The COVID-19 pandemic put a spotlight on the need for South African law practitioners to embrace new technologies – not only to maintain operations, but to meet the growing needs of a changing world and its associated legal challenges.
This is according to industry players, who say the pandemic pushed legal practitioners to think differently, as it became clear that adopting legal tech can provide a competitive advantage for law firms.
Legal tech refers to the use of technology and software to provide legal services and support to the legal industry and also includes blockchain and artificial intelligence.
In recent interviews with ITWeb, professionals in law and tech sector say while local practitioners are steadily embracing legal tech, more still needs to be done to drive uptake in the South African legal sector.
“The challenge now is for law firms to take the next step, which is to use technology to stay ahead of the curve and grow value,” says Uvitha Kundalram, head of legal tech at IN2IT technologies.
Kundalram and her team assist law firms and legal departments with legal technology, as well as robotic process automation tools to approach the digital future.
High productivity
Kundalram tells ITWeb: “Firms are embracing technology and artificial intelligence to heighten efficiency, including improving the client service experience using chatbots, legal process management, and systematic workflows from online intake forms to payment portals.
“Those lawyers who don’t adapt and who don’t learn how to use technology to drive efficiencies in their practices and for their clients will be replaced by those that do.”
She believes legal tech has great potential to improve the delivery of legal services in SA but the uptake has been slow.
“There are positive developments taking place in terms of legal tech and innovation. e-Discovery is one such development locally, as the use and acceptance thereof are on the rise. These developments are also contributing to improved access to justice.”
e-Discovery entails electronically obtaining evidence or data from various digital sources and platforms such as e-mail, electronic messages, instant messages and social media.
Kundalram explains further: “If anything the COVID-19 19 pandemic has shown us is that if such technology is not embraced at the soonest, we will face great loss. We can already see that legal tech and innovation have been included to cater for the delivery of legal services.
“For example, Legal Serve, an electronic court filing platform that is designed to make the service of legal documents more efficient and affordable. There is also the Creative Contracts, an entity that reduces contractual agreements to comic strips which outline the duties and responsibilities of the parties involved.”
Commanding position
According to Kundalram, practitioners who have or are adopting legal tech have edge over their competition.
She says: “Lawyers who embrace legal tech have realised the necessity and benefits of doing things differently, giving them an opportunity to provide services to the ordinary citizen in a more effective way. Legal tech and innovation has arrived in South Africa and there is no turning back. The opportunities are vast and the benefits to the ordinary citizen are clear.
“The new technology tools have driven change in the industry in customer-facing processes like contract management, legal research, and discovery, as well as back-end processes like practice management and billing. There is no denying that a law firm that possesses such technology has the ability to provide a better customer experience in a cost-effective way, giving them an edge over their competition.”
In concurrence, Professor Herbert Kawadza, lecturer in banking and finance law at the University of Witwatersrand, says: “The outbreak of the COVID-19 inadvertently enlightened the legal sector on the urgency of adopting technology. Tech has not only become very critical in expediting justice, it is now a necessary investment for both public and private legal practitioners.
“Tech adoption has been long overdue, many people have suffered injustices because of the old way legal matters had been handled. For instance, the filing system in courts has been of concern for years, and thanks to COVID-19, it hastened the adoption of digital solutions in handling cases leading to efficiency in case allocations.”
He continues: “The private sector is well ahead on legal tech as many big law firms have made significant investments. I still think more innovations are needed in legal tech so that the smaller practices with minimal budgets are not left behind.
“South African firms need to expedite their digital transformation agenda in line with international standard. We are getting there but we are still miles apart and we have to do more.”
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