People and process: digital transformation in the legal sector

Digital transformation has become a major buzzword in the past couple of years. Every industry is wrestling with the challenges and opportunities afforded by automation, artificial intelligence and the cloud—and the legal sector is no different.

Like many long-established and process-driven sectors that come under the “if it ain’t broke…” category, the industry has been slow to build momentum for such change, but the clock is really ticking now.

It’s critical for law firms to boost competitiveness by cutting costs, increasing efficiency and improving productivity, while at the same time delivering best value to clients, who increasingly want more for less. According to PwC’s 2018 Annual Law Firms Survey 80% of law firms understand that digital transformation is necessary, but only 23% are in the process.

In my opinion this points to reticence and uncertainty over deciding on the “right” path to take—a lack of guiding principles around which projects to pursue. I’d like to make the case that transformation must always deliver opportunities to enhance the client relationship, and that value can be created through the active management of digital technology.

Lifting the admin burden

As a legal software company that’s been serving the sector since 1998, at WebTMS we’re naturally strong advocates of the benefits of automation and the flexibility of web and cloud-based software.