image

PracticeLeague Edify Law Students on the Importance of Legal Technology

by PracticeLeague

Technology has revolutionized the way businesses perform today and is rapidly changing the workplace. The usual traditionalist legal industry is also being swept this technological wave with the emergence of innovations and tech-enabled solutions disrupting – and enabling – the practice of law, demanding that law firms and in-house legal teams transform the way they operate to meet the growing business demands.

Even though technology in the legal industry has been around for a while, its impact on the delivery of legal services has only now seen a rapid increase. An industry that has been set on experience and precedent cannot be replaced by technology but can only be enhanced in providing efficient and cost-effective services.

Legal Technology
PracticeLeague in association with Bharati Vidyapeeth New Law College, conducted a workshop on Legal Technology, ‘The Legal Toolbox’ to help law students better understand how they can become tech-savvy lawyers.

While technology will play a significant role in the future of legal, the lawyers of tomorrow are still oblivious to the importance and impact of technological innovation in the industry. Having impeccable legal expertise isn’t going to be enough for the Next Gen Lawyers who will face the increasing pressure from clients and businesses to be more efficient, cost-effective, and productive in delivering legal services.

To address this impending gap between the current legal education and the challenges persistent in the legal workplace, we at PracticeLeague in association with New Law College, conducted a workshop on Legal Technology, ‘The Legal Toolbox’ to help law students better understand how they can become tech-savvy lawyers.

Legal Technology
Our legal tech expert Mr. Sarbajit Das demonstrating the PracticeLeague Integrated Enterprise Legal Management platform and its capabilities.

Before diving deep into the impact of technology in legal, we led the law students back to the history of legal in business and elaborated on the shifting role of legal from a reactive player to a strategic business partner. 

The rapid expansion that businesses and trades witnessed in the 1900s also saw the introduction of numerous laws and policies to regulate industries and mitigate risks impending on organizations. 

The growth in business also gave rise to the demand for Legal services and hence increasing the cost of Legal Services. With growing costs, More and More work grew in-house which effected the balance of efficiency & quality of Legal work. The rapid pace with which business grew, gave way to various business units including finance, IT, Procurement to thrive and transform their practices. The only function that was not ready to leap was legal, being way too comfortable in manual processes which severely impacted its efficiency and productivity. Apart from their aversion, legal’s growth was also stalled due to lesser access to technology, bulky disparate solutions, and little to no innovation in the processes and workflows.

Legal Technology
Our Guest Speaker Mr. Yogesh Hunnargikar, Associate Vice President - Legal & Compliance at Bajaj Allianz Life, throwing light on the current challenges in legal departments.

The financial crisis of 2008 saw businesses haphazardly managing their compliances, to avoid litigation and penalties, ultimately compelling them to adopt a proactive approach to managing risks and regulations to avoid any future crisis. This realization witnessed the sudden emergence of Legal on the center stage in business and evolving to become an enabler from a mere supporter.  

The Business changes are primarily riding on Digital and Legal is being asked to sit on board to make strategic decisions. These decisions are derived from data-driven insights and legal is still stuck on manual processes, making it virtually impossible to gather, analyze and present actionable insights from legal data that is scattered across platforms, functions, etc. 

While students were aware of technology in legal research, billing, document management, they were oblivious to the impact of technology in core legal functions such as contract, litigation, compliance and risk management, IP management. Our legal tech experts shared how technology is making these processes not only automated but also streamlined and integrated. The introduction of Enterprise Legal Management helped students better understand how legal departments are adopting technology to improve the efficiency of their workflows and become more cost-effective.  

The workshop elucidated students on the current scenario of legal departments where in-house counsels are being asked To Do More With Less and how technology can help them combat this challenge. The detailed session on the ELM platform allowed students to understand the concept of lawyer productivity, better collaboration with other business units, the importance of data-driven insights and analytics, and how to improve Legal Efficiency and Cost Effectiveness while delivering on Competitive Edge and Compliance through richer Business. 

The workshop was concluded on a significant note that the future of legal is not far away and for lawyers to thrive and survive in the growing regulatory environment, they need to be prepared; armed with data-driven insights and efficient processes, all enabled by legal tech. 

Legal Technology

After the overwhelming response to our successfully conducted workshop, PracticeLeague is now looking forward to introducing a full-fledged Legal Technology Course in Enterprise Legal Management and Law Practice Management for Law Students. This course is designed to abreast law students with the fundamentals of Technology as an enabler in Legal Processes and how Platform based tech solutions are bringing efficiency and productivity in legal.

If you are interested in learning more about the course, please subscribe to our newsletter and receive the latest updates.

Share Post :