Covid-19: Catalyst for Digital Explosion
The scale of this crisis has dramatically reshaped our societies and in fact the entire global economy forever, for better and for worse.
It’s imperative that we should push through focusing on ensuring that the better outweighs the worse, for moments of crisis can also present opportunities: to reform, to innovate, to rebuild.
The crisis has vastly stimulated the pace of change in the way we now work. We now have the sudden need to work remotely with no real alternative. This has radically altered the majority of our working processes.
For instance, the surge of cloud-computing business and the adoption of platforms that increase productivity and efficiencies. Such shifts will likely to be permanent for many businesses, rather than a momentary makeshift measure.
In a way unlike like we’ve ever known before, tech, data science and AI are merging to fuel more streamlined services that deliver the efficiency and reliability that clients have been demanding for some time. We will undoubtedly witness other new prognostic tools that use data to forecast what clients require and when they will need it, many of these services are becoming the norm in a vast majority of industries.
Other industries have been transforming for the better through tech, and the legal sector has been lagging behind. The time has come for the legal industry to step up and finally embrace the change. Under the current climate, firms must do this as a matter of great urgency if they are to survive.
We firmly believe that Legal Tech and Law Tech are the next big thing. Other industries are delivering services that are high on quality and low on cost. The traditional law firm is slow, expensive and overcomplicates matters.
New parameters have been set. The perception has shifted and clients will start to assess firms in terms of ease of access. For instance, how easy it is to contact a solicitor, how efficient are they in responding, and how much time is spent to resolve issues.
Law Firms will have to adapt very quickly if they are to survive. They must streamline their processes and join forces with other service providers, collaborating to deliver a far superior services and legal solutions. Law firms have a real opportunity now to deliver the level of service that clients across the spectrum now demand.
Firms must come to the realisation that the world had changed and client demand has shifted. The ‘traditional law firm’ will no longer be deemed fit for purpose.
For law tech and legal tech ventures, the opportunity is rising from the aftermath of Covid-19 on the right trajectory. For investors these simple scalable models will capture more of the market share. For now one can hope that law firms will rise to the challenge and seize this opportunity.
