Unlike many other industries, the legal sector is known for showing a lot of resistance to change. This is particularly true when it comes to fully embracing the latest technologies. It makes a lot of sense since the law is based on “precedent” and holding on to the “tried and true”. These values are now deeply rooted within the legal fraternity, and inculcated within the mindset for a long. This might have worked out well in the past, but times have changed.
The best way to reduce this resistance towards digital transformation is by debunking myths around the adoption of digital technologies. This way, legal firms will realize how this hesitance to adopt innovative technologies has been hampering their potential growth.
With the new generation of smart lawyers entering the picture, we are likely to witness changes in the legal sector’s mindsets, where they reap multiple benefits from successful Cloud-based Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) deployments.
Combating the Legal-tech’s Cybersecurity Conundrum
Cybersecurity threats are one of the most compelling reasons why the legal industry stays away from digital technologies, such as SaaS. Their primary concern is to safeguard their sensitive and confidential data, from malicious actors. The truth is, it does not matter if you put your money under your mattress, or in a bank, a security threat is always lurking somewhere. How you handle the situation and solve your problem, is way more important.
Reliable and reputable software companies and Cloud Service Providers (CSPs) usually assure the deploying law firm about their robust cyber security posture. They follow the applicable compliance regulations, along with anti-spyware, antiviruses, and strong firewalls, so as to ensure the protection of their security-certified SaaS solutions.
Related Posts
- Cloud Computing – A True Game Changer for Small Businesses
- Overview of Basic Cloud Computing Architecture
- How Cloud-Based Contact Centers are Proving a Game-Changer?
- Cloud Computing: A Painkiller for IT Managers
A lot of reliable CSPs ensure tight security, by providing the following cybersecurity measures.
- End-to-end data encryption
- Encryption of data, at rest
- Encryption of data, in transit
- 24 x 7 x 365 availability of highly trained security teams
- Strong authentication and authorization tools
- Audit logs on all data center access points
- Vulnerability scanning and remediation mechanisms
Cost-Benefit Analysis
It has been reported that financial aspects, such as costs and Return on Investment (ROI), also add to the overall resistance to adopting new technologies. Legal firms tend to “stick to their old guns” to slash the additional costs incurred on the adoption of Cloud-based solutions.
The reality is, the benefits of deploying Cloud-based software, weigh far more than the costs. We know this because even though the pandemic adversely impacted the global economy, enterprises still reported a healthy 32% of revenue growth by deploying Cloud Computing solutions, just in the year 2021.
To simplify this cost v/s benefit dilemma, we have listed some ways in which legal tech can help various legal firms decrease their overall cost.
- They can leverage Artificial Intelligence (AI) for management automation tools, increasing their efficiency as well as effectiveness.
- Legal firms can greatly reduce all the missing billed hour’s problems.
- They can avoid repetitive tasks that decrease motivation levels and the overall productivity of the legal teams.
- They can accurately determine the amount of time each task requires, to negotiate fair prices for various legal services.
- The legal sector can overall improve its time-tracking and billing capabilities.
- They can also utilize Technology-Assisted Review (TAR) to save time and costs associated with the analysis of legal precedents.
Leveraging Artificial Intelligence (AI) in the Legal Industry
Beyond tracking hours and calculating invoices, Artificial Intelligence (AI) is like a “gift that keeps on giving”. The legal sector can leverage AI to simplify its daily operations. They can fill out basic information to efficiently generate tailored documents, which are otherwise highly prone to human error.
When we look at this from a client’s perspective, AI-backed software can make their lives much easier as well. Certain legal software also offers self-service Customer Relationship Management (CRM) facilities. All they need to do is to answer some questions and viola, an entire document is prepared.
The legal sector can leverage Machine Learning (ML), AI, and Technology-Assisted Review (TAR) to relieve their legal teams from the time consumed in scrutinizing endless documents, and help them simplify a lot of their complex tasks. Some are mentioned below.
- ML can help lawyers point out and rank keywords in lengthy documents, in accordance with their case’s relevance.
- They can also leverage technology to remove repetitive and irrelevant text, which can save them a lot of time and effort.
- ML and TAR can also help them extract a lot of useful information and data from plain texts.
- Lawyers and legal teams can identify mistakes in their documents, and correct them in a timely manner.
- They can also identify all the legal traps and missing definitions from their documents.
- They can filter their documents in accordance with their tone, context, and concept, by leveraging TAR-based predictive coding.
Making the Switch in a Seamless Manner
Legal firms can evaluate various CSPs to “pick and choose” their desired SaaS solution provider, as per their requirements. They can estimate and select the cost bracket that suits them the most. It is also recommended that legal firms always select CSPs, like dinCloud, which offer transparent and flat rate pricing, with no hidden charges or costs.
The legal sector can even avail of free trials, which are offered by a lot of leading CSPs. That way, before making any mid to long-term commitments, legal firms can first decide whether or not the solution, and the provider, are suitable for them. They should also avoid Do It Yourself (DIY) migrations, and onboard third-party Cloud experts to obtain quality outcomes, without missing out on migration timelines.
The best part is, Cloud-based SaaS solutions do not require server hardware installation or in-house experts for their management and maintenance. CSPs take care of all this and also assist in migrating legal firms throughout the transition period.
Conclusion
The widespread popularity and numerous benefits of Cloud Computing solutions have encouraged law firms to tap into the new “tech territory”, beyond on-premise software.
Zion Market Research indicates that the legal-tech market was valued at the US $3.2 Billion in 2018. It has been forecast that it will grow tenfold, by the year 2026. This speaks a lot about the potential for Cloud adoption that still exists within the legal sector.
It is just a matter of time before more and more legal firms, jump on the “cloud bandwagon”, and fully embrace innovative new technologies. In the end, it is safe to say that the benefits of exploring Cloud solutions are simply too compelling to ignore; case closed!
If you are looking for secure and reliable Cloud Computing solutions for your legal firm, your wait is over. Feel free to contact dinCloud, an ATSG company, which offers multi-layered security as a built-in feature that will be perfect for your enterprise.
