Exploring the current state of the legal services market: the rise of legal tech and the effects of digital transformation

Abstract

In recent years, the legal sector appears to be in the midst of a transformation that has not yet been widely studied and comprehended. This study describes the current legal services market, by looking into the three following elements: the factors currently shaping the market, the activity of the market participants and the available Legal Tech types and technologies. By looking through the information gathered, the findings firstly reveal the crucial impact of technology, liberalization and the “more-for-less” challenge in shaping the present and future services market and transforming legal work into a commodity that can be more easily compartmentalized and outsourced. Additionally, looking into the participants of the legal services market, it is revealed that the degree of adaptation to the pressure for less cost and the need for utilization of innovative technological solutions, is the essential element of competition among the market stakeholders. Lastly, this study has collected the Legal Tech types and technologies listed by experts in the relevant bibliography and subsequently described them at length, commenting on the points of concensus among the experts and the degree of disagreement. Document Automation, Practise Management, Legal Research, Predictive Analytics and Electronic Discovery were found to be the most prominent and promising types of Legal Tech. This review contributes to the lacking existing bibliography related to the current developments in the legal services market and their possible implications.