The American Bar Association Legal Technology Resource Center had released ABA TECHREPORT 2019, some months ago. The report is a broad publication, exploring the different techniques which attorneys use in their practices. It combines the data from the annual Legal Technology Survey Report with observations, analysis from the experts, and the predictions from different technology leaders.
Some of the examples of statistical information in the survey report are:
- Almost 8% of the lawyers who responded were using AI-based technology tools. Firms that had 100 or more lawyers were more likely to be using AI-based tools, and their percentage was 26%, followed by 5% from the firms of 2-9 attorneys, 4% of the solo lawyer respondents, and 0% from the firms of 10-49 attorneys. Most of the solo respondents relied on Facebook, Avvo, and email to fulfill their marketing needs.
- More than 49% of the respondents had already used the legal analytics in 2018, 35% of them referred legal analytics for conducting research on legal matters, 22% referred for developing the case or the matter strategy, while 16% referred for understanding the judges.
- 11% of the respondents who telecommuted stated that they work from the public place, while 10% of them stated that they worked from the coffee shops.
- On the marketing front, under half of the entire respondents, which is 47%, were reported having a marketing budget.
The TechReport is a unique combination of the data from the Legal Technology Survey Report with the observations, expert analysis, and predictions from the technology readers. It even stated that lawyers were failing on the cybersecurity. The lack of effort on security is a concern for this profession. The most popular security measure used by 35% of the respondents was socket layers, that encrypted computer communications, including web traffic. There was another finding mentioned in the report, lawyers using cloud-based technology, had increased from 55% to 58% since 2018.
The ABA Legal Technology Resource Center is entirely dedicated to helping the legal professionals for leveraging the technology in identifying the opportunities and overcoming the obstacles.
The above statistics were all from 2019, while the legal trends to watch out in 2020 are:
- Virtual law practice
- Life integration tools
- Alternative legal services
- Vendor management tech
- Privacy program management
Technology enables the firms to change the process, and react to the demands of clients for a better process and greater efficiency. This could result in better client experience, lowering the cost, and securing the platforms for sharing and storing the information.
Sources: https://www.americanbar.org/news/abanews/aba-news-archives/2019/10/aba-releases-2019-techreport-and-legal-technology-survey-report-/
