In-house legal tech usage worldwide
The paralysing shock brought by the global pandemic may now feel like a distant memory, but there is little doubt that a new era has begun. In this ‘new normal’, as the media labels it, the consequent need to treat digitalisation as an essential ally to carry out daily tasks has forced businesses to approach technology from a whole new angle. Even at the peak of the Covid-19 crisis, The Legal 500 never ceased its interaction with legal professionals worldwide. As the world reopens and in-person global events are now an actuality, we have had more opportunities to speak with our vast global in-house and private practice communities and it appears that the legal industry is at the forefront of this technology debate. The developments arising out of the pandemic have prompted legal teams across the globe to recognise the need to become more responsive, agile, adaptive, and resilient, while the introduction of legal tech is gaining momentum and challenges traditional ways of providing legal services.
The Legal 500 has partnered once again with the independent law firm network World Services Group (WSG) to produce a comprehensive survey that aims to investigate the usage and impact of legal tech on in-house departments worldwide. The ‘In-house Technology – Global Edition’ concludes our In-house series, which covers the subject in Europe, Latin America, Asia Pacific, and North America. It includes extensive coverage of the Middle East and Africa, the two regions in which legal technology has made substantive progress in the past couple of years. The series also provides an update on recent evolutions in the rest of the world, the challenges general counsel face, and how they expect technology to assist them in overcoming difficulties. Additionally, and for the first time in a special report, we have spoken with over 200 general counsel around the globe and provided bespoke statistics to depict a more global perspective of this phenomenon.
The role of general counsel is changing rapidly, and the remits covered by legal teams are ever-growing, to a point where they need to continually and speedily digest a substantial influx of information. In this context and with the aim to provide a platform for the legal profession to exchange ideas with peers, learn from each other and find solutions together, The Legal 500 looks forward to engaging with in-house practitioners to follow up on the topic of legal technology and how they implement it within a team in the future.
Allan Cohen
Research Editor | Special Projects
GC Magazine
Nathan Oseroff-Spicer
Research Editor | Special Projects
GC Magazine