Top 10 Legal Technology Trends in 2024

The Best Legal Technology Trends of 2024

A new year always comes with emerging technologies in various fields, including the legal industry. As legal professionals become more open to technology, more companies offer legal tech solutions that aim to address the industry’s needs.

Here are some of the latest legal tech trends that you should look into:

1. Automation

Automation technology takes over repetitive and time-consuming tasks, such as document drafting, client intake processes, and compliance checks.

By automating these tasks, law firms can significantly reduce manual labor, mitigate the risk of human errors, and ensure consistency in legal documents and procedures. Similar to other legal tech trends on the list, automation allows law firms to allocate more time to more valuable activities.

You can harness these abilities with:

• Briefpoint: Automates the preparation of discovery request and discovery response documents, saving hours of work that would have otherwise been spent on reviewing requests and drafting responses.
• LawGeex: Automates the contract review process and helps legal teams to efficiently review, approve, or escalate contracts by comparing them against predefined criteria, significantly reducing the time and effort involved in manual reviews.
• Contractbook: Provides end-to-end contract lifecycle management with a strong emphasis on automation. It can automatically review legal contracts, helping streamline the process of contract management.

2. Legal Case Management Software

Legal Case Management Software is a valuable tool for centralizing case files, communications, billing, and scheduling into a unified platform. This software helps improve a law firm’s efficiency by automating administrative tasks, overseeing case tracking, and improving client relationship management.

The integration of legal case management software allows legal professionals to focus on more high-value legal work, thereby increasing productivity and reducing the potential for human error. Companies that cater to this emerging legal tech trend include:

• Clio: A cloud-based legal practice management software offering features like case management, billing, and client communication. Designed to enhance productivity and allow remote access to important information.
• MyCase: An all-in-one legal management solution focusing on case management, billing, and secure client communication. Known for its user-friendly interface, it aims to improve client experiences and streamline administrative tasks.
• Smokeball: Offers case management, billing, and automation features. It emphasizes ease of use, allowing for customization and automation to boost efficiency and profitability.

3. Artificial Intelligence

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is at the forefront of legal innovation, offering capabilities like predictive analytics in case outcomes and automating complex document review processes.

Legal AI tools help law firms analyze vast amounts of data for informed decision-making, streamlined litigation preparation, and personalized client interactions. You can take advantage of this significant legal technology trend with:

• Luminance: Uses machine learning to improve the process of document review for due diligence, compliance, and litigation tasks. Its AI technology adapts to the specific needs of a legal team, identifying patterns and anomalies in data, thereby increasing the speed and accuracy of legal document analysis.
• ROSS Intelligence: Leverages artificial intelligence to offer a legal research platform that streamlines the process of finding relevant case law and legal precedents. It allows legal professionals to ask natural language questions and receive instant, accurate answers, enhancing research efficiency and accuracy.
• LegalSifter: Combines AI with legal expertise to help users review contracts more efficiently. The platform suggests edits, identifies key clauses, and provides advice on contract negotiation, aiming to reduce the time and cost associated with contract review.

4. Litigation Management

Technological advancements in litigation management software provide comprehensive tools for case management, document storage, and team collaboration. These platforms help achieve a seamless flow of information among legal departments, regardless of geographic location, and enable efficient management of litigation portfolios.

The ability to track deadlines, manage evidence, and communicate effectively in a secure environment improves litigation processes and decision-making overall.

The following companies provide litigation management solutions to law firms that need a more efficient litigation process:

• Casepoint: Offers cloud-based solutions that provide a comprehensive suite of discovery features, including legal hold, data collection, advanced analytics, and artificial intelligence.
• Logikcull: Simplifies the process of managing litigation and investigations for law firms. Its cloud-based platform offers solutions for drag-and-drop uploading, powerful search capabilities, and secure collaboration, aiming to reduce the time and cost associated with traditional discovery processes.
• Everlaw: Combines document management, collaborative review, and advanced analytics, focusing on ease of use and powerful search capabilities. It facilitates the discovery process by enabling legal teams to upload, review, and produce documents more efficiently, while also providing tools for timeline analysis and predictive coding.

5. Virtual Legal Assistants

Virtual Legal Assistants (VLAs) are a significant technological advancement in the legal industry, leveraging AI to transform how law firms interact with their clients. These AI-driven platforms are designed to perform a variety of tasks that traditionally require human intervention, thus optimizing operations and improving the client experience.

VLAs can manage routine but essential tasks such as scheduling appointments, organizing client meetings, and sending reminders for upcoming deadlines or payments. This allows lawyers to spend more time on in-depth analysis, strategy development, and personalized client counseling, which are critical components of successful legal representation.

Law firms can find this legal tech from:

• Lola Legal: Offers a virtual legal assistant designed for law firms and legal professionals. It automates tasks such as time tracking, billing, and client communication.
• Smith.ai: Known for its virtual receptionist and client engagement services, Smith.ai provides a range of services including call handling, client intake, and scheduling for law firms. 
• Equivity: Provides dedicated virtual assistants specialized in legal support, Equivity’s services include assistance with administrative tasks, client communication, and document preparation.

6. Identity Management

Identity management has become a crucial legal tech trend in recent years, emphasizing the secure management of digital identities, sensitive data, and access controls within law firms. By employing advanced solutions that handle user authentication, access rights, and activity monitoring, law firms are better equipped to detect and prevent unauthorized access to legal data.

Integrating biometric authentication methods, such as fingerprint scanning and facial recognition, offers a more secure alternative to traditional password systems. Aside from increasing the security of legal documents and data, identity management software makes the client onboarding process smoother and more efficient.

Companies with emerging technologies in identity management software include:

• Okta: offers a comprehensive identity and access management solution tailored for organizations, including law firms. Their platform facilitates secure, single sign-on access to a wide array of applications, enhancing security through multi-factor authentication (MFA) and adaptive security policies.
• OneLogin: Provides a unified access management system that is particularly beneficial for law firms needing to manage and secure employee and client access to legal applications and data. It features strong authentication, single sign-on, and user management capabilities.
• LastPass: Provides identity and access management solutions with a focus on password management and secure sharing of credentials and sensitive data within organizations, including law firms. Their platform includes features like password vaulting, automated password generation, and secure sharing, alongside multi-factor authentication to add an extra layer of security.

7. Client Data Protection

Data protection is a top concern for law firms, requiring the adoption of advanced encryption technologies and secure communication channels. The legal industry’s focus on data security aims to protect client confidentiality, comply with stringent data protection regulations, and prevent data breaches.

Ensuring the highest levels of data security is fundamental to maintaining client trust and upholding the professional responsibility to secure client information. Tech-savvy law firms can strengthen their data protection with:

• Rubrik: Offers a cloud data management and protection solution ideal for law firms looking to secure their client data across cloud, on-premises, and hybrid environments. This legal tech provides data backup, disaster recovery, and ransomware protection, ensuring that sensitive legal documents and client information are safeguarded against data loss and cyber threats.
• Druva: Delivers a cloud-native data protection and management solution designed to secure endpoint data for law firms. Their platform offers direct-to-cloud backup, cyber resilience, and critical data recovery capabilities, ensuring comprehensive protection for sensitive client information stored on laptops, smartphones, and other devices.
• Varonis: Specializes in data security and analytics, providing a platform that law firms can use to protect sensitive client data and ensure regulatory compliance. Their software offers capabilities for data classification, access governance, threat detection, and response, enabling law firms to monitor and protect their data from insider threats and cyberattacks.

8. Smart Legal Contract Management

Smart legal contract management leverages blockchain technology to redefine the dynamics of drafting, executing, and enforcing legal agreements. By embedding contract terms directly into code, smart contracts automate contract negotiation processes when predetermined conditions are met, thereby eliminating the need for manual intervention and making the whole process faster.

This legal technology minimizes the ambiguity and disputes that often come with traditional contracts. Moreover, this level of automation and security is particularly appealing for law firms that often deal with complex transactions, where the precise execution of contractual obligations is crucial.

Your law firm can find smart legal contract management solutions from:

• Clause: Focuses on creating, managing, and automatically executing legal contracts using blockchain technology. Clause’s platform allows for the integration of real-time data and external sources into contracts, ensuring dynamic and automated contract execution based on predefined conditions.
• OpenLaw: Enables law firms to draft, manage, and execute smart contracts integrated with Ethereum blockchain. OpenLaw’s technology allows for the automation of various legal processes, including the execution of agreements upon the fulfillment of specified conditions, and the recording of transactional data on the blockchain
• Jur: Leverages blockchain technology to offer secure, efficient, and transparent contract management solutions. Jur’s smart contracts are designed to be legally binding and self-executing, with the added capability of dispute resolution mechanisms.

9. Advanced Computing

The emergence of quantum computing and other advanced computational technologies is set to have a huge impact on the legal industry. These technology trends bring significant processing capabilities, making it possible to analyze complex legal scenarios and large datasets more efficiently than ever before.

Such advancements are expected to improve aspects of legal research, enhance predictive analytics, and support more effective decision-making processes. While these technologies are still under development, their potential to refine legal research, aid in fraud detection, and facilitate data analysis is clear.

If you want to maximize your law firm’s accuracy, consider the following:

• IBM Watson Legal: Utilizes advanced artificial intelligence and cognitive computing capabilities to transform legal research and data analysis. Their platform offers tools for natural language processing, hypothesis generation, and evidence-based learning, enabling law firms to sift through vast quantities of legal documents and data with great speed and accuracy.
• LexisNexis: Provides a suite of advanced computing tools tailored for the legal industry, including Lexis Analytics, a platform that employs AI and machine learning to enhance legal research, litigation strategies, and risk assessment.
• Thomson Reuters Westlaw Edge: Leverages advanced AI and analytics to offer a comprehensive legal research and insights platform. Featuring tools like litigation analytics, statutory change tracking, and case law citation analysis, Westlaw Edge provides law firms with the capability to conduct deeper and more efficient legal research.

10. Immersive Technology

Immersive technologies, including Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR), are beginning to make waves in the legal field. These technologies can be used for a variety of applications, such as recreating crime scenes in VR to aid in evidence presentation or employing AR for enhanced document examination.

VR or AR can help train legal departments by simulating various scenarios and legal environments. Lawyers can also use this legal tech to conduct negotiations without needing to meet face-to-face.

VR and AR are not new, but it is one of the best legal technology trends as legal departments are seeing the benefits of using them. Here are several companies that cater to law firms looking for this tech:

• LegalVerse: Enables lawyers to create and navigate through 3D recreations of crime scenes, accident sites, or any relevant physical space for a case, providing a more engaging and comprehensive way to present evidence and case scenarios to clients or in court.
• CourtroomVR: Specializes in virtual reality solutions tailored for the legal industry, providing a unique way for lawyers to present cases and evidence. Their platform allows legal professionals to create immersive, 3D simulations of courtroom scenarios, evidence presentations, and witness testimonies.
  vLex Justis: Overlays digital information onto the physical world, allowing lawyers to interact with legal materials dynamically and engagingly.

Make Discovery an Efficient Process With Document Automation

Document automation for lawyers is one of the most significant legal technology trends of 2023. Unsurprisingly, more law firms are seeing the benefits and hopping on the trend this year.

Let Briefpoint make the discovery process a breeze. With this tool, you can automate the preparation of discovery response and request documents, such as:

• Requests for Admission
• Requests for Production 
• Interrogatories

Automate Your Discovery Process With Briefpoint

Discovery responses cost firms $23,240, per year, per attorney. $23,240 estimate assumes an associate attorney salary of $150,000 (including benefits – or $83 an hour), 20 cases per year/per associate, 4 discovery sets per case, 30 questions per set, 3.5 hours spent responding to each set, and 1800 hours of billable hours per year.

Under these assumptions, you save $20,477 using Briefpoint, per year, per attorney.

Test Briefpoint yourself by scheduling a demo here.