Legal Tech Industry in India

Rapid advancement in technology has somehow impacted us in many contexts. We can find it by how we work and socialise and gather information these days. This has also impacted the legal industry. Nowadays, in the legal industry, there has been a decline in the usage of pen and paper. Now, technical legal tech software has taken the place of traditional work and modernised it, such as the online payment system, managing case records, storing documents online, etc. It’s just a glimpse that legal tech software has changed the working process of the legal industry throughout the world.

Legal Tech software is a kind of programme designed to provide assistance to legal firms, industries or an organisation to manage their daily scheduled business. Originally, it was different from using the traditional tools or hardware at home or in the office and efficiently provided more support to the legal practitioners and their clients to sit at a place and leave the office on time.

A few examples of software that provide great effort in the legal industry- support in signing on any document with an electronic signature rather than taking the print and doing it by hand. Legal Accounting software also supported the firm accountants to manage and track the firm’s cash flow easily. Some sorts of work are daily in practice in the legal industry to manage appointment schedules, informing about the circulars and notices to advocates, document automation and storage, and updating the case laws online easily accessible for the judges, clients, and lawyers can be might possible because of legal tech software’s.

Future of Legal tech industry in India with statistics

The legal Tech industry refers to the use of advanced technological support in terms of human-made intelligence, learning of legal software and hardware, etc., to support the reasoning and logical thinking of legal industry practitioners. We have seen 2 decades in each industry having some drastic changes, likewise the telecom industry, transportation or start-up industries. But in between them, there is an industry in which a significant class/transformation of changes can be seen. Through our naked eyes, it may get skipped that in the year 2013, the legal industry was estimated to be approx. 274 billion US dollars, but now it has rapidly grown to 1,011 billion US dollars. How is it possible?   Genuinely, the people having legal awareness and an increase in paying capacity definitely be the main reason, but one main reason is the legal tech or legal technology.

 As per reports, approx. 17 lakh advocates are engaging in our legal industry, which is just a less number, and we require more legal experts. To cope with the requirement, it has been mandatory to have a good knowledge and accessible approach towards technology usage. Without technology, it’s hard for us to practice in the legal industry. Major problems were reported in facing legal research for cases, and more than 2.8 corers cases are still pending in the Indian Judicial System. There is a shortage of judges and lawyers in the judicial system, and the cases are pending due to a lack of implementation of technology in the judicial system.

In the current era, many companies provide many services such as creating documents as per your case, helping in finding a good lawyer, drafting contracts and other legal documents, providing services to review legal documents and providing legal research through online database companies. It’s just the beginning. Even the Apex Court, Hon’ble Justice A.K. Sikri, spoke in the event that human-made intelligence will be arguing a lawyer’s capabilities but can’t replace lawyers, as advocacy is a matter of emotions and human empathy.

Advantages of the Legal Tech Industry

When a lawyer, attorney or any legal agency pursues its daily routine work, then a pattern is followed by them during the same process to carry out their daily business, and when the same law agency takes reference or support from legal technology, likewise any application or software to perform their routine works, we called it as legal technology. In a broader sense, when any lawyer or agency takes support of this technology in order to ease out their work for effective assistance, it comes under the category of Legal Tech.

• Automated process– When a law agency or lawyer pursues its daily routine work, for example, a new case to keep in the record, to note down the case in dairy, enter in MS Excel and inform the attorney or lawyers about the case. All such works are done manually, but facts state that almost 65-70% of works are repeatable in nature. As we take the help of any legal software, the work becomes easier and simpler.
• Easy In Research– Although the legal practitioner made themselves so aware of the Google search bar and now case research are done so easily on each and every work, somehow they need to depend on the print material. In this scenario, legal research-type solution software tools play a vital role in doing routine work within a few minutes. Such software usually eliminates unnecessary papers from your desk. Also, they can easily take you to your concerned research paper or paragraph or at any provision.
• Better Resource Management– When a young law graduate joins any law agency, a similar pattern of repeated work is given to maintain case records in the system, entry of cases in dairy, etc. Such routine work distracts and makes them disinterested in performing the same. Behind this, there may be 2 main causes- the young lawyer is not able to learn new things, and the senior advocate is not in a position to take advantage of the young lawyer’s calibre/intellect. When this legal technology comes in story and usage, senior advocates and young lawyers can easily use human resources in an effective manner to complete their routine work.
• Decline In Risk Of Error– Generally, in a different law firm, the routine work is performed through the junior advocates or clerks. During the routine process, having some clerical error by them can further create some serious consequences. We can avoid it by using these software or legal applications that have the possibility of zero error.

Challenges Overcome in the Legal Tech Industry

In a conducted research, it was found that only 70% of consumers would go and use the online system platforms to manage legal affairs. By using the automated legal system, up to 23% of lawyer’s tasks are expected to be easily completed on time. Human-made intelligence has developed so far, but it’s very difficult to find the legal tech industry completely working through it. It is important to note that we can’t even deny that a single industry can now neglect the technological development usage in their day-to-day business to compete in the market. We, therefore, highlight some of the main challenges faced by the legal industry and the process to overcome them.

Privacy & Security Concerns

Data privacy and security are the key concerns in the legal industry. However, the lawyers are always ready for the bad to the worst conditions. It can be the main reason for the slow and steady usage of technology among lawyers. Studies proposed that in the world, most law firms are hacked due to a shortage of protective measures. We need to keep our data at least with protective measures in the legal tech industry.

Lack of Understanding

The legal tech industry is a new field that came into existence within the past years. Several establishments are not aware of the legal tech industry, how they can benefit, and the exact meaning of the legal tech industry. Companies have a mindset that the legal tech industry is only for the government and law enforcement agencies and is developed for the use of concerned government authorities only. The legal tech industry has a wide range of software that different companies can use for benefits and easy tasks. We should think about this aspect also.

Lack of Vision

Several associations lack knowledge of how a legal tech industry or software can help them, and they are wasting their time in making decisions using the traditional method of emotional thinking. We need to develop a good understanding and vision among the companies. So they could get the benefit.

Ignoring the Customer Choice

In terms of legal tech, many business organisations somehow fail to manage their client’s choices. Eventually, they are busy developing the products.

Leading Players in the Legal Tech Industry in India

As the legal cases are so complex, costly and time-consuming process, the approach of legal tech companies came up in such a manner to make it easier, less time-consuming and cost-friendly.

• In-house Document Software
• Cloud-Based Technology
• AI(Artificial Intelligence)
• Internet Of Things(IoT)
• Word Processors & e-discovery Solutions
• Time cracking & Billing Solutions
• Block Chain Smart Contracts & Payment Solution
• Augmented & Virtual Reality

CONCLUSION

We can’t deny the fact that technology has advanced, and not a single organisation/industry has been left out. This has also impacted the Legal Tech Industry. In the legal industry, there has been a decline in the usage of pen and paper. Legal tech software has changed the legal industry’s working process and efficiently provides more support to legal practitioners and their clients to sit at a place and leave the office on time. In the future, only those businesses that are present digitally will survive.