One thing better - using technology to improve your legal practice

Jude Copeland

Legal Review Manager, Cleaver Fulton Rankin

Lawyers and technologists are both fond of overcomplicating things. Legal technology/ lawtech is defined by practitioners (of both disciplines) in different and overly complicated ways. The constant stream of tech pieces online and in the traditional media can lead to this nebulous legal technology being a little overwhelming and something to fear. My purpose here is to provide examples of technology which are accessible, mostly free, and can help with your legal practice in some way.

In our Legal Technology Group, we consider people, process, and technology. We do it in that order, considering how to best serve our clients’ interests, with technology enhancing and optimising the client experience or furthering their interests. Technology, specifically, carefully selected technology, properly deployed, with outputs checked for quality and consistency, can deliver greater compliance, lower risk, greater utilisation, and greater profitability for the firm.

Legl (https://legl.com/kyc-aml) is a platform which provides identity and biometric confirmations, financial and watch list screening, and ongoing monitoring. Private clients and UK corporate clients are sent a link and submit information and documentation online, which is verified by Legl and the outcome is communicated to the instructed lawyer. In an increasingly online work, clients have found this easier, and the response time is much quicker than traditional methods. It minimises human error and frees up fee earner time for actual chargeable legal work

Precedents are nothing new, but investing time in their creation and maintenance reaps rewards. It is worthwhile looking at your existing practice management software to see whether you can add your precedents to the practice management software, meaning you can automate parts of your legal advice – meaning more consistency and lower risk of human error. A number of open-sourced precedents are available, which may be useful but should not be used as an alternative for legal advice. An interesting example is One NDA ( https://www.onenda.org/).

Voice typing is another example of reviewing your current technology to see whether there is additional functionality you have not yet discovered. Windows 11 has voice typing, or digital dictation: by simply pressing the Windows logo key and “H” together, this enables speech recognition, and you can enter text into a document or email through speaking.

LinkedIn QR codes is an ultra-simple digital business card. In the mobile app, press the “search” bar then the logo to the right of it: your QR code is generated and can be scanned by others or incorporated in marketing materials.

Treekly is an innovative wellbeing and sustainability app which uses daily steps to plant trees. For every 5,000 steps a user takes, a tree is planted. It is a great way to promote employee engagement and wellbeing as well as ameliorating your firm’s carbon footprint. www.treekly.org

Ecosia is a search engine which works with Google and Bing, but which uses the advertising revenue to plant trees around the world. It is a very simple way to be climate active while simply searching for a legal authority or restaurant. www.ecosia.org

Bazaart is an incredible graphic design tool enabling users to create social media graphics, presentations, posters, fliers and other digital or print images. The premium version harnesses AI in several ways. These include removing backgrounds or flaws, airbrushing, matching text, backgrounds to logos or other graphics to ensure brand consistency. https://www.bazaart.com/

These small technological innovations can help lawyers in practices of all sizes and in all sectors. Experience of new apps and new technology increases digital literacy, builds confidence, and will increase curiosity about what other legal technology solutions can make life easier. In a way, it does not matter how we define legal technology, all that matters is that we are responding to our clients’ needs and continuing to deliver expert legal advice.