What are the current legaltech initiatives?

2020 more than 140 legaltech projects were registered in Spain in the following categories:  

Marketplaces specialising in the sale of legal services, whose characteristics are similar to those of any other platform: on the one hand, many professionals, usually lawyers or small law firms, classified by location or speciality and, on the other hand, a large volume of users/clients demanding legal services.

The business model can change from one platform to another. Some platforms enter by offering the lawyer the best positions on their lists by highlighting their profiles. Others put the client in contact with two or three professionals and the client chooses the most convincing option. The contact with the client has a small cost for the lawyer.

As with all internet platforms, scalability and traction will depend on the existence of a The number of people seeking legal services and a large number and variety of specialities of professionals spread throughout the country. The client of these platforms is looking for a good service, agile, specialised and at affordable prices. 

And, it is a channel (+) customer acquisition, This is of great interest given the difficulties of finding one's way in the practice of law. 

Another Legaltech modality is the complaints platformsThe platform offers a wide range of services, where users are looking for specialists in airline claims, bank claims, debt collection, etc. An advantage for the user is that the platform only charges for results. Claimant is an example of such a platform.

Another modality is trusted third partiescompanies engaged in certify facts that occur in the digital environment; solve one of the network's problems, which is the volatility of content and/or messages.

THERE ARE TWO CATEGORIES:

• Those that obtain digital evidence to prove an event generated in a digital environment.
• Those responsible for certifying digital communications. 

• • Coloriuris, eGarante are examples of trusted third parties. 

Legaltech has allowed some law firms to expand their range of professionals. incorporating independent specialist lawyers. The monetisation (+) of these platforms consists of payment by subscription by professionals, in exchange for access to their databases, customer acquisition services, consultations with the team of professionals or the use of management tools.

Here (+) you will find a list of the top 10 online startups in the legal sector at the moment.

Legaltech movement

There is currently a lot of activity in the world of legaltech. Holding of congresses aimed at innovation and promoting the use of technology in the legal field.

A fashionable part of these meetings, events (+) Competitive hackathons (+) whose purpose is the creation of digital solutions aimed at solving a given problem. In these hackathons, teams composed of lawyers, programmers or designers compete, who during the time of the Congress develop a digital product or solution with access to a final prize consisting of resources to make a prototype (+).

Another manifestation is the emergence of major firms in the development of their own solutions by incorporating people with technical profile that by on the one hand they work on developing solutions and, on the other hand, they create acceleration programmes (+) in which the startups (+) selected legal advice and a team of experts to support the consolidation of the project. Legal Hackers is an example of such an organisation.

Where is legaltech heading?

Confinement, has definitely boosted the digitisation (+). Lawyers make use of videoconferencing instead of face-to-face meetings. They now ask their clients to digitally sign their contracts.

But there are some important objections:

One of them is the information security which has moved from local disks to the cloud. Any breach of privacy can lead to serious consequences in economic and image terms.

Medium-sized firms are making progress in the use of tools such as SAAS (cloud applications), process automation, client management, time tracking per client or marketing tools, email or calendar management for blog posts. 

In the future, it is envisaged to use tools for big data (+) (IBM's Watson), the machine learning (+). It is of anticipate the arrival of new competitors brought by the digitalisation and globalisation. This will provide a further impetus for the sector to catch up by adopting legaltech solutions.

For its part, administration of justice, will have to be brought up to date. In fact, it is already the first telematic trials are heldwith excellent results. It is possible that this formula will be used massively in matters of minor importance. 

The future may not be for the biggest but it will be for those who are best suited.