. Also, clearly understand all server locations laws and regulations for the proper legal firm compliance. If you’re not careful, you could end up getting yourself into trouble!
- Data Forensics:
Legal professionals often work with law enforcement or judicial authorities about criminal or legal proceeding cases. The associated data for these cases might require the legal firm to designate where data is stored and preserved and how readily available it will be for evidence. All parties should clearly understand the ramifications of cloud storage and how all the legal requirements for data storage are maintained.
Data Compliance – Another practical area for considering cloud storage is data compliance. Cloud storage service providers should comply with all the published laws and regulations that affect their operations, including consumer protection, national security, tax, and antitrust data. Since these regulations and laws can affect the availability and quality of service, data providers should comply with any regulatory laws within the area. Cloud storage as another legal technology tool can benefit a legal firm; however, there are some risks and legal challenges to consider. Law firms should ensure the cloud storage provider adheres to required privacy, security, and compliance mandates.
AI-Assisted Research
AI-assisted research aims to help legal professionals discover, analyze, and synthesize relevant information from diverse sources such as case law, statutes, journals, regulations, and pertinent new articles. AI-assisted research benefits legal firms in many areas:
- Cost Savings – Legal professionals can save time and reduce costs for researching cases with sufficient contextual information to rank the results by relevance, citation frequency, and recency. In addition, it reduces the amount of money and time allocated for legal research while allowing the legal professional more time to focus on other profitable, higher-value work.
- Improved Accuracy and Quality – By using natural language processing to identify and summarize the relevant points of documents, AI machine learning can detect differences among sources. It can then apply data analytics to generate insights from research results. This process provides an enhanced process for creating fresh perspectives on approaching a legal issue.
- Keeping Clients Happy – For example, a civil attorney may build a stronger case strategy with AI insight into data-driven knowledge. This can result in a winning court strategy with in-depth knowledge of the courts, judges, lawyers, and damages. You’ll have clients flocking to your firm! Although AI-assisted research is just now becoming a reality, with its potential it should be seriously considered as a technology that can significantly benefit a legal firm and, at the same time, maintain a law firm’s competitive edge
Data Analysis
Data analysis includes the processing of creation, categorizing, and examining data sets to develop an inference and conclusion from the data. The practical area of data analysis and ways it provides benefits for legal technology include time and cost savings. Data analysis technology can save valuable time by taking massive amounts of data, ranking query results by relevance, formatting queries into contextual meaning, and ranking citation frequency.
Create Better Case Strategies – Data-driven knowledge provides unprecedented insight into judges, lawyers, courts, and damages based on available data to build a more effective case. If a lawyer is working with immigration firms, for example, on a case, data analysis of relevant data can provide a case with a huge edge. Today’s demanding and competitive legal market drives legal firms to investigate this technology’s benefits seriously.
Digital Marketing
The legal market is extremely competitive, and digital marketing is a technology that can provide a competitive edge. Digital marketing entails using the internet and online technologies. This includes social media, websites, and data tools, to assist law firms in obtaining greater market share.
Digital marketing objectives may include promoting the firm’s brand, acquiring customers, and increasing sales and profits. For example, a legal firm specializing in defense lawyers may use digital marketing to increase brand awareness and attorney exposure to stand out in a competitive landscape. Get ready for tech to bring your firm to new heights!
