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17 April 2019 / Rosanna Woods
Issue: 7837 / Categories: Features , Profession , Technology , Legal services
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Virtually legal: making technology work for you

Adopting a ‘digital first strategy’ will help firms stay competitive, says Rosanna Woods

  • Legal tech and operations.
  • Inevitable challenges & driving innovation.

Momentum is building among law firms to adopt new technology based on machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI). Last year saw a dramatic rise in the development of such technologies and 2019 is set to be the year law firms either prioritise digital strategies, or get left behind.

The benefits of digitising assets and optimising legal processes are clear to those law firms that have already begun to embrace digital transformation. These benefits include reduced paper consumption and greater efficiency generally around processes such as creating and reviewing contracts, mining documents, raising red flags and performing due diligence. In particular, the latter of these processes is profoundly improved by the application of AI within virtual data rooms (VDRs), whereby authorised personnel are given controlled, online access to confidential data and documents that are stored remotely. This enables a variety of business processes to be conducted

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MOVERS & SHAKERS

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Robert Tiffen joins Ellisons as Partner in growing Norwich office

NEWS
The Law Society RFC Festival of Sport returns next month, bringing together legal and financial services professionals for one of the sector’s largest annual sporting events
Legal aid deserts leave almost one in four without adequate access to justice
The Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) has warned solicitors and law firms that using artificial intelligence does not alter their professional obligations, amid concerns over inaccurate legal material and client confidentiality
From forgotten interest claims to case-management appeals, a string of procedural developments offers useful—and occasionally cautionary—lessons for practitioners

Jonathan Fisher KC highlights that it now accounts for around 40% of criminal offences, with roughly 70% involving technology, and argues that the UK cannot simply prosecute its way out of the problem. Detection, investigation and prosecution all require improvement, while different fraud types demand tailored responses.

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