Leveraging Legal Technology

Why do folks keep buying expensive software that nobody uses? In "The Legal Tech Ecosystem," I dig into why this happens over and over again. Teams get dazzled by flashy demos and end up with tools that make their work harder, not easier. Here is what actually works. A) Spend a week watching how work really gets done. B) Pick three things that eat up everyone's time. Maybe it is tracking down contract approvals, or the endless email chains about who has the latest version of that NDA. C) Talk to the paralegals drowning in repetitive tasks and the senior associates who waste hours on administrative work they should not be doing. D) Ban yourself from vendor calls until you can clearly explain your three biggest headaches. Then take two weeks to fix what you can without buying anything. Create that contract approval checklist everyone has been asking for, or finally document who needs to sign off on what. You know, the basic stuff that somehow never gets done. Test these fixes with the people who will actually use them, not just the partners who think they know how work flows through the department. When you do need technology, keep it focused. Start with one process everyone touches, like how new matters get opened or how documents get reviewed. Find someone the team already respects to champion the change. Choose a natural leader who understands both the work and the people doing it. I have seen too many legal leaders get seduced by "AI powered this." Your contract process is not broken because you lack machine learning. It is broken because nobody knows who is supposed to review what, and Janet from compliance takes three weeks to respond to emails. Fix the human problems first. #legaltech #innovation #law #business #learning

For decades, 'legal tech' meant one thing: building complex, expensive software to help big law firms bill more hours, more efficiently. The entire industry was built to serve the lawyer. That era is officially over. The real, multi-trillion dollar opportunity was never about making lawyers slightly more productive, it was about serving the millions of small businesses and individuals who couldn't afford them in the first place. A new wave of startup founders understands that the future isn't about selling software to law firms, but about delivering legal outcomes to everyone else. This shift is happening in real-time so when I met Andrew Guzman at OpenLaw, with a mission of making legal services accessible and on-demand, I was excited to get involved. Their momentum highlights a broader trend we're seeing. Devalued Currency: On-premise enterprise software sold in multi-year contracts to the top 200 law firms. New Currency: On-demand, transparently-priced legal services delivered through a marketplace that empowers both the client and the independent lawyer. Here’s how the next generation of legal tech founders are building: ✔️They Focus on the Client Experience, Not the Lawyer Workflow. The old guard built tools to optimize tasks within a law firm. The next gen are obsessed with the client's journey. They ask: "How can we get a small business a simple, fixed-fee contract review in 24 hours?" This client-centric obsession, rather than lawyer-centric optimization, is the single biggest mindset shift in the industry. ✔️ They Use AI for Access, Not Just Efficiency. First-gen legal tech used AI to help a $1k/hour lawyer find a document 10% faster. The new generation uses AI to automate routine tasks, enabling a marketplace of lawyers to offer services at a price point small businesses can actually afford. AI isn't a tool to enhance the old model, it's a weapon to unlock a completely new market. ✔️ They Sell Predictability First, Legal Services Second. The biggest barrier for a small business isn't a lack of legal documents, it's the paralyzing fear of surprise bills and hiring the wrong expert. Instead the new gen build products that offer fixed-fee packages, transparent reviews and clear project scopes, ensuring a customer knows the exact cost and deliverable upfront. They understand that what they’re really selling is predictability. The future of legal tech doesn't look like a piece of software. It looks like a simple, elegant experience that finally gives businesses and individuals the expert help they really need. A huge congrats to the OpenLaw team for closing $3.5M and leading the charge. Let's go! 🚀 🚀 🚀 The LegalTech Fund, Wisdom Ventures, Mindful Venture Capital, Flint Capital, Slauson & Co., Techstars, Everywhere Ventures

If your AI is technically flawless but socially tone-deaf, you’ve built a very expensive problem. AI isn’t just about perfecting the math. It’s about understanding people. Some of the biggest AI failures don’t come from bad code but from a lack of perspective. I once worked with a team that built an AI risk assessment tool. It was fast, efficient, and technically sound. But when tested in the real world, it disproportionately flagged certain demographics. The issue wasn’t the intent—it was the data. The team had worked in isolation, without input from legal, ethics, or the people the tool would impact. The fix? Not more code. More conversations. Once we brought in diverse perspectives, we didn’t just correct bias—we built a better, more trusted product. What this means for AI leaders: Bring legal, ethics, and diverse voices in early. If you’re not, you’re already behind. Turn compliance into an innovation edge. Ethical AI isn’t just safer—it’s more competitive. Reframe legal as a creator, not a blocker. The best lawyers don’t just say no; they help find the right yes. Design for transparency, not just accuracy. If an AI can’t explain itself, it won’t survive long-term. I break this down further in my latest newsletter—check it out! What’s the biggest challenge you’ve seen in AI governance? How can legal and engineering work better together? Let’s discuss. -------- 🚀 Olga V. Mack 🔹 Building trust in commerce, contracts & products 🔹 Sales acceleration advocate 🔹 Keynote Speaker | AI & Business Strategist 📩 Let’s connect & collaborate 📰 Subscribe to Notes to My (Legal) Self

In the vanguard of legal innovation, generative AI (GAI) is propelling the legal profession into a new era of efficiency and expanded capabilities. A recent survey reveals a significant embrace of GAI within the Am Law 200 firms, showcasing a shift from skepticism to adoption with compelling evidence of enhanced productivity, quality, and speed in legal tasks when leveraging tools like GPT-4. The impact of AI in law extends beyond mere productivity enhancements: -Evolving Lawyer Roles: As tasks become automated, lawyers are transitioning from doing to directing, focusing on integrating AI into workflows, managing automated processes, and ensuring precise engagement of resources. -Enhanced Predictive Analytics: Improved data quality from automation leads to more accurate case analysis and financial forecasting, enabling firms to optimize case selection and fee structures. -Access to Information Revolutionized: Natural Language Interfaces (NLIs) like Harvey offer direct, query-based access to legal information, simplifying research and compliance checks. -Emergence of New Legal Services: Nearly half of law firm leaders are exploring new billable services powered by GAI, including real-time regulatory compliance and data privacy services. As we stand at the precipice of this transformative period, it's clear that AI's role in legal practice is not just a fleeting trend but a cornerstone of future legal services. Transforming the Business of Law™ Let's explore how to future-proof your practice and offer innovative solutions to your clients. #LegalTech #AIInLaw #FutureOfLaw #LegalInnovation #GenerativeAI

Legal Eagles, Meet Your AI Copilot: How Generative AI Is Revolutionizing Legal Research The legal landscape is notoriously demanding. Mountains of precedent, evolving statutes, and ever-expanding case law create a dizzying maze for even the most seasoned legal minds. But imagine a powerful research assistant in your corner, capable of analyzing vast datasets, extracting pertinent information, and generating comprehensive insights – enter generative AI. This game-changer in legal research brings unprecedented speed, accuracy, and efficiency to the game: * Uncover Hidden Gems: AI can sift through oceans of legal data, identifying relevant cases, statutes, and scholarly articles you might have missed, even in obscure jurisdictions. No stone goes unturned in your search for the strongest arguments. * Go Deep, Dive Fast: Need precise legal arguments on a niche point? AI can analyze complex legal concepts and break them down into clear, actionable insights, saving you hours of painstaking research. * Predict Case Outcomes: Certain AI models can analyze past judgments and precedents to predict potential outcomes, giving you a crucial edge in crafting your legal strategy. The benefits extend far beyond just efficient research: * Enhanced Confidence: Informed by a comprehensive review of relevant legal material, you can approach your case with greater confidence, knowing you've left no stone unturned. * Improved Client Services: Dedicate more time to high-value client interaction and strategic planning, rather than getting bogged down in research. * Cost Savings: Streamlining research processes means saving time and resources, making your legal practice more efficient and cost-effective. Of course, embracing AI doesn't mean replacing human judgment. AI remains a powerful tool to augment your expertise, not replace it. Critical thinking, analytical skills, and strategic acumen are still the cornerstones of a successful legal career. Ready to level up your legal research game? 1) Share your biggest research challenges in the comments. 2) Let's discuss how AI can help you overcome them and build rock-solid legal arguments. #LegalAI #GenerativeAI #LegalResearch #LawPractice #Efficiency #Innovation P.S. Don't forget to like & share!

⏱️ Blockchain is revolutionizing legal workflows by introducing unprecedented transparency, immutability, and automation. Smart contracts are being wrapped in legally enforceable documents, accelerating drafting and execution while reducing disputes. Key innovations reshaping the industry: Automated Legal Agreements: Platforms like ConsenSys' OpenLaw have pioneered blockchain-integrated document automation, with proof-of-concepts already demonstrated alongside Thomson Reuters' Contract Express for seamless on-chain contract execution. Real Estate Innovation: Propy is leading the transformation with AI-powered blockchain closings that reduce manual work by 40%, recording deeds on-chain to prevent fraud and enabling 24/7 transparent transactions. Decentralized Justice: Kleros offers groundbreaking on-chain arbitration with cryptoeconomically incentivized jurors, providing fast and cost-effective dispute resolution that's already processing real cases globally. Court-Accepted Evidence: Progressive courts like China's Hangzhou Internet Court have officially recognized blockchain-anchored electronic evidence as legally valid, setting precedent for tamper-proof digital proof. Next-Gen KYC/AML: Blockchain-based identity frameworks are emerging as the future of compliance, with 15% of AML/KYC procedures expected to use blockchain by 2025, creating immutable audit trails and streamlining verification. The legal industry is experiencing its biggest transformation in decades. With the LegalTech smart contract market projected to grow at 20%+ CAGR through 2027, we're witnessing the foundation being laid for tomorrow's legal infrastructure. #blockchain #digitaltransformation #Legaltech #smartcontracts #KYC #PropertyTech #Web3 #Realestate #softwaredeveloper #RegTech #DigitalNotary #Web2 #Web3dev

Again and again recently I've seen this question asked: "Couldn't ChatGPT or Claude perform as well on legal tasks as these myriad of domain-specific tools?" People who ask this are often wondering why it makes sense for firms to pay a premium for a legaltech tool when they could just use foundation models to get the same work done. They also infer that the moat for most of these GenAI products in legal will shrink to zero as foundation models improve. Quite apart from things like law firm-grade security and sound legal content, this question illustrates the common assumption that GenAI legaltech applications are simple chatbot interfaces. This is wrong. Most of the #legaltech products represented in Legaltech Hub's GenAI map are fit-for-purpose products built specifically for the way lawyers work, with carefully developed UI, leveraging various types of technology together to achieve an outcome - GenAI is just one ingredient. To make this clearer, here are some examples: Briefpoint - a GenAI product that supports litigation drafting, specifically discovery requests and objections. Sample workflow: Discovery request uploaded. Request is converted into plain English, sample response generated including relevant objections based on your firm's preferred language. Individual objections are split out and listed in side panel. User selects one at a time, pulling it into the center panel, where they can edit, review, finalize. Once complete, court form with full formatting for that court and jurisdiction is produced. Additional workflows include collecting responses from clients through a secure portal prior to response finalization. DraftWise - A precedent-based smart drafting solution. Integrated with your firm's DMS or knowledge base, a clause bank is automatically created by parsing contracts into individual clauses. Full tagging workflows allow application of firm taxonomies and individual clause libraries per practice group. As user drafts, relevant clause language is surfaced. User can choose to draft from most similar past precedent from same client, then one-click redlining and insertion into current document. There are hundreds of similar examples I could point to. People dramatically underestimate the importance of the user journey. A chatbot just doesn't cut it for most products to be truly useful to lawyers. Lawyers want to stay in control of their process while still leveraging the power of GenAI for improved quality and efficiency. Most legaltech vendors are building in this way. Even those you might think of as pure chatbots also offer workflows that take the "assistant" experience and make it more useful to lawyers. So, no. ChatGPT could not produce the same result. #GenAI #artificialintelligence #law

I'm an applied scientist, I'm in the business of advancing humanity's knowledge of how to apply technology to advance society. Relativity's Applied Science team is heads-down on the next set of advances for legal technology, but I'm going to pause and reflect on some of the growing evidence demonstrating the validity of our approach and how AI is transforming the legal technology field. First, there's the excellent Vals Legal AI Report, benchmarking the ability of AI to perform various legal tasks, meeting and exceeding the ability of attorneys to do the same work: https://www.vals.ai/vlair. In this study, multiple AI tools were pitted against experienced lawyers across seven common tasks (from document Q&A to contract redlining). The outcome? In four of the tasks, at least one AI tool outscored the human lawyers, and in a fifth task the top AI equaled human performance . The AI excelled particularly at more formulaic or data-intensive tasks like document analysis and extraction, while humans retained an edge in a couple of more complex, reasoning-intensive scenarios. Additionally, in "AI-Powered Lawyering: AI Reasoning Models, Retrieval Augmented Generation, and the Future of Legal Practice", researchers conducted the first randomized controlled trial assessing these technologies, assigning upper-level law students to complete six legal tasks using a RAG-powered legal AI tool (Vincent AI), an AI reasoning model (OpenAI’s o1-preview), or no AI. They found that both AI tools significantly enhanced legal work quality, a marked contrast with previous research examining older large language models like GPT-4. Moreover, they found that these models maintained the efficiency benefits associated with use of older AI technologies. Their findings show that AI assistance significantly boosts productivity in five out of six tested legal tasks, with Vincent yielding statistically significant gains of approximately 38% to 115% and o1-preview increasing productivity by 34% to 140%, with particularly strong effects in complex tasks like drafting persuasive letters and analyzing complaints. What am I most excited about? Benjamin Sexton has published a recent collection of anecdotes from across the industry. The anecdotes included point estimates for precision and recall for 16 uses of generative AI to identify relevant documents for production. These users were able to build AI classifiers that achieved on average 80% precision and 95% recall, saving cost, effort, and time for their customers. Legal professionals should no longer be wondering, "Is generative AI ready for legal?" The evidence continues to grow every day well beyond doubt – the real question now is, "How can we integrate it well into our practice?" For those preparing to embrace this transformation, the path forward is clear: identify pilot projects, select trusted AI platforms, and start refining workflows to capitalize on these efficiency gains. #Legaltech #GenerativeAI #eDiscovery

I learned that the in-house legal team of a legal tech company doesn't trust their own AI software enough to use it themselves. During an interview, I chatted with an engineer who built AI contract review capabilities and an embedded Word add-in. These features complement their existing CLM, so I assumed their in-house legal team would be an ideal audience. This felt like a reasonable assumption, given how much marketing focus has been placed on AI capabilities over the past two years. Yet their legal team's usage was next to none. Not because the technology isn't valuable, but because building AI that legal teams actually trust is incredibly nuanced. Here's the truth: Creating AI for specialized legal workflows isn't just about having the technical capability. It's about deeply understanding how lawyers work, building features they can verify and trust, and earning their confidence through transparency and reliability. Simply being a large incumbent and "adding AI" doesn't automatically translate to user adoption. Trust has to be earned through purposeful design, workflow integration, and a deep appreciation for how lawyers and other business users actually work. At Docsum, this reality drives everything we build. We know that AI in legal tech isn't just a feature checkbox - it's a commitment to building solutions that lawyers will actually trust and use over time.

Not going to lie - I have a handful of failed legal tech implementations and legal tech projects under my belt. If you're in legal ops and you haven't had the same happen to you, you likely haven't been doing it long enough. My biggest lesson? Don't overlook the importance of change management. Whether you're tackling a CLM implementation or shifting the way legal services are delivered at your company, change management is going to be key to the success of any legal operations initiative. Here are a few change management specific tips I've learned along the way: - Focus on the people We all know it at this point - legal professionals are resistant to change. You have to make sure you're not only explaining the why but also proactively addressing concerns before they arise. - Know how you're going to measure success You can't show quantifiable impact without knowing what success looks like. Ensure you have a clear definition of what success looks like - including what KPIs and KRIs you'll track, how you'll track them, and where the data is going to come from. - Don't skip UAT and Training It's easy to assume that because you understand something it's going to be easy and intuitive for everyone else. Being neurodivergent, I know that's rarely the case. Even for smaller initiatives, ensure you run a UAT group and build training materials that are right sized for the project (and support folks of all different learning types) - Take feedback as a gift and use it to iterate Legal ops is not set it and forget it. Don't wait until you've hit your KRI(s) for success - you should be leveraging feedback loops during the change management process to actively identify friction points and refine the change strategy as you go. Fellow legal ops pros - what else would you add? #legaloperations #legalops #legalinnovation #legaltech