The 2020 Wolters Kluwer Future Ready Survey, which gathered data from law firms and inhouse legal teams, has found that legal tech’s growing importance is the top trend across the industry, with 76% of the demographic saying this was the leading issue impacting the sector.
Here’s a few of the other key findings in the report (please see additional graphics below).
- 81% of legal teams already do, or plan to in the next 3 years, ask their firms about using tech to be more productive and efficient.
- Not sure about the ones that are waiting years to do this……. Although it’s heading in the right direction.
- Most clients look like they could easily drop their law firms, with only about one quarter saying they are ‘very satisfied’.
- 17% are either neutral or not satisfied.
- That suggests there is a big opportunity to win new clients by meeting the developing needs around tech and efficiency – see table ‘Top 5 Reasons’ below.
- The fourth of the Top Five reasons to change firms is because they didn’t help with explaining how they are driving efficiency. And….if you are really going to drive efficiency then tech around process and workflow improvement is likely to be a big part of that.
Overall, positive news. But, clearly there needs to be a little more of a sense of urgency to really move the dial.
Ken Crutchfield, Vice President & General Manager of Legal Markets at Wolters Kluwer Legal & Regulatory US, told Artificial Lawyer that there is a real change taking place across the market and that: ‘Inhouse legal teams are starting to be seen as just another part of the business.’
You can get hold of the full report: here.
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The breakdown of business types in the survey: 357 Law Firms; 276 Corporate Legal Depts; 67 Business Services firms.
Even though it’s listed as the fourth most important item (behind trust, capability, and, the ever more important price factor), the clients’ answers on surveys of this nature hardly compare to their actions. I have yet to hear of a single firm being fired for not demonstrating inefficiency (excluding those who, because of that inefficiency, couldn’t deliver on price). To quote Jerry Maguire, “show me the money.”