Legal Tech Stack: Everything You Need to Know

Introduction

“Technology is the fourth industrial revolution.”

Technology is revolutionizing every aspect of our life. Adding technology to our life is making our life easy and comfortable. It influences everything.

Recent statistics indicate that a contract can be reviewed in less than an hour with the help of AI, saving 20-90% of the time it would take to do the work manually.

How this new revolution in technology can be helpful to law firms and what tools the law firm owners need to include in their legal tech stack to run their law firm efficiently are described in detail in this article.

What is Legal tech stack?

Digitalization has impacted every aspect of life, as done with businesses. Every business wants to have an online presence, use technology for operations and be up to date in the internet world. Businesses need to position themselves appropriately to harness technology effectively. It can be achieved using digital tools, management software, and other technological resources. It will enable them to be more productive, generate better results and become more reliable.

There is no official definition of the word tech stack. Still, people infer from the operation that the collection of technology tools, structures, and models is used to run an application. A Tech stack is a list of software solutions for building a technology structure or running a program. In the technology field, developers use multiple programs or codes to run an application and then list the software as a tech stack.

A legal tech stack combines technology management tools and software law firms use to function and operate digitally. Legal tech is a combination of complex digital and traditional law that can be used to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of legal processes for law firms. Legal tech is an emerging field that seeks to bridge the gap between law and technology. It aims to make legal processes more efficient, cost-effective, and accessible.

The legal tech stack includes applications that help lawyers and clients interact with each other and software that automates legal processes.

As other businesses require, law firms also need financial management and assessment tools, client databases software, billing software, etc., to function. A well-integrated legal tech stack for law firms can help you focus on law and less on admin.

What are the essential components of a strong legal tech stack for a law firm?

To adapt the legal tech in your firm, you must assess your law firm’s size, strength, and jurisdiction. These will be the base criteria to decide what and how technologically advanced you need to be for operation.

A law firm needs the following in the legal tech stack:

1. Computer systems 
2. Online client registration systems
3. Lead generation tools 
4. Contract Management
5. Legal research tools 
6. Law firm cases calendar
7. Document management and automation
8. Digital signature and identification tools 
9. Time management and tracking tools
10. Payment portals 
11. Real-time communications 
12. Practice management tools 
13. Social media management tools

It would be best if you took all the teams and departments in your firm into confidence to make a legal tech stack for law firms and follow the steps:

1. Call a general meeting of all the teams.
2. The finance department will decide and suggest changes as per your business operations.
3. Lawyers will also decide and suggest changes per individual requirements, like contracts lawyers will suggest what contract management software they want to work with.
4. Other teams and departments will follow the idea of suggesting.
5. Then accordingly, decide what type of legal tech stack your firm needs. 

Legal tech stack in a law firm: What tools should you have?

A law firm to stay relevant must have the following legal tech stack tools:

Case Management

Law firms use tools to track developments in the cases, make understanding easy and keep the office running smoothly.

Case management benefits:

1. Avoid any errors and scheduling variations.
2. Transfer of cases from one order to another. 
3. Safe case files in one single database are easily accessible by all.
4. Clients will know about the status of the case. 
5. Easy scheduling and research.

Practice Management

After case management, what is essential is practice management tools. They help legal professionals to manage case stages, front and back office workflow, legal documentation, task management, and calendaring.

Practice management benefits:

1. Storing all the cases in one database.
2. Coordination between all the teams.
3. Matter management.
4. Case management.

Client Management

It is the responsibility of law firms to be responsible toward clients. They are charged with the duties like updating clients on case stages, billing information, safety, and secrecy of client data, etc. law firms should have better tools for client management.

Client Management benefits:

1. Client counselling and management.
2. Information portal for clients.
3. Secure database and information sharing.

Legal Analytics and Reporting

When a law firm delivers excellent results to its clients, it must show it to the world. It is where legal analytics play a role. People trust results when a law firm shows results and reports them in the public domain. 

Other tools that you must include in your legal tech stack

Some of the other tools that you must strive to include in your legal tech stack are:

1. An NLP (Natural Language Processing) document review/analysis system. This software would be capable of answering direct natural language questions for single contracts and bulk reviews.
2. Knowledge Management System. This would help you conduct a complete enterprise search at a clause level and reveal relevant information for each contract.
3. Contract Automation System. Capable of automating a contract procedure and saving great effort and time. 

What things do you need to consider when building your ultimate tech stack?

When building your ultimate tech stack, you need to relate the software to the specifics of your requirements. Some of the common factors that you should take into consideration are:

Size of the firm. This plays a major role in deciding the kind of software essential for your firm. A solo business should ideally use software having elements of time and billing, while a larger firm would require software for clever communication. 

Goals. Outline improvement areas for your firm and select the ideal software that shall help you in achieving them. 

Clients. You must ask your current or past clients what they think are the improvement points for you. You can also conduct anonymous surveys to protect your identity and decide on an ideal software to invest in. 

Budget. Make efforts to inventory your current software, and look for more budget-friendly rates for your new updated software.

Staff. Analyze your current tech stack with your staff and understand their problems while using it. Put their inputs and opinions into perspective before deciding on investing in something new. 

What are the essential practices to build a high-performance legal tech stack?

The legal tech space has become increasingly popular over the last few years and is likely to continue growing in the coming years.

Legal tech companies are using technology to make law firms more efficient, increase productivity and reduce costs for attorneys. According to projections from Research and Markets, legal tech is projected to grow from $1 billion in 2020 to $9 billion by 2023. Legal technology budgets are further expected to increase three-fold by 2025. 

The growth of technology in law will be driven by increased demand for cloud-based services and AI-powered solutions that automate specific processes within law firms. More and more law firms will demand a legal tech stack for law firms.

Key practices to build a high-performance legal tech stack for law firms are:

1. Stay aware and up to date with the modern methods of working.
2. Include, implement and use technological management tools. 
3. Have a good Legal tech stack for law firms.
4. Consult and go through legal operations from time to time. 

Points stakeholders involved in making legal tech adoption decisions should take into consideration

Some of the main point stakeholders that are involved in making legal tech adoption decisions are:

Anticipate terms for a holistic roadmap for meeting enterprise needs

Try to devise strategies and technology planning procedures for a long-term, enterprise-wide model to help meet the enterprise-wide legal and compliance challenges. Avoid short-term aspirations. 

Frame your legal tech as a business success asset

Find ways to analyze and measure how your legal tech stack can support larger corporate success and business growth initiatives. 

Do not try to separate legal tech from compliance tech

It is essential to handle the legal and compliance tech in a cross-disciplinary manner instead of breaking them apart. Therefore, aspire for a legal tech stack with integrated and complementary solutions. 

Try to “plug-and-grow” instead of just “plug-and-play”

Keep future requirements in mind, and adopt technology capable of delivering long-term flexibility and scalability. Technology capable of supporting corporate business strategies acts as a plus for your firm. 

Simplify your stack by streamlining procedure

Try to reduce the number of separate products being used, through which you can eliminate recurrent configuration and integration headaches. 

If all these points are integrated within your planning for a legal tech stack, you will find yourself with a holistic legal tech stack capable of keeping you at the forefront of innovation and excellence. This would increase productivity and efficiency, reducing costs, mitigating risks, and increasing collaboration. 

Conclusion

Technology is a boon if used properly and for welfare. Various types of technological methods have given rise to different usages. Every company or business uses technology to be efficient, and the legal field is also slowly implementing the technology. Law firms are switching toward legal tech stack for law firm management tools, and software companies are developing such tools. 

One such legal tech development is LegaMart, an all-in-one solution for people looking to contact expert lawyers but overwhelmed by the number of lawyers who doubt their competence. However, with LegaMart, you don’t have to be afraid of that, as we onboard the best lawyers after proper documentation and complete approval. We at LegaMart offer the option to connect with experienced lawyers with our quick meeting feature. We give you access to our LegaMart directory to hire a lawyer per your jurisdiction, the field of law, and language.