2 – LegalTech, LawTech and legal innovation: the future of legal services
In this chapter, we discuss the role that technology plays in shaping the future of legal services, reviewing some of the most significant initiatives that have supported the exponential growth of legal technology in the United Kingdom in recent years. We briefly analyse the two most common terms used in the sector to describe the use of technology in law - LawTech and LegalTech -, before setting out a definition of legal innovation for the purposes of this report. 2.1 Recognising the role of technology in law The role of technology as a critical factor in the transformation of the legal services sector has long been recognised in academic research 73 . Professor Richard Susskind, a pioneering researcher in LegalTech, has suggested that technology is a disruptive force that confronts the sector with the need to embrace innovation: Rather than automate, many systems innovate, which, in my terms, means they allow us to perform tasks that previously were not possible (or even imaginable). There is a profound message here for lawyers – when thinking about technology and the internet, the challenge is not just to automate current working practices that are not efficient. The challenge is to innovate, to practise law in wats that we could not have done in the past. At the same time, though, many of these innovative technologies are disruptive. […] These pervasive, exponentially growing, innovative technologies will come to disrupt and radically transform the way lawyers and courts operate. 74 Beyond academia, the UK Government, Welsh Government, sector regulators (Solicitors Regulation Authority, Bar Standards Board, Legal Services Board), and other key stakeholders (including the Law Society and the Bar Council) have come to similar conclusions on the role of technology in law, seeking to support the sector in embracing the opportunities for technological growth. To offer only a few examples, the UK Government funds LawTech UK 75 , a hub that supports legal start- ups and law firms in their engagement with technology and innovation, delivered in collaboration with Tech Nation (until 2023) and Codebase and Legal Geek (currently). Among various other initiatives, LawTech UK provides networking opportunities, education and training, support for start-ups through sandboxes and mentoring, and convenes the Regulatory Response Unit to coordinate the work of 73 See, for example, William T. Braithwaite, “How is technology affecting the practice and profession of law?”, (1991) 22 Texas Tech Law Review 1113; D.S. Wall and J. Johnstone, “The Industrialization of Legal Practice and the Rise of the New Electric Lawyer: The Impact of Information Technology upon Legal Practice in the U.K.”, (1997) 25 International Journal of the Sociology of Law 95; R. Susskind, The future of law: facing the challenges of information technology (Clarendon Press 1998). By the end of the 1990s, the transformative role of technology for the legal profession had already been identified and recognised. 74 R. Susskind, Tomorrow’s Lawyers: An Introduction to Your Future (2 nd edition, Oxford University Press 2017) 14-15. 75 See https://lawtechuk.io/.
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