21 Legal Tech and Business of Law Predictions for 2021
Management consultant, Peter Drucker, once said “The greatest danger in times of turbulence is not the turbulence – it is to act with yesterday’s logic.” 2020 will most certainly go down in history as a memorable year, marked by uncertainty and instability. As the world grappled with the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, technology and profitability took center stage in the industry. As a way to ensure business continuity, maintain profitability and enable remote productivity, firms were forced to make fast decisions to enable anytime, anywhere access to critical systems, and look to accelerating process improvements for better efficiency. Many of the trends that have been taking place in recent years were granted the fast pass, as virtual work and client collaboration became critical to continuing operations.
So, what will the next year have in store? As we look forward to 2021, we’ve reached out to legal tech leaders for our fourth annual edition to gather their predictions for the coming year (listed in no particular order):
#1: Disruption will continue, making way for new business models for law firms.
“Uncertainty always increases the pace at which law firms review partner performance and compensation, and we’ll see even more firms explore more precise profitability measures. Since the pandemic proved that much of a law firm’s infrastructure and business model is a choice rather than a law of nature, management teams will begin exploring alternative space and staffing models, and we’ll see an increase in collaborations with legal and back-office outsourcing providers. And more Bar Associations, finally realizing their impotence in protecting the guild from innovation, will talk more about market disruption, if not actually participate.”
– Tim Corcoran, Principal, Corcoran Consulting Group
#2: Non-lawyer owners will drive industry change.
“New York, California, Texas, or another very large state will approve non-lawyer ownership of law firms.”
– Bruce MacEwen, President, Adam Smith, Esq.
#3: Technology investments will drive competitiveness.
“The competitive landscape is changing, and lawyers will need to rethink the way they deliver legal services in order to create a sustainable, profitable practice in the coming years. In 2021, law firms will rethink their cost structures and reduce fixed costs. Law firms that invest in technology to increase efficiency, reduce costs and mitigate risk will be more successful.”
– Deane S. Price, CEO, Aderant
#4: Technology adoption will accelerate.
“In 2021, many of the industry predictions slated to arrive in 2025 or 2030 will come to fruition as the global pandemic dramatically accelerates the timeline for overall legal industry transformation. Creative service delivery and partnering models unlocking additional value will emerge, available legal talent will be leveraged without regard to geographic location, and legal processes will be fine-tuned with an eye toward the implementation of cutting-edge technology in the not-too-distant future. And, bonus prediction, legal professionals will experience Zoom/Teams fatigue and revert to the “old-fashioned” method of connecting audio only on 5G-enabled smartphones.”
– David Galbenski, EVP of Strategic Initiatives, Lumen Legal
#5: Common practices will be re-evaluated, barriers to entry removed.
“I predict that the state bar exams will begin to be discontinued. Coronatide has upended countless industries and common practices, bar exams are just one. In response, many courts also have adopted temporary rules allowing recent law school grads to become provisionally admitted to practice law. Bar exams are putatively intended as a consumer protection. They also serve the guild/protectionist mindset of the Bar as yet another barrier-to-entry for the profession. In practical terms, they provide little value and are an enormous financial and time burden on already-financially-strapped law grads. The pandemic will provide the catalyst to end this useless, wasteful onus.”
– Janet Stanton, Partner, Adam Smith, Esq.
#6: Firms will settle into the “new normal” of virtual work.
“2021 will be the year in which law firms will have to face ‘the new normal.’ WFH expectations, less office space requirements, the need to be agile in the face of unexpected change and calls for the acceleration of new technology adoption. And yet, despite all of the hype and just like every year, 95% of things will not change at all. After all, the Body and Practice of Law is still as it was; focus will still be on productivity and profitability and the things that facilitate those. “The more things change, the more they stay the same.”
– Andy Stokes, Director, Andy Stokes Consulting Ltd
#7: Firms will rewrite expectations, as the rules of hybrid work are defined.
“Large law firms will need to create/appoint “heads of hybrid (working)” or similar. Whether or not they’ve an individual officially in place by the end of 2021, there’ll be considerable pressure on somebody somewhere to handle the overall balance between increasing WFH-as-normal and necessary “collaborative” office time for strong teams and needed development. Individual needs/personal preference will of course be big factors, but they won’t be the only ones – and even the very best comms/collaboration tools for anytime-anywhere working won’t be able to achieve it alone.”
– Richard Brent, Editor-in-chief, Briefing, Burlington Media Group
#8: “Going to the office” will take on new meaning.
“Responding to lawyers and staff who no longer wish to either work from home or come to the office five days a week, mid-size and large law firms will begin setting up “satellite” offices in suburban locations accessible by car or transit, where people can work and collaborate without enduring the long commute downtown. Practice and industry groups will be among the first to adopt this opportunity, which will have implications for law firm culture and cohesion. Meanwhile, newly available “head office” space will be adapted for high-tech in-person and online client meetings and new lawyer training facilities.”
– Jordan Furlong, Principal, Law21
#9: Teams will embrace technology for better collaboration.
“The usage of Microsoft Teams within law firms will shift from being a fringe/curiosity technology to a mainstream platform for contextual collaboration for legal teams.”
– Emmanuel “Manny” Kyrinis, Vice President Product Management, Aderant
#10: Flexibility will drive function in the office of the future.
“Reimagined a) use of office space with far greater flexibility to suit multiple uses (flexible patterns so that hot desks can become meeting rooms at the press of a button, etc.), and b) staffing to breathe life into the concept of multidiscipline practices even before they are formally permitted in all jurisdictions (MBA’s, Software Engineers, Systems Analysts, etc.).”
– Gerry Riskin, Chairman, Edge International
#11: Once averse to it, the modern lawyer embraces technology.
“2020 has had an enormous impact on the uptake of legal software with lawyers, and I see this only accelerating as we move into 2021. The pandemic and working in a decentralized fashion have forced many firms to change their core processes and get the lawyers more involved. There were challenges earlier in the pandemic, but as time has marched on, you are seeing an increasing number of lawyers taking up paperless billing applications, recording time on a timely basis, and becoming more involved in collaboration spaces (both internally and externally). This will take off in 2021.”
– Chris Cartrett, Executive Vice President, Aderant
#12: The modern lawyer will be agile.
“Lawyers enacting safety precautions during the pandemic have increased their comfort with providing legal services to their clients using video conferencing tools such as Zoom or Google Meet. In turn, clients have been indicating that these virtual appointments are a convenience to them as well. Couple these positive experiences with the availability of contracting for need-as-you-go access to Class Office Space with virtual office providers such as Regus (www.regus.com), has ushered in a new era of client service-focused legal services that are convenient to clients and to the lawyers and staff who help them. Flexibility, responsiveness, and reduced overhead – what could be better?”
– Sheila Blackford, Practice Management Attorney, Risk Management Services, Oregon State Bar Professional Liability Fund
#13: The industry has quickly taken its technology adoption to the next level…but there is more to figure out.
“In 2020, we saw massive transformation to work-from-home for legal due to the pandemic. This phenomenon rendered technology absolutely essential for law firms. The pandemic produced a boom for legal technology companies, especially cloud-based providers. Once resistant to technology, lawyers have learned to use it and are more self-sufficient, with many keeping their own calendars and writing their own documents. The pandemic also completely altered the legal tech conference landscape, forcing traditional in-person conferences to go all-virtual with mixed results. Conference planners for 2021 will need to reinvent creatively to provide educational opportunities while making sponsorship a worthwhile investment.”
– Rob Ameerun, Owner, Legal IT Professionals / Legal IT Today / Lexpo
#14: Firms will continue to navigate tricky client relationships.
“2021 is going to be a solid financial year for most firms. This of course will allow firms to continue to kick the innovation can down the road. Meanwhile, clients will keep asking for discounts with very few creating real partnerships with their outside firms. I actually hope I am wrong, but…”
– Toby Brown, Chief Practice Management Officer, Perkins Coie
#15: Data will drive additional improvements in productivity and efficiency.
“The growth of eBilling amongst law firm clients continued at a steady pace in 2020 especially with all the disruptions and clients adapting to the new normal. This will remain a constant theme in 2021, requiring continual focus on improved productivity and increased efficiencies. Savvy law firms will rely on technology, and more importantly the experienced-based data delivered by their systems to analyze accuracy and compliance with billing rules and guidelines. Law firms will utilize this data to improve processes, adjust behavior and guide business decisions to focus on the most successful results – minimizing payment reductions and improving overall cashflow.”
– Marie Burgess, Senior Director Product Management, Aderant
#16: Legal services will double down on resourcefulness.
“The COVID-19 pandemic forced legal service providers to take stock of what technologies they had at have and urgently implement them. In 2021, the legal services sector needs to build on this and maintain that momentum. The time has come when looking into the future is only a distraction from implementing highly innovative technologies that exist today. We cannot keep looking for the next big thing while ignoring what we already have.”
– Hugh Logue, Lead Analyst for Legal Information & Technology, Outsell Inc.
#17: Today’s need for adaptability will drive more acceptance of change.
“Firms will refocus on their strategy and those strategies will be bolder than in the past. Thanks to a year in which being adaptable was critical, many firms, and lawyers, are now more open to change. Smart growth will feature strongly in many of those strategies. We expect an increase in firm mergers (and lateral moves) as paused discussions resume and new discussions begin, and some of those mergers will be among 400+ lawyer firms.”
– Lisa Smith, Principal, Fairfax Associates
#18: Doing the right thing will become a systematic part of the culture.
“DEI will take an unprecedented spot in the decisions and investments of law firms, ideally with the result of moving the needle at long last. This year’s social justice movement has prompted many clients to (finally) take the hardline on holding firms accountable for improving diversity in their ranks. Leading DEI efforts will extend beyond the disjointed approach of isolated training sessions and minding the pipeline to holistic endeavors to reshape the very fabric of the firm, its culture and leaders, in an effort to improve inclusion. Unfortunately, many firms will stumble, struggling to find the right resources in the newly competitive space for talent and force-fitting less-than-qualified candidates into these high-profile roles.”
– Marcie Borgal Shunk, President and Founder, The Tilt Institute Inc.
#19: Wellbeing will become a priority.
“We will see mental well-being defined not only as an altruistic value, but an economic value in the business of law as well. COVID-19 has shown us that both our physical and emotional wellness can be fragile. However, law firm leaders are beginning to understand that to cultivate resilience and emotional well-being in their people will also cultivate high performance, economic strength, and sustainability in their business.”
– Renee Branson, Principal, RB Consulting
#20: The nimble firm will prevail.
“If virus concerns subside in 2021, as we all hope, we’ll see two types of law firms emerge on the other side of this pandemic: those that struggle to return to what was once normal and the tech-savvy firm that embraces the change as permanent. The latter will shed the overhead of excessive office space and open up access to a talent market free of geographic constraints. This will leave them well-positioned to employ the sharpest legal minds at the most competitive prices.”
– Frank Strong, Founder and President, Sword and the Script Media, LLC
#21: The constraints that are present right now will give birth to future innovations.
“Computer science pioneer, Alan Kay, said, ‘The best way to predict the future is to invent it.’ Watch for the current trickle of innovation and productization efforts to turn into a stream by the end of 2021, led by access to justice projects and client demands. The tension between those wanting to get “back to normal” and clients, innovators and new legal competitors wanting to build something new will spark creative processes that will change the face of law dramatically over the next five years. Technology will definitely be one piece but increasing client value and revamping business models will be the keys.”
– Dennis Kennedy, Interim Director, Michigan State University Center for Law, Technology & Innovation
Certainly, most of us want to forget 2020, because of the challenges it has posed affected pretty much everyone globally. The themes presented in these predictions show how new business constraints can actually have a positive impact on the legal industry. These difficulties have accelerated firms’ approach to innovation, shown there can be rapid change in how the business is managed, and that data and technology can work together to do more than create a report but also be a driver of decisions and catalyst for effectiveness.
We sincerely appreciate the insights that our group of industry leaders shared in this post. To take a deep dive into some of the common themes mentioned in the responses above, check out our solutions for:
Practice Management / Time & Billing
Time Entry / Client Guideline Compliance
eBilling / Billing Compliance
Knowledge Management / Collaboration
Calendaring / Docketing
Case Management / Document & Assembly
Business Intelligence / Pricing & Forecasting
