The LegalTech Book

The Legal Technology Handbook for Investors, Entrepreneurs and FinTech Visionaries

Sophia Adams Bhatti, Akber Datoo, Drago Indjic

• Publisher: Wiley
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN:
  9781119574279
• Edition: 1
• eBook ISBN:
  9781119804987
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Finance
• Index: Business

Written by prominent thought leaders in the global fintech and legal space, The LegalTech Book aggregates diverse expertise into a single, informative volume. Key industry developments are explained in detail, and critical insights from cutting-edge practitioners offer first-hand information and lessons learned. Coverage includes: 

· The current status of LegalTech, why now is the time for it to boom, the drivers behind it, and how it relates to FinTech, RegTech, InsurTech, WealthTech and PayTech

· Applications of AI, machine learning and deep learning in the practice of law; e-discovery and due diligence; AI as a legal predictor

· LegalTech making the law accessible to all; online courts, online dispute resolution

· The Uberization of the law; hiring and firing through apps

· Lawbots; social media meets legal advice

· To what extent does LegalTech make lawyers redundant or more efficient?

· Cryptocurrencies, distributed ledger technology and the law 

· The Internet of Things, data privacy, automated contracts

· Cybersecurity and data

· Technology vs. the law; driverless cars and liability, legal rights of robots, ownership rights over works created by technology

· Legislators as innovators

· Practical LegalTech solutions helping Legal departments in corporations and legal firms alike to get better legal work done at lower cost

1
An Introduction to LegalTech: The Law Boosted by AI and Technology

Executive Summary

LegalTech has seen a huge boom over the last few years, and although still short of revolutionizing the legal services market, there is much to play for. In this part our authors explore the journey of LegalTech, alongside the role that artificial intelligence (AI) is playing now and might play in the future.

The part begins with an overview of how the market came to be where it is, and goes on to explore the classification of technologies, the role of education and skills, the perspective of the in-house counsel and how in one sector, LegalTech, plays a part. The role of AI in the law is explored from both the regulatory and legislative perspective as well as how tools deploying AI and machine learning are beginning to change the delivery of legal services.

In “We Are Voyagers”, Liam Brown charts a short history of legal technology, examining the waves of advancements and the speed of change. Alongside this he also sets out some of the key drivers such as digitalization and economic efficiencies as well as a looks over the horizon as to what we might expect next.

Ever felt a sense of confusion when talking about LegalTech – what is the difference between all these tools? In his chapter, “An Introduction to Mapping and Classifying LegalTech”, Alessandro Galtieri seeks to help demystify this by providing a helpful no-nonsense explanation of key terms and areas of development. Before this, Daan Vansimpsen provides a useful outline of how to handle the plethora of LegalTech solutions on the market.

Struan Britland and Elly May in their paper “Educating for Disruption, Innovation and Legal Technology” consider the nature of disruption and what sorts of things those involved in training the talent of the future need to be thinking about now.

Paul Massey examines the pivotal role of the in-house legal team, looking at both the role of the in-house team in the ecosystem as a whole alongside how LegalTech is being adopted by the in-house community.

In a case study, Brie Lam looks at the interesting convergence of LegalTech and financial services – necessity may well have been the mother of invention the author argues, and looks at interesting lessons for the wider deployment of LegalTech.

Laura Stoskute in her chapter examines the impact on the legal profession of AI and how legal teams should start to prepare for the future.

Charlotte Gerrish and Lily Morrison examine in their chapter the question of whether the law can keep up with the growth of AI, using copyright as an illustration of the difficulties to be overcome.

In “Fairness, Accountability and Transparency – Trust in AI and Machine Learning”, Cemil Cakir examines the impact of AI on fundamental rights. This chapter is followed by Brian Tang and his analysis of the importance of “human in the loop”. Turning from societal debates to the role of the individual, Laura van Wyngaarden addresses the debate of the ethical responsibilities of lawyers and the deployment of AI.

Paula Hodges and Charlie Morgan move the debate to the practical realm of the application of big data, focusing on the changing nature of dispute resolution.

Ben Stoneham looks towards the future in his chapter on why all LegalTech roads point to a platform strategy. There are hundreds of point-to-point solutions out there, but how do we move from this to a more consolidated and coordinated set of options?

And finally, Simon George provides a small glimpse into the world of the Internet of Things (IoT), and argues that despite all the drawbacks and concerns, businesses and consumers alike will continue to fuel the demand for IoT devices.

We Are Voyagers

Liam Brown

Chairman and CEO, Elevate

You are headed somewhere. That somewhere is your future. To navigate there successfully, you need to know where you started, decide where you want to go, be realistic about the resources at your disposal and understand the forces acting on you along the way.

I hope you get there. And I believe LegalTech can help you, but it won't if you don't choose wisely – or you don't choose at all.

I care a great deal about LegalTech. I'm the founder and leader of a law company that builds legal software and provides legal services augmented by technology. My company's strategy depends upon LegalTech, and I constantly scan the horizon for trends, insights and ideas that will be useful to our customers.

On the fear of missing out sea of LegalTech, today's shiny new object may end up on tomorrow's scrapheap of “brilliant ideas that were ahead of their time”. But sometimes new legal software becomes a business tool that we use every day, and which we come to take for granted.

I recommend we each develop our own framework for evaluating LegalTech so that we can plan our route and course-correct as our journey unfolds. I'd like to share my own perspective, as someone with a vested interest in this topic.

The Journey so Far

As Bill Gates said, “In the next ten years, business will change more than it did in the previous fifty.” Technology has brought massive change to almost every industry, and the pace of change is increasing.

Consider the last fifty years of LegalTech history:

50 years ago	All legal documents were paper, all phones had cords, the internet didn't exist, the majority of lawyers couldn't type and books were the only way to search case law.
45 years ago	A very small percentage of lawyers were able to search case law electronically, using the Lexis UBIQ terminal (introduced in 1973).
40 years ago	Law firms began using fax machines, and IBM was about to introduce the first “personal computer” (in 1981).
35 years ago	A few lawyers were just starting to create documents using personal computers, mostly on systems where file sharing required physically moving floppy disks from computer to computer.
30 years ago	Networked databases were enabling law firms to index complex litigation matters that previously would have been nearly impossible to handle manually.
26 years ago	The first law firm website was launched.
24 years ago	The Law Society of England and Wales denounced Richard Susskind's prediction that email would become the primary mode of communication between lawyers and clients.
20 years ago	LegalZoom was launched online (2001), and the first Blackberry device was launched.
15 years ago	The first version of the Electronic Discovery Reference Model was published. The beta version of Google Scholar was released a year later (2004), making hundreds of millions of cases, filings and research articles searchable and free.
13 years ago	The first iPhone was released, followed by the first iPad three years later. Lawyers began using smartphones and tablets for work.
10 years ago	Technology-assisted review (TAR) was first used. US Magistrate Judge Peck issued his first opinion endorsing TAR two years later.
7 years ago	Blockchain-based “smart contracts” began to appear.
6 ye...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Epigraph
• Copyright
• Title Page
• Preface
• About the Editors
• Acknowledgements
• 1 An Introduction to LegalTech: The Law Boosted by AI and Technology
• 2 Law and Data
• 3 Technology vs Law
• 4 Cryptocurrencies, Distributed Ledger Technology and the Law
• 5 Smart Contracts and Applications
• 6 Legal Technology: Increasing or Impeding Access to Justice?
• 7 LegalTech Around the World
• 8 The Future of LegalTech
• List of Contributors
• Index
• End User License Agreement