Guide to Legal Technology Software

How is technology used in law?

Law firms and in-house legal teams already recognize legal technology as a cost-effective way to manage workloads amid rising budgetary limitations. In our latest Legal Ops and Tech Survey, respondents identified the benefits they’re already gaining from implementing legal technology.

Types of legal technology

There are many types of legal technology available on the market today, all aimed at helping legal professionals work more efficiently and strategically. These tools include legal research platforms, client management and billing software, cloud storage and document management, contract management, and project management.

Productivity tools for lawyers can help with tracking legal workflows, legal drafting, and analyzing legal briefs. They can also drive automation and reduce errors – ultimately boosting overall productivity across legal teams.

According to our latest Legal Ops and Tech Survey, while law firms and in-house legal departments tend to use legal tech differently, a large majority of both are already adopting legal technology to support various aspects of their work. Below, we discuss the most common types of legal technology software that legal teams are investing in.

Legal research platforms

One of the most common ways that legal professionals are leveraging legal tech tools is to make comprehensive legal research more efficient. Legal research has traditionally been one of the most manual, time-consuming, and detail-oriented parts of a lawyer’s responsibilities because the research needs to be exhaustive enough for them to be confident that they’ve found everything that could potentially affect their case and client – both positive and negative.

Docket search

Searching multiple sources for court dockets costs valuable time. Comprehensive docket databases help legal professionals find the competitive intelligence they need quickly, all within a single platform. And when combined with artificial intelligence (AI)-driven search functionality, lawyers can find the precise filings they need in less time and stay ahead of their caseload.

Litigation analytics

Modern legal technology and powerful AI tools can help lawyers leverage data to unlock more actionable competitive insights. When integrated with a dockets database, this technology can provide data-driven analysis of courts, judges, companies, attorneys, and law firms to help legal professionals avoid missing deeper insights that could elevate their research and inform case strategies.

Legal writing and document review tools

The latest AI-powered legal technology incorporates machine learning and natural language processing algorithms to read various legal documents – including dockets, court opinions, contracts, and other primary and secondary sources – and extract semantic meaning from them. Such tools can expand the boundaries of legal research or eliminate time spent on tedious drafting and analysis tasks. This allows lawyers to be more strategic and efficient, and ultimately offer more value to their clients.

Legal professionals are increasingly turning to generative AI technology to draft and review legal documents such as:

• Legal memos
• Correspondence with opposing counsel or a judge
• Research memos
• Contracts
• Case briefs

Litigators can use legal AI tools to review and analyze their first drafts of legal briefs – and even to analyze opposing counsel’s case briefs. Bloomberg Law’s Brief Analyzer use machine learning to quickly analyze briefs and discover additional relevant legal content. This can help users spot holes, review citations for accuracy, and find or check authority.

Contract management software

Legal software can be especially helpful for solving contract workflow challenges by automating the most tedious contract management tasks to more efficiently store, manage, draft, negotiate, and analyze contracts. Bloomberg Law’s Contract Solutions was purpose-built specifically to help in-house attorneys more easily manage the entire contract lifecycle. Seamless integration with Microsoft Word provides easy access to stored contracts and clauses as well as a suite of powerful drafting and negotiating tools.

Contract drafting

While legal tech tools can’t yet produce a trustworthy, ready-to-use contract from scratch, they can help automate smaller, more discrete tasks such as drafting individual clauses or analyzing the favorability of a clause for a client.

For example, Bloomberg Law’s Draft Analyzer uses a proprietary algorithm to quickly benchmark and redline draft agreements against market standard language filed in EDGAR documents. Additionally, Clause Adviser – a feature of Draft Analyzer – uses AI technology to evaluate clause favorability to a particular party and offers a plain-language rationale for each rating. A user-friendly slider tool then helps legal professionals rewrite or modify contract language as desired.

Secure document platforms

As legal professionals begin to adopt more online software and cloud storage technologies, there will also be an increased focus on cybersecurity and the need to protect against data breaches. Contract Solution’s secure, centralized repository helps you safeguard your data with advanced security measures, including multiple encryption layers and multi-factor authentication, while also allowing you to organize and track contracts, templates, clauses, key terms, and obligations in one place. Plus, with your documents all in one place, it’s easier to quickly pinpoint exact language with advanced search and filtering options.

Project management and team collaboration tools

Relying on general communication tools such as email as a project management tool can create operational inefficiencies and have a widespread impact. Trying to manage legal tasks in email inboxes can create information silos and compromise a team’s visibility into important project details. This can lead to fragmented, disjointed workflows as legal professionals get bogged down in managing day-to-day tasks that can be easily duplicated, delayed, or overlooked.

Legal project management and real-time collaboration software offer the same benefits of more general project management tools, but with the additional advantage of being specifically designed to integrate into the attorney workflow and facilitate legal work. Bloomberg Law’s legal project management software Dashboard Legal can optimize operations, simplify document and task management, and enhance collaboration with features including:

• Deliverables checklists
• Template libraries
• Internal chat
• Software integrations
• Project roll-ups

How is technology changing the legal field?

Legal software, including technology powered by AI, has the potential to transform the legal industry. And while legal technology is changing the way legal professionals complete tasks – and may require professionals to adjust their overall approach to work – there’s clear evidence supporting the benefits of legal tech tools.

In general, legal professionals don’t consider generative AI tools to be disruptive to their workflows. In fact, it’s expected to be an enhancer. In our latest Legal Ops and Tech Survey, in-house respondents predicted that AI will increase workflow automation and help them complete higher-level tasks more efficiently. Respondents at law firms anticipate that AI will increase the amount of work received from in-house clients and attorney time spent on billable work.

Two-thirds of legal leaders report plans to accelerate their investments in legal technology, leading to predictions that the global legal technology market will double in size by 2027. As more professionals adopt legal software, here are a few examples of how advances in legal technology are already impacting the legal field today.

Automating research and writing tasks

First-year legal associates at law firms commonly conduct legal research and produce legal briefs for supervising attorneys. Historically, these tasks have been time-consuming. But now, legal research tools use machine learning to sift through massive volumes of documents to find the right information in a fraction of the time it would take a human. Savvy legal teams are automating and expediting work that’s traditionally been completed by these newer associates, which frees up staff time to focus on more strategic endeavors.

Emphasizing human-centered “soft skills” for new lawyers

The adoption of AI will also mean a big shift in studying the practice of law. A recent Bloomberg Law survey found that more than half of practicing attorneys said they expect new associates to have at least some familiarity with AI. Another 15% went even further, saying that incoming attorneys should understand the use of AI technology and use it in occasional tasks and workflows.

It will become increasingly important for new lawyers to not only understand how to use this technology most effectively, but also to learn “how to be a lawyer” by perfecting certain practical legal skills that require a human touch, such as client communications and interactions as well as decision-making and analysis.

Incorporating AI into law school curriculum

At law schools, some professors are proactively incorporating technology into the classroom by allowing students to use AI for research and writing activities. Some even require law students to experiment with generative AI tools such as ChatGPT. Students are typically held responsible for any incorrect information they submit from an AI output, which can teach crucial lessons about managing and fact-checking this evolving technology.

However, a Bloomberg Law survey found that only a small number of law students (6%) and professors (12%) said that AI learning is integrated into doctrinal coursework. And just 5% of students and 8% of professors said that it has been built into required courses or workshops. What’s more likely is for AI and legal technology to be included in elective courses.

Streamlining access to sources and guidance

Legal tech tools also serve an important role in knowledge gathering and skill building by enabling legal teams to more easily stay on top of industry trends and news that may impact their clients. Rather than spending time seeking information across multiple accounts and platforms, legal software such as Bloomberg Law streamlines access to helpful guidance and sources all in one place. Both early-career and senior legal professionals can benefit from this kind of all-in-one resource.

Bloomberg Law’s In Focus resources combine news and analysis, dockets, primary and secondary sources, and Practical Guidance to help legal professionals stay ahead of issues changing the legal landscape and assess risks of concern to their organization or clients.

In addition, Bloomberg Law News offers in-depth, customizable coverage of the legal and business landscape across more than 40 topic areas, as well as access to 75,000 global news sources from the Bloomberg Terminal.

How to find the best technology for lawyers

Legal tech tools shouldn’t replace human expertise. Instead, legal teams should leverage software to enhance the knowledge and skills they already have. This means that, in general, the best technology for lawyers is one that:

• Is easy to use
• Enhances efficiency and productivity
• Fits into your existing workflows

In today’s digital age, tech competence is vital for lawyers to effectively represent their clients and comply with legal ethics rules. For example, the American Bar Association’s Comment 8 to Model Rule 1.1 states that “[A] lawyer should keep abreast of changes in the law and its practice, including the benefits and risks associated with relevant technology.”

In this case, staying informed means regularly assessing the benefits and risks of using such tools, taking reasonable measures to protect client confidentiality when using legal tech tools, and making informed decisions about any new technology you procure and adopt.

The right legal software depends on your objectives

When considering legal tech tools, you should first understand the specific goals you want to achieve by documenting the workflow challenges that your law firm or legal department would like to overcome.

In some situations, for example, a legal team may want to use legal technology to address a specific operational issue, such as transitioning from a paper-based timekeeping system to a software tool or implementing a practice management system to unify and integrate multiple disparate systems. In other cases, legal technology might be used to address more performance-based objectives, such as increasing productivity or improving work product.

Spending time up front to identify your objectives can help guide your procurement process and reveal what to focus on when evaluating legal technologies. Develop a comprehensive set of technology requirements by seeking input from internal stakeholders, including organizational leadership, legal staff, and employees who will regularly engage with or help to implement the new software.

Onboarding and customer support considerations

Training shouldn’t end when staff have been successfully onboarded to a new technology. Understand whether the product offers a clear path for ongoing customer feedback and support.

At Bloomberg Law, our knowledgeable customer support team can quickly onboard legal teams, with dedicated sessions to help new users customize their profile preferences to fit their unique workflows and research approach. Once a team is up and running on the platform, they’ll have 24/7 access to J.D.-staffed customer service and support.

Budget constraints are a top implementation barrier

Legal professionals cite their budget as the top barrier to implementing new technology – above security concerns. And because budget can be a constraining factor for many organizations, legal teams shouldn’t waste time or resources looking into products they can’t afford. Once a budget is set, use it to help exclude, or negotiate with, certain vendors who don’t fall within the budget.

Addressing security concerns

The best legal platforms for lawyers will address any security or privacy requirements for sensitive information or confidential data that may be stored or accessible in the software, including:

• Confidential business records
• Personally identifiable information (PII)
• Financial information

Confirm whether vendors you’re considering use appropriate levels of security and encryption that can protect this sensitive information, including any safeguards required by industry standards or government regulation.